ut the reasons for choosing those that have been
named have been given as briefly as possible. Let us now look at the
map, and regard as a collective whole the picture there graphically
presented.

Putting to one side, for the moment at least, the Isthmian points, as
indicating the end rather than the precedent means, we see at the
present time that the positions at the extremes of the field under
examination are held by Powers of the first rank,--Martinique and
Santa Lucia by France and Great Britain, Pensacola and the Mississippi
by the United States.

Further, there are held by these same states of the first order two
advanced positions, widely separated from the first bases of their
power; namely, Key West, which is 460 miles from Pensacola, and
Jamaica, which is 930 miles from Santa Lucia. From the Isthmus, Key
West is distant 1200 miles; Jamaica, 500 miles.

Between and separating these two groups, of primary bases and advanced
posts, extends the chain of positions from Yucatan to St. Thomas. As
far as is possible to position, apart from mobile force, these
represent control over the northern entrances--the most important
entrances--into the Caribbean Sea. No one of this chain belongs to any
of the Powers commonly reckoned as being of the first order of
strength.

The entrances on the north of the sea, as far as, but not including,
the Anegada Passage, are called the most important, because they are
so few in number,--a circumstance which always increases value;
because they are so much nearer to the Isthmus; and, very especially
to the United States, because they are the ones by which, and by which
alone,--except at the cost of a wide circuit,--she communicates with
the Isthmus, and, generally, with all the region lying within the
borders of the Caribbean.

In a very literal sense the Caribbean is a mediterranean sea; but
the adjective must be qualified when comparison is made with the
Mediterranean of the Old World or with the Gulf of Mexico. The
last-named bodies of water communicate with the outer oceans by passages
so contracted as to be easily watched from near-by positions, and for
both there exist such positions of exceptional strength,--Gibraltar
and some others in the former case, Havana and no other in the latter.
The Caribbean, on the contrary, is enclosed on its eastern side by
a chain of small islands, the passages between which, although
practically not wider than the Strait of Gibraltar, are