lf-past six o'clock we returned to the _State of Texas_, having
attended to all the sick that were found, relieved all the distress that
was brought to our attention, and furnished food enough for a week's
consumption to the crews of nineteen vessels.

Two days later, at the suggestion of Miss Barton, Mr. Cobb purchased a
quantity of smoking-and chewing-tobacco for the Spanish sailors, and we
made another double round of the prize-ships, in the steam-launch of the
New York "Sun," which was courteously placed at the disposal of the Red
Cross for the whole afternoon. On our outward trip we left on every
vessel tobacco and matches enough to last the crew for a week, and Mr.
Cobb notified all the captains that if they or their crews wished to
write open letters to their relatives and friends in Cuba or Spain, the
Red Cross would collect them, submit them to the United States
prize-court for approval, and undertake to forward them.

The tobacco and the offer to forward letters seemed to excite more
enthusiastic gratitude in the hearts of the Spanish prisoners than even
the distribution of food. On one schooner my attention was attracted to
a ragged sailor who was saying something very earnestly in Spanish, and
pointing, in a rather dramatic manner, to the sky. "What is he saying?"
I inquired of Mr. Cobb. "He says," replied the latter, with a smile,
"that if they were prisoners up in heaven, they couldn't be better
treated than they have been here."

I was touched and gratified to see the interest and sympathy excited by
the work of the Red Cross in all who came in contact with it, from the
commodore of the fleet to the poorest fisherman. The captains of the
monitor _Puritan_ and the auxiliary cruiser _Panther_ offered us the use
of their swift steam-launches in the work of distributing food; the
representative of the New York "Sun" followed their example; the marines
on the _Panther_ doffed their caps to our boats as we passed, and even a
poor Key West fisherman pulled over to us in his skiff, as we lay
alongside a Spanish vessel, and gave us two large, lobster-like
crawfish, merely to show us, in the only way he could, his affectionate
sympathy and good will. Mr. Cobb offered him some of the tobacco that we
were distributing among the Spanish sailors, but he refused to take it,
saying: "I didn't bring the fish to you to beg tobacco, or for money,
but just because I wanted to help a little. I hoped to get more, but
these w