The record-union., 1899-09-30

1t was a morning of repressed ex-
citement on board the New York and
the other ships behind the Olympia
Everything had been cleaned and burn
ished from ram to rudder.
Noon was ushered in with scream
of whistles that sounded like ten thou
had hardly drifted back from the
Staten Island hills, when a sudden inn
pulse seemed to seize the far reaching
mass of tugs and other craft. Instead
of drifting idly around and around the
warships, like ships in an eddy, they
began to steam away to the south in
parallel lines. as though some current
We're bearing them out to sea. But as
they vanished in scores toward the
Narrows there were hundreds more
that swept down from up the harbor.
Then there was a scurrying home of
the white hooded steam cutters of the
warships. The great boat cranes
amldships reached down their graphing
hooks and whisked the pinnaces
aboard Megaphone commands flung
across the water brought the torpedo
boats to keel like the greyhounds they
were at the Olympia's quarter. The
brilliant code flags blossomed like flow
ers on the Olympia from bridge to main
top.
1t was the order to form in column.
The Brooklyn's pennant snapped AYE,
aye" from the signal yard, and a du-
plicate set of flags passed the order to
the Indiana, whence it was flung from
ships to ship down the squadron. The
black speed cones of the Olympia
climbed slowly to her yards as the big
cruiser got under way. The other
vessels slowly turned, like troop of
cavalry, squadron front toward the
Narrows, and then fetching a graceful
sweep, headed back up the harbor tow
ard the Battery, the Olympia, escort
ed by the Mayors boat, the Sandy
Hook, in the lead.
Back of her at 400-yard interval
came the New York, then the powerful
Indiana and Massachusetts, the fleet
footed Brooklyn, the sturdy old Texas,
the rakish, yacht-like Dolphin, the old
Lancaster, a relic of another naval age;
the powerful Chicago, and finally the
fighting craft Behind stretched the
transports, and further still, almost
lost in the distance. the yachts and
miscellaneous craft hull down the
horizon.
The evolution began at / o'clock, and
in fifteen minutes the fighting line was
Strengthened out up the harbor. Ad-
miral Dewey was going to his own
place at the head of a squadron that
would have won, at need, three bat
ties of Manila Bay without stopping
for breakfast
The head of the column was a broad
arrow. Six torpedo boats spread out
three on a side from the Olympia's
quarter. Outside of them a flying
wedge of police boats formed a great
V, whose apex was the Olympia
Flanking them, ahead and astern, We're
the harbor fire boats, spouting great
columns of water that turned threaten
ingly toward the excursion boats on
either side when they attempted to
crowd the line of march
But the pageant back of this power
ful vanguard was not limited to sin
gle nor sextuple line of ships. 1t was
wide, whose vertebrae We're the ships
of the white squadron, and whose ribs
We're rows upon rows of every sort OF
floating thing that had ever run by
steam in New York Harbor
Thousands viewed the spectacle as it
moved up past Staten Island, and
thousands more watched it from the
anchored craft that crowded the Erie
Basin, and whose spars rose in a forest
about the foot of Liberty. But they
We're forgotten in the mass of human
ity that crowded the water front of
Manhattan Island and filled every point
of vantage along the Jersey shore.
This feature Of the scene first broke
on the view as Castle William roared
an Admiral's salute to the Olympia off
the Battery. By the time the answer
and smoke had died away from the
wake of the flagship, the immensely of
the watching crowd dawned on the
crews of the squadron. Every foot of
the city water front was a mass of
humanity. The wharves the ferry
slips, the roofs of ferry and warehouse
rose one above another in solid blocks
of people. Above the lower structure
of the water front every roof bore it's
living freight. Stores, old office build
ings and modern skyscrapers were
crowded with stands. tiers upon tiers of
seats like an immense theater, whose
roof was the sky, whose walls We're the
surrounding hills, and whose back drop
was the horizon Of the lower bay.
As the pageant moved majestically
into the Hudson it was seen that the
crowd still lined the wafer front and
house tops thicker, if possible, than
ever and stretching up the river along
the whole line of parade. The nights
of the Jersey were also crowded with
parti-colored masses of people They
were not such an unbroken rank as
along the wharves of the New York
side, but wherever the wooded slopes
broke into clearing. they were black
ened with people from crest to water