of the _Mayflower_ and, arrived at the
head of the gangway, stands rigid as any stanchion to attention while
his colors are shot to the truck and the scarlet-coated band plays the
national hymn. Then, ascending to the bridge, he takes station by the
starboard rail with the Secretary of the Navy at his shoulder. The
clouds roll away, the sun comes out, and all is as it should be while he
prepares to review the fleet, which thereafter responds aboundingly to
every burst of his own inexhaustible enthusiasm.

And this fleet, which is lying to anchor in three lines of four miles or
so each in length, with a respectful margin of clear water all about,
is, viewed merely as a marine pageant, magnificent; as a display of
potential fighting power, most convincing. No man might look on it and
his sensibilities--admiration, patriotism, respect, whatever they might
be--remain unstirred. To witness it is to pass in mental review the
great fleets of other days and inevitably to draw conclusions. Beside
this armament the ill-destined Armada, Von Tromp's stubborn squadrons,
Nelson's walls of oak, or Farragut's steam and sail would dissolve like
the glucose squadrons that boys buy at Christmas time. Even Dewey's
workman-like batteries (this to mark the onward rush of naval science)
would be rated obsolete beside the latest of these!

It was first those impressive battleships; and bearing down on them one
better saw what terrible war-engines they are. Big guns pointing
forward, big guns pointing astern, long-reaching guns abeam, and little
business-looking machine-guns in the tops--their mere appearance
suggests their ponderous might. A single broadside from any of these,
properly placed, and there would be an end to the most renowned
flag-ships of wooden-fleet days. And that this frightful power need
never wait on wind or tide, nor be hindered in execution by any weather
much short of a hurricane, is assured when we note that to-day, while
the largest of the excursion steamers are heaving to the whitecaps,
these are lying as immovable almost as sea-walls.

It is, first, the flag-ship which thunders out her greeting--one, two,
three--twenty-one smoke-wreathed guns--while her sailormen, arm to
shoulder, mark in unwavering blue the lines of deck and superstructure.
Meantime the officers on the bridge, admiral in the foreground, are
standing in salute; and in the intervals of gun-fire there are crashing
out over the waters again the strai