rding it. At last it was seen off
the Island of Martinique and then it was lost again. It was next heard
from at Curacoa, an island in the Caribbean Sea, off the north coast
of Venezuela, but before the American ships could reach it, the
Spanish admiral had coaled and provisioned his ships at Willemstad,
the chief city on the island, and was off again to sea.

[Illustration: U.S. Battleship "Oregon."]

There was some reason to think that the Spanish fleet might catch our
great battleship Oregon, coming as fast as it could to the Eastern
Coast. I must take time to tell you about the Oregon. Shortly before
the war began, the Oregon was in the Pacific Ocean; but when she
received a message to come to an Atlantic port, to be ready for war
with Spain, she took coal at San Francisco and started--March 19th--on
her long voyage. She went south through the Pacific Ocean, east
through the Strait of Magellan, and then turned northward into the
Atlantic Ocean. Then the closest watch was kept for the enemy; the
guns were always ready, the lights were covered every night. Though
Captain Clark did not know that war had really begun before that time,
still he knew that there was danger. On May 24th the Oregon arrived at
a port in Florida, having come 14,000 miles, through all kinds of
weather, in two months' time, without breaking anything about the
ship. So the Spaniards did not catch the Oregon, but later in the year
she helped to catch them.

[Illustration: Captain Charles E. Clark.]

When the Oregon arrived at. Jupiter Inlet, Florida, she was as able
to fight or to run as on the day she was put into commission. When she
left San Francisco she had nine hundred tons of coal on board. During
the voyage she consumed almost four thousand tons. Callao was the
first port where the Oregon stopped. From there she ran down the
Pacific coast, and after passing through the straits sailed up the
eastern coast of South America to Rio Janeiro, where she was notified
by the American consul that the United States and Spain were really at
war. There were now two other American warships at Rio. The gunboat
Marietta had joined the Oregon near the straits, and the Buffalo,
which the United States had bought from Brazil, was waiting for them
at Rio. I will let Captain Clark tell you the story of the remainder
of the voyage, in his own way:

"Several long cablegrams were exchanged between the Government and
myself. Nothing whatever in the way of in