It varies in strength, of course,
from day to day and from hour to hour; but in the two weeks that I spent
there it was never strong enough to be unpleasant in the city, nor to
necessitate the reefing of small sail-boats in the comparatively open
and unsheltered bay.

The average annual rainfall on the island is about thirty-nine inches,
and nearly the whole of this precipitation is confined to the so-called
"rainy season," between May and November, when showers fall, now and
then, at irregular intervals of from three to ten days. For their fresh
water the inhabitants depend entirely upon this rainfall, which is
carefully collected and saved in large roof-covered cisterns. There are
a few wells on the island, but the water in them is generally brackish,
or is so impregnated with lime and earthy salts as to be unfit either
for drinking or for irrigation. To sum up briefly, the climate of Key
West may be roughly described as mild and dry in winter, warm but
showery in summer, and breezy and sunny at all seasons.

In this geographical and climatic environment there has grown up on the
island an interesting but rather sleepy and unprogressive city of
twenty-two thousand inhabitants. The most important of the elements that
go to make up its population are, first, whites from the United States,
who are chiefly engaged in shipping or commerce; second, Cubans of mixed
blood, employed, for the most part, in the cigar factories; third,
immigrants from the Bahamas, known as "conchs," who devote themselves
mainly to fishing, sponging, and wrecking; and, fourth, negroes from
America and the West Indian Islands, who turn their hands to anything
they can find to do, from shoveling coal to diving into the clear water
of the bay after the pennies or nickels thrown by Northern tourists from
the deck of the _Mascotte_ or the _Olivette_. Nothing in the shape of
fruit, grain, or vegetables is raised on the island for export, and the
greater part of the city's food-supply comes either from Florida or from
the islands of the West Indies.

The first thing that strikes a newcomer in Key West is the distinctly
and unmistakably foreign aspect of the city. In spite of the English
names on many of the sign-boards over the shops, the American faces on
the streets, and the crowd of American officers and war correspondents
smoking or talking on the spacious piazzas of the Key West Hotel, one
cannot get rid of the impression that he has left the Unit