dirigible balloons,
steamed up the channel. Military bands played "The Star-Spangled
Banner" and the "Marseillaise" as General Pelletier and his party
boarded the boat to welcome General Pershing.

After the representatives of the French authorities had been presented
to the American officers, the party landed and reviewed the French
territorials. The Americans then entered motor cars for a ride around
the city. All along the route they were followed by crowds of people who
greeted General Pershing with the greatest enthusiasm.

PERSHING IN PARIS.

The General and his staff were taken in a special train to Paris, where
General Pershing was received by Marshal Joffre, Ambassador Sharp and
Paul Painleve, French Minister of War. In the French capital General
Pershing and staff were received by the populace with wild enthusiasm,
and for several days they were feted and entertained.

There were, during the short period of entertainment, several incidents
which will long be noted in history, as when General Pershing visited
the Tomb of Napoleon and when he took from its case the sword of the
world conqueror and kissed it, and again when he placed a wreath on the
grave of Lafayette.

Within a few days General Pershing had established the army headquarters
in the Rue De Constantine and began the work preliminary to the campaign
on the firing line.

Second only to the enthusiastic reception tendered General Pershing and
his staff was that accorded the first United States Medical Unit, which
reached London in June. The vanguard of the American army, composed of
26 surgeons and 60 nurses, in command of Major Harry L. Gilchrist, was
received by King George and Queen Mary, the Prince of Wales and Princess
Mary, at Buckingham Palace.

The reception to General Pershing and the Medical branch was, however,
nothing as compared to the popular demonstration which marked the
arrival of the first of the American armed forces on European shores to
participate in war. The vanguard of the army reached France on June 27.
No official announcement was ever made of the number of men in the first
expeditionary force, but it is an incident of modern history that the
United States made a record for the transportation of troops across the
seas scarcely equalled by that of any other country.

ABSOLUTE SECRECY OBSERVED.

All America knew that troops were being sent to France, but no
information had been given as to the time of departure o