Before weighing anchor, however, I prepared a cup of warm coffee over a smart wood fire in my great Montevideo stove.

In the same fire was cremated the Fuegian spider, slain the day before by the little warrior from Boston, which a Scots lady at Cape Town long after named "Bruce" upon hearing of its prowess at Echo Mountain.

The _Spray_ now reached away for Coffee Island, which I sighted on my birthday, February 20,1896.
[Illustration: "Yammerschooner"] There she encountered another gale, that brought her in the lee of great Charles Island for shelter.

On a bluff point on Charles were signal-fires, and a tribe of savages, mustered here since my first trip through the strait, manned their canoes to put off for the sloop.
It was not prudent to come to, the anchorage being within bow-shot of the shore, which was thickly wooded; but I made signs that one canoe might come alongside, while the sloop ranged about under sail in the lee of the land.

The others I motioned to keep off, and incidentally laid a smart Martini-Henry rifle in sight, close at hand, on the top of the cabin.