f
"turtling" forms an occupation additional to that of wrecking. As
might be expected in such circumstances, a potato is a far more
precious thing than a turtle's egg, and a sack of the tubers would
probably be deemed a sufficient remuneration for enough of the
materials of callipash and callipee to feed all the aldermen extant.

Of late years, the government of the United States has turned its
attention to the capabilities of the Florida Reef, as an advanced
naval station; a sort of Downs, or St. Helen's Roads, for the West
Indian seas. As yet little has been done beyond making the preliminary
surveys, but the day is not probably very distant when fleets will
lie at anchor among the islets described in our earlier chapters, or
garnish the fine waters of Key West. For a long time it was thought
that even frigates would have a difficulty in entering and quitting
the port of the latter, but it is said that recent explorations have
discovered channels capable of admitting any thing that floats. Still
Key West is a town yet in its chrysalis state, possessing the promise
rather than the fruition of the prosperous days which are in reserve.
It may be well to add, that it lies a very little north of the 24th
degree of latitude, and in a longitude quite five degrees west from
Washington. Until the recent conquests in Mexico it was the most
southern possession of the American government, on the eastern side of
the continent; Cape St. Lucas, at the extremity of Lower California,
however, being two degrees farther south.

It will give the foreign reader a more accurate notion of the
character of Key West, if we mention a fact of quite recent
occurrence. A very few weeks after the closing scenes of this tale,
the town in question was, in a great measure, washed away! A hurricane
brought in the sea upon all these islands and reefs, water running in
swift currents over places that within the memory of man were never
before submerged. The lower part of Key West was converted into a
raging sea, and every thing in that quarter of the place disappeared.
The foundation being of rock, however, when the ocean retired the
island came into view again, and industry and enterprise set to work
to repair the injuries.

The government has established a small hospital for seamen at Key
West. Into one of the rooms of the building thus appropriated our
narrative must now conduct the reader. It contained but a single
patient, and that was Spike. H