e newspaper man was ignorant of his own destination, was
compelled to follow the fleet blindly, and did not know whether his
limited supply of coal would last to the end of the cruise or not. When
Mr. Chamberlain sailed from Key West at night with the fleet of Admiral
Sampson, he believed that the latter was bound for Santiago, on the
southeastern coast of Cuba. The _Hercules_ could not possibly carry coal
enough for a voyage there and back; in fact, she would reach that port
with only one day's supply of fuel in her bunkers. What should be done
then? The nearest available source of coal-supply would be Kingston,
Jamaica, and whether he could get there from Santiago before his fuel
should be wholly exhausted Mr. Chamberlain did not know. However, he was
ready, like Ladislaw in "Middlemarch," to "place himself in an attitude
of receptivity toward all sublime chances," and away he went. Nothing
can be more exasperating to a war correspondent than to have a fight
take place while he is absent from the scene of action looking for coal;
but many newspaper men in Cuban waters had that unpleasant and
humiliating experience.

The life of the war correspondent who landed, or attempted to land, on
the island of Cuba, in the early weeks of the war, was not so wearing
and harassing, perhaps, as the life of the men on the despatch-boats,
but it was quite as full of risk. After the 1st of May the patrol of the
Cuban coast by the Spanish troops between Havana and Cardenas became so
careful and thorough that a safe landing could hardly be made there even
at night. Jones and Thrall were both captured before they could open
communications with the insurgents; and the English correspondents,
Whigham and Robinson, who followed their example, met the same fate.
Even Mr. Knight, the war correspondent of the London "Times," who landed
from a small boat in the harbor of Havana with the express permission of
the government at Madrid and under a guaranty of protection, was seized
and thrown into Cabanas fortress.

If a war correspondent succeeded in making a safe landing and in joining
the insurgents, he had still to suffer many hardships and run many
risks. Mr. Archibald, the correspondent of a San Francisco paper, was
wounded on the Cuban coast early in May, in a fight resulting from an
attempt to land arms and ammunition for the insurgents; and a
correspondent of the Chicago "Record" was killed after he had actually
succeeded in reaching Gen