As we passed the Cabañas fortress at the entrance of Havana harbour the Texas fired a salute and the echo of the answering guns cracked and rattled from piers and surrounding seawalls. Everything in the harbour dipped its flag as we came in, while from out of the maze of battleships and cruisers, transports, merchant vessels and shore boats we saw a launch approaching in the bow of which I could easily make out my husband’s generous proportions. With him were his colleague, Mr. Bacon, his aide, Captain McCoy, and a second aide, Captain José Marti, an artilleryman and son of an old Cuban patriot whom he had appointed to this position, to the intense gratification of the Cuban people.