f Texas_ in tow of the steam-launch of
the troop-ship _Panther_. Before dark that night, Mr. Cobb and Dr. Egan,
of Miss Barton's staff, who were in charge of the relief-boats, had
visited every captured Spanish vessel in the harbor. Two or three of
them, including the great liners _Miguel Jover_ and _Argonauta_, had
provisions enough, and were not in need of relief, but most of the
others--particularly the fishing-smacks--were in even worse straits than
the marshal supposed. The large transatlantic steamer _Pedro_, of
Bilbao, had no flour, bread, coffee, tea, sugar, beans, rice,
vegetables, or lard for cooking, and her crew had lived for fifteen days
exclusively upon fish. The schooner _Severito_ had wholly exhausted her
supplies, and had on board nothing to eat of any kind. Of the others,
some had no matches or oil for lights, some were nearly out of water,
and all were reduced to an unrelieved fish diet, of which the men were
beginning to sicken. The Red Cross relief-boats made a complete and
accurate list of the Spanish prizes in the harbor,--twenty-two in
all,--with the numerical strength of every crew, the amount of
provisions, if any, on every vessel, and the quantity and kind of food
that each would require.

Finding that one of the prizes had a cargo of plantains and bananas, and
that most of the fishing-smacks were provided with salt-water tanks in
which they had thousands of pounds of living fish, Miss Barton and her
staff determined to purchase from them such quantities of these
perishable commodities as they were willing to sell at a low nominal
price, and use such food to increase and diversify the rations furnished
to the fifteen hundred Cuban refugees and reconcentrados on shore. This
would give the latter a change of diet, and at the same time lessen the
amount of more expensive food-stuffs to be taken from the cargo of the
Red Cross steamer or brought from New York. With the approval of the
United States marshal, this plan was immediately carried into effect,
and it worked admirably. The captains of the Spanish prizes were glad to
give to the Red Cross perishable commodities for which they had no
accessible market, and ten thousand pounds of fish and large quantities
of plantains and bananas were soon obtained for distribution among the
Cuban refugees and reconcentrados in Key West. I refer to this incident
of the relief-work, not because it has, intrinsically, any particular
importance, but because it