With the Battle Fleet Part 9

DOMAIN OF NEPTUNUS REX, RULER OF THE RAGING MAIN.

_To all Sailors, wherever ye may be, and to all Mermaids, Sea Serpents, Whales, Sharks, Porpoises, Dolphins, Skates, Eels, Suckers, Lobsters, Crabs, Pollywogs and other living things of the sea._

GREETING: Know ye that on this 6th day of January, 1908, in lat.i.tude 00,000 and longitude 37, 11', W., there appeared within the limits of Our Royal Domain the U. S. S. Louisiana, bound southward for the Straits of Magellan and Pacific ports.

BE IT REMEMBERED

That the Vessel and Officers and Crew thereof have been inspected and pa.s.sed on by Ourself and Our Royal Staff.

AND BE IT KNOWN: By all ye Sailors, Marines, Landlubbers and others who may be honored by his Presence that

JOHN DOE

having been found worthy to be numbered as one of OUR TRUSTY Sh.e.l.lBACKS, has been gathered to our fold and duly initiated into the

SOLEMN MYSTERIES OF THE ANCIENT ORDER OF THE DEEP.

BE IT FURTHER UNDERSTOOD: That by virtue of the power invested in me I do hereby command all my subjects to show due honor and respect to him whenever he may enter Our Realm.

DISOBEY THIS ORDER UNDER PENALTY OF OUR ROYAL DISPLEASURE.

Given under our hand and seal this sixth day of January, 1908.

NEPTUNUS REX.

DAVY JONES, His Majesty's Scribe.

[Seal of the Louisiana.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Neptune's Initiation on the Louisiana's Fo'c'sle]

CHAPTER V

BRAZIL'S ENTHUSIASTIC WELCOME

Never Before Did American Ships Have Such a Welcome--The Visit a Continual Exchange of Prisoners Made by Friendship--Americans Found it Easy to Sail Into This Bay of all Delights, but Very Hard to Sail Out--Jack Had a Fine Time Ash.o.r.e and Behaved Properly--More Than 4,000 of Him on Liberty at One Time-- Official Welcome Sincere, and That of the People From the Heart--Vice Admiral's Salutes Greeted Evans.

_On Board U. S. S. Louisiana, U. S. Battle Fleet_, RIO JANEIRO, Jan. 22.

In describing the arrival, reception and stay of the American fleet in this port, the impulse is almost irresistible to use superlatives. There can be no error of judgment or of taste in employing the comparative degree, for strict accuracy compels the a.s.sertion that never was an American fleet greeted more cordially and never entertained more elaborately in a foreign port than in this port, the "Bay of All Beauties," and in this city, fast becoming the Paris of the Western Hemisphere.

The greetings were unmistakably of the heart. They were far more than official expressions of esteem. It was our old familiar friend of the North, the Vox Populi, that spoke, and no levity is intended when that expression is used. The people acclaimed the fleet and that aspect was so overwhelming, so constant, so omnipresent that it dwarfed everything else. No foreign port and no American port ever saw so many American bluejackets ash.o.r.e in ten days; no foreign port ever opened its arms more freely to American sailors of high and low degree.

The reception of the fleet was a decided surprise. The officers were confident that the welcome would be cordial, that the expressions of politeness customary on such occasions would ring true, that the entertainments would be in keeping with the situation. No one doubted that Brazil would do the handsome thing. It was expected that the officials would exert themselves to say pleasing things and provide receptions and dinners, and would exchange calls and observe punctiliously all the niceties that international courtesy demands. But no one expected what might be called strictly an uprising of the people, and the bestowal of that fiction of official receptions in a foreign port, known as the freedom of the city, in such a manner as to turn fiction into fact.

It seemed to be true and undoubtedly was true that the Americans captured Rio, took it by storm, if you please; it did not seem to be true but was true that Rio captured the Americans from Admirals down to coal pa.s.sers. From the hour of arrival to the hour of departure it was a constant, an incessant exchange of friendship's prisoners. Without this the American fleet could never have sailed away, and the fears expressed in the United States when the fleet left on its cruise that it might never come back as a unit or in parts would have been realized.

It was easy as a matter of seamanship to sail into Rio harbor. It was as hard a job as any American Admiral ever tackled, as a matter of parting with friends, to sail out. Any American President who may order a fleet of battleships into this harbor in the future should take that matter into serious consideration. The Americans do not want to lose their battleships. Prudence requires caution hereafter in running risks with Brazilian hospitality.

It was about 9 o'clock on Sunday morning, January 12, when the fleet pa.s.sed Cape Frio, seventy-five miles to the east of Rio. Far back on the hills is a signal station. It used the international code and the flags that snapped in the breeze said:

"Welcome, American fleet!"

"Sounds pretty good," said a signal officer. Then came the Yankton, which had been sent on ahead to meet Admiral Evans and inform him of the plans for anchoring and receptions and the like. Just before noon three Brazilian warships were observed about a dozen miles out from Rio. On they came and bugles were sounded and rails manned and salutes exchanged. One, two, three, and so on, went the guns of the Brazilian cruiser that led the two torpedo boats. One by one the reports were counted carefully, as is always the case on a warship. Thirteen were boomed out and then came another and another and then a stop. It was a Vice-Admiral's salute.

Instantly the query ran through the fleet: Has Admiral Evans been promoted? The wiseacres were not deceived. They said that the Brazilians reasoned that the Commander-in-Chief of any fleet the size of this should be a Vice-Admiral, and that the Brazilians were taking no chances in not being sufficiently polite to cover any contingency.

Soon the mountains immediately surrounding the beautiful harbor came into view. A dozen steam launches had ventured outside. Then came the careful evolutions of getting into exact column for entering the harbor.

The day was beautiful, old Sugar Loaf and Corcovado and all the other peaks seemed to be standing up with the dignity of stiff salutes, and then came a peep into the narrow entrance of the harbor. The place was alive with small boats. The signal stations were all aflutter with welcome flags.

Slowly the Connecticut led the way and, when just beyond old Fort Santa Cruz on the eastern side, boomed a salute to the port. From a little rock all smoothed off and fairly polished, given up entirely to a fort, Villegagnon, came the answering salute. Instantly the whistles of hundreds of craft were set loose and tied down. No American has ever heard such a shrieking of vessels except at the international yacht races off Sandy Hook. The noise at Sandy Hook was greater because the number of boats about was greater; that's the only reason. How-de-do and welcome came from big and little craft all loaded down with people in their Sunday best, if they have such things down here. Parenthetically it may be remarked that judging from the way the women dress for street wear every day is Sunday with them in the matter of clothes. There were half a dozen boat crews out in eight-oared barges. Launches, rowboats, steamers, ferryboats, sailing craft of all kinds were just inside the harbor entrance.

Soon magnificent Botafoga Bay unfolded itself with that wonderfully beautiful long reach of avenue, Bairo-Mar, running four miles in a crescent from the heart of the city toward Sugar Loaf, all set out in artistic landscape treatment. It was black with the people. Then the fleet approached the city proper. With a gla.s.s one could make out that the hills, the houses, the waterfront were black with the people. As Vice-Admiral Maurity afterward said in a speech:

"The whole of the population of Rio, of all ages, chiefly belonging to the fair s.e.x, could not avoid going out of their houses to crowd the neighborhoods of the harbor, the hills and islands around it, and all other points of view from the city of Rio and the Nictheroy's side, in order to greet the pa.s.sage of the American fleet and to better appreciate the interesting display of her manoeuvres."

Moreover, the population had been waiting there practically for two days. The fleet was scheduled to come in on Sat.u.r.day. All of Sat.u.r.day and far into the night tens of thousands had waited upon the hills and waterfronts. They were back, we were told, early on Sunday morning and they blackened and whitened the entire city. The American officers were almost dumfounded. What does it all mean, was the general inquiry.

On steamed the Connecticut, and it was discovered that there was a German cruiser, the Bremen, in the harbor. More salutes! By the way, it may be remarked that Admiral Evans got the Rear Admiral's salute inside the harbor, the proper one that his two-starred flag requires. He got another Vice-Admiral's salute--and many persons thought it was a delicate hint to the United States--when the Italian cruiser Puglia came in a day or two later and gave him fifteen guns.

When the ships anch.o.r.ed in four lines opposite the central part of the city, the Brazilian ships, about a dozen of them, were anch.o.r.ed inside.

Pratique was granted within half an hour of the time of the anchoring, which required some slow manoeuvring in order to reach the exact positions.

No official calls were made that night because it was well after 5 o'clock when the last anchor was down, and it was Sunday. The populace thronged the waterfront, in some places ten deep, until after dark, and then the Brazilian ships illuminated in honor of the fleet. Fireworks were set off from the hilltops. Still the people stayed on the waterfront. Up to midnight they could be seen in thousands. They were there when daylight came; if not the same ones, then a fresh relay. From that day on until the ships left there never was an hour when the waterfront, especially of the city proper, was not thronged with the people looking at the ships.

The far famed Bay of Rio! What shall be said about it? Travellers and guide books have told of its beauties without ceasing. Every well-informed person knows that it is regarded as the finest in the world, that even Naples is dwarfed in these descriptions in comparison.

It is worth while to recount its glories again, especially as it revealed itself to naval men.

The writer knows of no better naval twist to give to such a description than was written by Herman Melville, who entered this bay on the United States frigate United States way back in 1843, and who has described the scene in his fascinating book "White Jacket." Nature is still the same.

Old Sugar Loaf, the liberty capped Corcovado, literally the hunchback, the Organ Mountains and all the other peaks still rear their heads as they did then and encircle Rio. Here is what Melville wrote from a naval standpoint:

"Talk not of Bahia de Todos os Santos, the Bay of All Saints, for though that be a glorious haven, yet Rio is the Bay of all Rivers, the Bay of all Delights, the Bay of all Beauties. From circ.u.mjacent hillsides untiring summer hangs perpetually in terraces of vivid verdure, and embossed with old mosses convent and castle nestle in valley and glen.

"All around deep inlets run into the green mountain land, and overhung with wild highlands more resemble Loch Katrine than Lake Leman, yet here in Rio both the loch and the lake are but two wild flowers in a prospect that is almost unlimited. For behold, far away and away stretches the broad blue of the water to yonder soft swelling hills of light green, backed by the purple pinnacles and pipes of the grand Organ Mountains fitly so-called, for in thunder time they roll cannonades down the bay, drowning the blended ba.s.s of all the cathedrals in Rio.

"Archipelago Rio, ere Noah on old Ararat anch.o.r.ed his ark, there lay anch.o.r.ed in you all these green rocky isles I now see, but G.o.d did not build on you, isles, those long lines of batteries, nor did our blessed Saviour stand G.o.dfather at the christening of you, you frowning fortress of Santa Cruz, though named in honor of Himself, the divine Prince of Peace.

"Amphitheatrical Rio! in your broad expanse might be held the Resurrection and Judgment Day of the whole world's men-o'-war, represented by the flagships of fleets--the flagships of the Phoenician armed galleys of Tyre and Sidon; of King Solomon's annual squadrons that sailed to Ophir, whence in aftertimes, perhaps, sailed the Acapulco fleets of the Spaniards, with golden ingots for ballasting; the flagships of all the Greek and Persian craft that exchanged the warhug at Salamis; of all the Roman and Egyptian galleys that, eaglelike, with blood dripping prows, beaked each other at Actium; of all the Danish keels of the Vikings; of all the mosquito craft of Abba Thule, King of the Pelaws, when he went to vanquish Artinsall; of all the Venetian, Genoese and Papal fleets that came to shock at Lepanto; of both horns of the Spanish Armada; of the Portuguese squadron that under the gallant Gama chastised the Moors and discovered the Moluccas; of all the Dutch navies led by Van Tromp and sunk by Admiral Hawke; of the forty-seven French and Spanish sail-of-the-line that for three months essayed to batter down Gibraltar; of all Nelson's seventy-fours that thunderbolted off St. Vincent's, at the Nile, Copenhagen and Trafalgar; of all the frigate merchantmen of the East India Company; of Perry's war brigs, sloops and schooners that scattered the British armament on Lake Erie; of all the Barbary corsairs captured by Bainbridge; of the war canoes of Polynesian Kings, Tamma-hammaha and Pomare--ay, one and all, with Commodore Noah for their Lord High Admiral, in this abounding Bay of Rio might all come to anchor and swing round in concert to the first of the flood.

"Rio is a small Mediterranean, and what was fabled of the entrance to that sea, in Rio is partly made true, for here at the mouth stands one of Hercules's Pillars, the Sugar Loaf Mountain, 1,000 feet high, inclining over a little like the leaning tower of Pisa. At its base crouch like mastiffs the batteries of Jose and Theodosia, while opposite you are menaced by a rock bounded fort. The channel between--the sole inlet to the bay--seems but a biscuit's toss over, you see naught of the landlocked sea within until fairly in the strait. But then what a sight is beheld! Diversified as the harbor of Constantinople, but a thousandfold grander. When the Neversink (the frigate United States) swept in word was pa.s.sed, 'Aloft, topmen! and furl t'-gallant sails and royals!' At the sound I sprang into the rigging and was soon at my perch. How I hung over that main royal yard in a rapture! High in air, poised over that magnificent bay, a new world to my ravished eyes. I felt like the foremost of a flight of angels new lighted upon earth from some star in the Milky Way."

Few men on this fleet felt the rapture that Melville described so poetically, but every one felt a thrill. Had Melville lived to more recent times he might have included the fleet of Farragut and Porter, of the Austrians and Italians, of the Russians and j.a.panese, of the Spanish, in that mighty roll call of the ressurrection of fleets of the world, for surely there is room for all.

For twenty miles up there is deep water in the bay, and hiding places too among the 365 islands, one for every day in the year, that stud the waters. Santa Cruz and all the other forts Melville mentions are still there and a dozen more besides, most of them inside the harbor, built, as one grim fighter on the American fleet said, more for use against domestic than foreign foes. The very situation of those forts spells out fear of revolution, but that's another matter.