caster_, Commodore Remey's
flagship, and proceeded down the bay in the direction of Sand Key
light.

CHAPTER VI

THE CUBAN COAST

The course usually taken by steamers from Key West to Santiago lies
along the northern coast of Cuba, through the Nicholas and Old Bahama
channels, to Cape Maysi, and thence around the eastern end of the island
by the Windward Passage. Inasmuch, however, as we were going without a
convoy, and Commodore Remey had advised us to keep out of sight of land,
in order to avoid possible interception by a Spanish gunboat from some
unblockaded port on the coast, we decided to go around the western end
of the island, doubling Cape San Antonio, and then proceeding eastward
past the Isle of Pines to Cape Cruz and Santiago. Tuesday afternoon we
saw the high mountains in the province of Pinar del Rio looming up
faintly through the haze at a distance of twenty-five or thirty miles,
and late that same evening we passed the flash-light at the extremity of
Cape San Antonio and turned eastward toward Cape Cruz and Santiago.
After rounding the western end of the island we had a succession of
thunder-storms and rain-squalls, with a strong easterly breeze and a
heavy head sea; but Thursday night the weather moderated, and at
half-past six o'clock Friday morning we sighted Cape Cruz rising out of
the dark water ahead in a long, transverse stretch of flat table-land,
backed by mountains and terminating on the sea in a high, steep bluff.

The coast of Cuba between Cape Cruz and Santiago is formed by a striking
and beautiful range of mountains, known to the Spaniards as the "Sierra
Maestra," or "Master Range," which extends eastward and westward for
more than a hundred miles and contains some of the highest peaks to be
found on the island. As seen from the water its furrowed slopes and
flanks are deceptively foreshortened, so that they appear to fall with
extraordinary steepness and abruptness to the sea; its rocky, wave-worn
base is whitened by a long line of snowy breakers; its deep, wild
ravines are filled with soft blue summer haze; and down from the clouds
which shroud its higher peaks tumble in white, tortuous streaks the
foaming waters of unnamed and almost unknown mountain torrents. As one
sails, at a distance of two or three miles, along this wild, beautiful
coast, the picture presented by the fringe of feathery palms over the
white line of surf, the steep slopes of the foot-hills, shaggy with
dar