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 assertion 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 ashore 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 passers. 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 passed 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 glass 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 sex, 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 passage 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 Saturday. All of Saturday 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 anchored in four lines opposite the central part of the city, the Brazilian ships, about a dozen of them, were anchored 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 circumjacent 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 bass of all the cathedrals in Rio.

"Archipelago Rio, ere Noah on old Ararat anchored his ark, there lay anchored in you all these green rocky isles I now see, but God did not build on you, isles, those long lines of batteries, nor did our blessed Saviour stand godfather 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 JosÉ 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 passed, '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 Japanese, 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.

The next morning after arrival came the unfolding of Rio to the visitors. Even those who had visited the place before had shaken their heads solemnly about it. The scenery all about is grand, they said, wonderful, but the city itself—well, hands were raised in deprecation, nostrils dilated, followed by a sad shake of heads. Didn't the guide books tell you it was a foul, ill smelling place? Wasn't it a matter of course that the city would be reeking with yellow fever in this its midsummer time?

The officials told the fleet officers that there was no yellow fever in the place. Polite expressions of surprise with surreptitious nudges behind the back! They said that the city had been transformed in the last four years, was well paved and beautified and they expressed the hope that the Americans would like it. More expressions of polite surprise and assurances that the city always was attractive, with more nudges behind the back. And then when the officials went back to shore didn't the officers make a dive for the ships' libraries and read facts, real facts, mind you, about the place? Didn't W. E. Curtis write this about Rio:

"Viewed from the deck of a ship in the harbor the city of Rio looks like a fragment of fairyland—a cluster of alabaster castles decorated with vines; but the illusion is instantly dispelled upon landing, for the streets are narrow, damp, dirty, reeking with repulsive odors and filled with vermin covered beggars and wolfish looking dogs. There is now and then a lovely little spot where nature has displayed her beauties unhindered and the environs of the city are filled with the luxury of tropical vegetation; but there are only a few fine residences, a few pleasant promenades, and a few clusters of regal palms which look down upon the filth and squalor of the town with dainty indifference. The palm is the peacock of trees. Nothing can degrade it, and the filth in which it often grows only serves to heighten its beauty. The pavements are of the roughest cobblestone; the streets are so narrow that scarcely a breath of air can enter them, and the sunshine cannot reach the pools of filth that steam and fester in the gutters, breeding plagues."

There are half a dozen descriptions such as that, some of them as recent as 1900. Oh, yes, the Americans knew what kind of a city they were going to see. Hadn't some of them been here before? Didn't some of the surgeons on the fleet shake their heads gravely when it was signalled from the flagship that there would be general liberty?

What did the Americans find? This is part of what the Americans saw; it would take pages to tell it all:

They saw one of the cleanest and best paved cities in the world. New York in the Waring days never had cleaner streets. There was not a foul smell in evidence. There was even no West street or South street odor along the waterfront. Where the streets were not of asphalt they were of wood. There were no beggars on the highways; at any rate the Sun's correspondent did not see one, and he spent hours ashore every day.

The old part of town still has its narrow streets, the chief of which, Ouvridor, is about half as wide as Nassau street and which no vehicles are permitted to enter. But the great surprise of all was the magnificent Central avenue, built within the last four years right through the heart of the city from north to south, just as Napoleon built highways in Paris, connecting at the south with the great sweeping shore boulevards, where the beautiful Monroe Palace stands.

This new avenue rivals anything that Paris can show. It is about 120 feet wide, with sidewalks fifteen feet broad. In the centre are lofty lights on artistic poles, each group set in a little isle of safety filled with flowers and grasses and plants. The architecture along the avenue is harmonious throughout. The effect is imposing and makes a New Yorker think.

But those sidewalks! It is mighty fortunate for New York that she has none like them. If she had, the psychopathic ward in Bellevue would have to be enlarged ten times over for the patrons of the Great White Way.

They are big mosaics, composed of small pieces of black and white granite. The black pieces are used for ornamentation. Every block has a different design. Some have zigzags, others curves and curlycues, others dragons and starfish (at least they resemble such), others swing here and there; others are straight, until you feel that all you need is a brass band to make you march; others take you in swoops this way and that; arrows and daggers point themselves at you; bouquets in stone attract you until you almost feel that you want to stoop to get a whiff; but the predominant feeling is that the designs were sunk for sailors to roll back to the ship on, heaving to occasionally for bearings; or for intoxicated men to take another tack in the hope of finding a shorter way.

One of the bluejackets hit this particular "beach" one afternoon after he had been drinking too much. He stopped short and called to his mate, a few feet away: "Bill, come here! Take me away! What do I see? Look at 'em! Snakes? Yes, they are snakes! I got 'em! Hit that big feller on the head! It's the brig fer me when I get back. Take me away, Bill! Think o' the disgrace o' gettin' the jimjams in a foreign port. Bowery booze fer me after this! Take me away, Bill! 'Tain't snakes? Honest? Jes' sidewalk? 'Ray for Brazil!"

Then the bluejacket got on his knees and felt to make sure it was "jes' sidewalk" while a crowd of Brazilians gathered around and some of them thought Yankee sailors either had queer ways of investigation or of making their devotions under the effect of libations and smiled, and in Portuguese told Bill and Tom they were good fellows.

As one went to the south on this Central avenue he came upon the nearly finished municipal theatre, one of the handsomest playhouses in the world and probably the largest in the western hemisphere. Then came the new public library and other Federal and municipal buildings that are being erected back of old Castello Hill, where the first settlers squatted, and the remains of their huddled manner of living still present themselves to the eye. And then one came to the white Renaissance pile, the strikingly beautiful Monroe Palace, named after our own Monroe, whose famous doctrine is woven into the woof and warp of the Brazilian institutions.

The building is segregated and is at the very gate of the great boulevard system fronting on the bay. It is conspicuous from the harbor. Brazil's flag—the green field, representing luxuriant vegetation; the yellow diamond, representing the gold and other mineral wealth; the broad, banded globe of blue in the centre, representing the dominion of Brazil, with one star above the equator for its single State in the northern hemisphere, and other stars in the south portraying the southern States, and also the famous constellation of the Southern Cross at a certain significant date in the year—the Brazilian flag flew from the dome and on each corner were large American flags.

This palace is where the Pan-American Congress met, where Secretary Root made a profound impression in his address. Next to Roosevelt the name of Root is foremost on the lips of Brazilians. His visit made the deepest impression here. It is still talked of, even on the highways. That visit, the Monroe Palace and the visit of this fleet are bound to be felt for years in the expressions of genuine international friendship of various kinds which will be made between the two great republics of the North and South.

Then one saw the boulevard system. Again one must repress himself. It is safe to say that no city in the world has anything like it, that no avenue or highway is more beautiful and imposing. One might combine the beauties of the waterfront of Naples and Nice or of any spot in the Riviera with those of the Shore Drive of New York's Narrows and Riverside Drive and Lafayette Boulevard in New York, and still they could not compare with this beautifully ornamented stretch of boulevard that curves about the bright blue bay.

Illuminated with thousands of lights at night the effect from the harbor is that of a long crescent of diamonds flashing upon the forehead of the bay. No one who has ever seen this highway of miles with its palatial dwellings fronting upon it and set back against the hills can ever forget it. It wasn't here when Melville wrote, but truly it makes the city Amphitheatrical Rio!

Then the Americans began to wander about the city. The narrow streets in the business district are like those of Havana and many other cities of people of Latin descent. Through this part of town run little mule propelled tramways with the narrow rails so close to the sidewalks that when the tram is crowded to the side steps there is danger of sweeping the passengers off by passing pedestrians. The visitors saw the cafÉs, real cafÉs, where the principal drink is coffee, "strong as the devil, as black as ink, as hot as hell and as sweet as love."

Some of the Americans liked the coffee, but the wise ones confined their drinking to limeades. Then the visitors saw the many crowded cinematograph shows, the crowded shops, the powdered, and what Americans would call overdressed women, the panorama of the highways, the newsboys, the hundreds of lottery shops.

But above all else they noted the clean condition of things. They asked if it was a sudden spurt of cleanliness and were told that it was not. They asked how about these new streets and the extensive, harmonious and comprehensive building that is going on. It was declared to be part of a broad policy that has been in progress for four or five years, part of a plan to make Rio one of the most beautiful cities in the world, a plan to make it fit the magnificent surroundings which nature has provided for it. American opinion was all summed up in this general expression:

"As handsome a city as I ever saw."

It was when the bluejackets went ashore that the Americans began to realize what Brazil's welcome really meant. The boys landed with a whoop and began to scatter. Sailorlike some of them headed for the saloons, but the people expected that and were surprised that more of them didn't fall by the wayside. Most of the men, however, went in for rational enjoyment. They crowded the post card emporiums, they bought fruit and trinkets, they piled on the tramways and went any old place so long as it was somewhere.

They filled the streets, the cinematograph places. Yes, they hired automobiles and rode about like nabobs to the astonishment of the natives, who must have wondered at the princely wages the United States paid its men. They went to the best restaurants and hotels. Everywhere they were welcomed. "English spoken here" was a frequent sign. They were even allowed to loll on the grass of the many beautiful parks, an act that costs a native a fine of from five to fifteen milreis. They were respectful to all, but they had a commanding way about them that took. They owned the town; they knew it, but did not attempt to take the slightest advantage of it.

As the days went by and one saw the behavior of these bluejackets his American heart was filled with pride over them. They were clean, intelligent, manly, open, as fine a brand of sailor as ever wore a uniform, obeyed an order or sported their money lavishly in a foreign port.

The first thing that greeted the eye of every man who landed at the beautiful park that used to be an eyesore in the central part of the waterfront was a big sign reading:

"Information Bureau for American Seamen."

It was an information bureau, a real one. It was the most useful kind of a welcome ever provided in a foreign port for the sailors of any people. The American and English residents, aided by those of other countries, had been busy preparing for weeks for the visit of Jack ashore. Every safeguard, every assistance that was possible to make his liberty comfortable, profitable, enjoyable was looked after. It took hard cash to do it, but the money was raised and it amounted to thousands of dollars.

In the first place, the ferry company to Nictheroy set apart a large room in its commodious new building. Counters were put up for information booths, postal card booths, exchange of money, sale of various kinds of tickets for things with guides by the score and attendants anxious to answer all kinds of questions. Men and women worked there from twelve to fourteen hours a day for ten days in the stifling heat, all eager to be of assistance to Jack ashore. A pamphlet was provided giving a map of the city and displaying all the chief places of interest. Full information was printed about everything that a man bent on rational enjoyment could desire. The pamphlets told all about transportation, about the places to see, about postage and the many general and special excursions that had been planned.

Jack soon found it out and he rushed there in throngs. He found long tables in the room with free writing paper, ink, pens, mucilage, and down he sat to write to sweetheart or wife. Then he went to change his money. Here he struck a snag. A dollar is worth 3,200 reis. One of the sailors got a $10 note changed. He received in exchange 32,000 reis. He was astonished.

"Here, fellers!" he shouted, "I got 32,000 reis for $10. Gee, whiz! Me for Wall Street! When kin I get a steamer home, mister? Holy Moses! I've got rich and I didn't know it."

Jack found out quickly that he wasn't rich, for Rio is just now fairly oppressed with enormously high prices, due, it is said, to paying heavy taxes for all the improvements that have been going on. He found that he had to pay 300 reis for an ordinary postage stamp, 400 reis for a glass of limeade, about 800 reis for a handkerchief or a collar, and as for a bottle of beer, that was good for a thousand reis or so, and the money began to melt quickly. But what did Jack care? It was an automobile for him, or something equally expensive. What's the use of being an American man-o'-war's man if you can't act like a millionaire for an hour or so in a foreign port?

When the money was changed Jack found out the full value of these self-sacrificing men and women who had done so much for his comfort. He got a fair exchange for his money and wasn't robbed. This committee had provided him with guides to all sorts of places free of charge, had made up excursion parties all over the city and the surrounding country, had provided rubbernecks—and how Jack did grin when he saw the familiar things—carriages, special trams and what not; had provided for the sale of meal tickets, the best postal cards, had co-operated with the police to look for stragglers.

Well, Jack smiled and smiled, and he knew he was in the hands of his friends. The Prefect of the city, Gen. Souza Aguiar, was chairman of the committee, and all the leading Americans and Englishmen joined in. Especially active was the acting Consul-General of the United States, J. J. Slechta, and Myron A. Clark, the Y. M. C. A. secretary. The Y. M. C. A. here is affiliated with the Sands street branch in Brooklyn. The placards told Jack all about it, and the first thing he asked was if Miss Gould had helped to pay the expenses. He was told that she had not, because she had probably not been informed about it. He answered invariably:

"Betch'r sweet life she would if she'd known about it. 'Ray for Helen Gould!"

Here is a summary of what work was done for our sailors by this bureau in ten days:

Eight thousand sheets of paper and 5,000 envelopes provided free of charge, 21,000 guides to the city printed and circulated, about 175,000 postage stamps sold, nearly 2,000 meal tickets sold, 3,500 special excursions provided, these in addition to the many general excursions; about $175,000 exchanged at the lowest possible rates, about 170,000 post cards sold, about 2,000 automobile trips arranged.

So Jack and all the others of the fleet went sightseeing. They went to Petropolis, the summer capital, with its temperate climate, in the tropics, and only twenty-two miles away, up back of the Organ Mountains. You climb the heights on a cog railroad, just as you climb Pike's Peak, and you see the magnificent views of valleys, the bay, the ravines and gulches that would do credit to the Rocky Mountains. Jack and his mates went to Corcovado in throngs, starting on trolleys that crossed the famous old aqueduct back of the hills right in the city and climbed on and up around the city for miles with scarce a hundred feet of straight track. Then they took the steep cog railroad, and after a time found themselves poised on the peak 2,300 feet above the city, with this place of 800,000 inhabitants and its bay and the sea all spread out before them in probably the most fascinating panorama that the world presents. They visited the wonderful botanical garden, with its magnificent avenue of royal palms and its flower beds, its trees, its ferns, a truly royal place. One of the young officers told what he thought of this garden when he said:

"When I get married I am going to come down here and march up that mile of palms for the aisle in God's church. It will be the finest setting for the finest bride in the world. The newspapers needn't take the trouble to mention the bridegroom's name. That of the bride linked with the majestic aisle will be sufficient."

And so one might go on and on into raptures and extravagant expressions. The people's gracious mood matched their city and the visitors were simply overwhelmed with hospitality on every side.

The sailors grew to the situation. Day by day there were fewer signs of too much drinking. Occasionally a man or two would overstep the bounds, but the authorities saw to it that the Americans handled their own men in that condition.

Only one incident marred the visit, and it was a pity that any mention of it was cabled to the United States. After that had been done it was necessary to send the truth and correct misapprehension. It was on the first night of liberty. It was merely a saloon brawl. A native negro had a row with another and threw a bottle at him. The second dodged it and the bottle struck one of our seamen at a table and hurt him. He got after the negro, who escaped. Back the negro came with a razor and fell upon the first bluejacket he saw.

Several of the best petty officers on one of the ships jumped in to quell the disturbance. The rabble thought they jumped in to fight. Stones were thrown and three of the peacemakers were hurt. The local police didn't size up the situation and were slow to act. They arrested the negro, but let him go. After that they said it was a deplorable blunder.

Liberty was recalled at once and marines were sent ashore, but it was soon over, and the next morning at the request of the authorities 2,000 men were sent ashore instead of 1,000 daily as had been planned. The men were warned to conduct themselves properly, and to the everlasting credit of our American seamen it must be said they heeded the caution well.

An illustration of what might have been occurred on the night of Sunday, January 19. Rival political clubs were parading about town carrying banners and flags and also giving cheers of "Vivan los Americanos!" They invited a lot of bluejackets to join them. Not knowing what the parades meant, good natured Jack of course would go along. About twenty of them joined each of two processions and had the distinction of carrying the flags and hurrahing every other step. It was great fun. The naval officers on shore heard of what was going on and dashed up in automobiles. The Brazilians would not let their dear friends go and the officers had a hard time to get the men free. They at once obeyed instructions to scatter, and said they were simply having a good time with their new friends. Ten minutes later those two parades minus the bluejackets came into a collision and there was quite severe rioting, with stone throwing and the use of knives and bludgeons. Had the bluejackets remained innocently with the parades they would have been in the thick of it and terrible reports would probably have been cabled to the United States of our sailors mixing in political affairs, probably instigating revolution and being most awful rioters. It was a narrow escape to get them away in time.

By the end of the week so completely had good feeling been established that from 4,000 to 5,000 men were sent ashore on Sunday. It was the largest liberty party of American sailors ever known. New York never saw so many of our men ashore at one time. It made one proud of his country and its men to see that party ashore. There were not twenty cases of drunkenness when the boys came home.

Nothing could have been more cordial and warmhearted, more lavish, than the entertainments given in the name of the Brazilian Government. The one regret was that Admiral Evans, because of an attack of his recurrent malady, rheumatism, was unable to take part in them personally. Admiral Thomas took his place admirably.

The tone of all the official greetings was that of undisguised friendship. President Penna made it manifest on the first day when he met the officers at Petropolis. Then Vice-Admiral Cordovil Maurity voiced it in English on the top of Corcovado the next day, and perhaps it is well to give his speech in full. Here it is as translated for the Americans:

President Penna again made the welcome plain when he said at his luncheon the day following to the Admirals and several Captains at Petropolis:

The warm and fraternal welcome which the people of the capital of the republic have given to the American fleet which is now visiting us ought to prove how deep and sincere the sympathy and friendship which the Brazilian nation feels for its great and prosperous sister of North America.

These are no fleeting or transitory sentiments, since they date from the hour of our birth as a nation and are ever growing in strength. Every day the bonds of friendship and of trade between the two nations are drawn closer.

When the South American peoples proclaimed their independence, at that moment so fraught with misgivings and uncertainty as to the future, the young American republic gave them strength by solemnly declaring the intangible unity of the peoples of the new world through the declaration of their great President Monroe, whose name figures in history with brilliance as a statesman of great perception and of rare political foresight.

The long and difficult voyage of the powerful fleet which to-day is the guest of Brazil, necessitating as it does the doubling of the American continent, is a fresh and splendid evidence of the unequalled vigor and the extraordinary energy of the great power which is a friend of Brazil.

With an expression of ardent and sincere wishes for the fortunate continuation of the voyage of the friendly fleet I drink to the glorious American navy, to the prosperity of the republic of the United States of America and to the personal happiness of its eminent chief, that great statesman, President Roosevelt.