Of the thousands
who are going to Cuba to magnify the American flag, not all will
return. Occasionally the gay music of the bands would relieve the dull
routine and cause the spirits to rise under the effects of some
enlivening waltz or stirring patriotic air; or entering a school of
flying fish the men would be entertained to see these broad-finned
creatures dart from the waves like arrows from the bow, and after a
graceful flight of perhaps near two hundred yards drop again into the
sea; but taken altogether it was a voyage that furnishes little for
the historian.
The transports were so arranged as to present an interesting and
picturesque spectacle as they departed from our shores on their ocean
march. Forming in three columns, with a distance of about 1,000 yards
between the columns, and the vessels in the columns being distanced
from one another about 400 yards, the fleet was convoyed from Port
Tampa by small naval vessels until it reached a point between the Dry
Tortugas and Key West. Here it was met by the noble battleship Indiana
and nine other war vessels, thus making a convoy altogether of fifteen
fighting craft. Transports and convoy now made an armada of more than
forty ships, armed and manned by the audacious modern republic whose
flag waved from every masthead.
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