The cable-ship _Burnside_, as some may remember, was one of the first
prizes captured in the Spanish War. She had been a Spanish merchant
ship, the _Rita_, trading between Spain and all Spanish ports in the
West Indies, and when captured by the _Yale_, early in April, 1898,
was on her way to Havana with a cargo of goods. There is little about
her now, however, to suggest a Spanish coaster, save the old bell
marked "Rita" in front of the captain's cabin. The sight of this
bell always brings to mind the wild patriotism of those early days
of our war with Spain, when love of country was grown to an absorbing
passion which made one eager to surrender all for the nation's honour,
and stifled dread of impending separation--a separation that might
be forever--despite the rebel heart's fierce protest. The _Rita's_
bell reminds one also of a country less fortunate than our own,
and sometimes when looking at it, one can almost fancy the terror
and excitement of those aboard the Spanish coaster when the _Yale_
swept down upon her on that memorable April afternoon. But it is a
far cry from that day to this, and the _Burnside_, manned by American
sailors, flying Old Glory where once waved the red and yellow of
Spain's insignia, and laying American cable in American waters, is a
very different ship from the _Rita_, fleeing before her pursuers in
the West Indies.

When the _Burnside_ left Manila on December 23, 1900, for the cable
laying expedition in the far South Seas, there were eight army officers
aboard, six of whom belonged to the Signal Corps, the seventh being
a young doctor, and the eighth a major and quartermaster in charge
of the transport. Besides these there were civilian cable experts,
Signal Corps soldiers, Hospital Corps men, Signal Corps natives,
and the ship's officers, crew, and servants. The only passengers on
the trip were women, two and a half of us, the fraction standing for
a young person of nine summers, the quartermaster's little daughter,
whom we shall dub Half-a-Woman, letting eighteen represent the unit
of grown-up value.

Half-a-Woman was the queen of the ship, and held her court quite
royally from the Powers-that-Be, our commanding officer, down to the
roughest old salt in the forecastle. Having a child aboard gave the
only real touch of Christmas to our tropical pretence of it. Everything
else was lacking--the snow, the tree, the holly and wreaths, the
Christmas carol, the dear ones so far away--but