The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1899-09-30
AS SEEN FROM WARSHIPS
From This Vantage Point it Was an
Immense Marine Picture

pared with its great size that it appealed
to the eye as a painting rather than
drama.
The vast gathering of water craft main
tanned an average speed of knots, but
so magnificent was its area that the i'm
preston was one of exceedingly slow and
stately movement. The picture was
tinually changing, but it melted so stead
lily and in such measured rythm from form
to form that the sense of motion was large
ly lost 1t started under a brilliant sky,
passed at the mouth of the Hudson through
the threat of an ugly storm and emerged
through a rainbow arch that stretched
from shore to shore Into a clear and brill
liant sunset off the Grant.tomb.
The night had been - in the fleet
OF ships off Tompkinsvihe. The last de-
tails of the days ceremony were hardly
settled before the day itself broke on
scene of greater activity Than the classic
anchorage had witnessed before.
The great vessels of the white squadron
swung at their anchorage for the past
two days, but the crowd of neighbor1ng
-, bad been swelling beyond counting.
aud be seen the water was a
|
across the wide reach of the harbor to the
Erie basin and from the battery to the
Narrows the water was alive. 1t was
modern armada against which the armada
launched by Phillip of Spain would have
seemed a chids toy. 1t was a moving,
shifting picture of tugs, police boats, fire.
boats, torpedo boats, yachts, launches,
steamers and ocean liners and sailing craft
o. every rig, with big ferry and excursion
beats ploughing their way through the
ruck in mysterious paths that opened be-
fore them and closed again behind them
like the ice of an Arctic foe.
Lay Like White Grounded Bergs
The only stable points in the scene at
that early hour were the warships. They
lay like great white grounded bergs about
which the pack ice turned and swirled
without moving them from their moorings.
1t was morning of repressed excitement
on board the ships behind the Olympia.
Everything had beeen cleaned and bur-
nished from ram to rudder.
| Noon was ushered in with a scream of
whistles that sounded like ten thousand
craft. The serenade lasted five minutes
during which enough steam was wasted to
have run an ocean liner to the Azeres.
Parade Forms
The last far away echo had hardly drift
ed back from the Staten Island hills when
sudden Impulse seemed to seize the far
reaching mass of tugs and other craft. In
stead of drifting idly round and round the
warships, like ships in an eddy. they be-
gan to steam away to the south in parallel
lines as though the same currents were
bearing them out to sea. But as they van
ished in scores towards the NarrowS, there
were hundreds more that swept down from
UP the harbor. Then there was a scurry-
ing home of the white hooded steam cut
tiers of the warships. The great boat Grains
amidships reached down their graphing
hooks and whisked the pinnaces aboard.
Megaphone commands flung across the wa
ter brought the torpedo boats to keel like
the greyhounds they Were, at the Olympia $
quarter. The brilliant code flags blossom
ed like flowers on the Olympia from bridge
to main top. 1t was une order to form in
column.
The Brooklyn's pennant snapped AYE,
aye from the signal yard and a duplicate
set of flags passed the order to the Indiana,
whence it was flung from ship 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 a
troop of cavalry squadron, front toward
the Narrows and then fetching graceful
sweep. headed back up the harbor toward
the Battery, the Olympia escorted by the
mayors boat the Sandy Hook. in the lead.
Back of her at four hundred yard inter-
val came the New York, then the power
full Indiana and Massachusetts, the fleet
footed Brooklyn the sturdy old Texas, the
rakish yacht-like Dolphin, the old Lancas-
ter, relic of another naval age: the pow
erful Chicago and finally the little Mari
eta, the rear guard of the fighting craft.
Behind stretched the transports, and fur
Their still, almost lost in the distance, the
yachts and miscellaneous craft hull down
and the horizon
| The Parade Starts
The evolution began at 10 O clock and in
fifteen minutes the fighting line was
Strengthened out up the harbor Admiral
Dewey was going to his own at the head
of a squadron that would have won, il
need be- three battles of Manila bay with
out stopping for breakfast.
The head of the column was broad ar
row. Six torpedo boats spread out at the
bar, three a side from the Olympias
quarter. Outside of them lying wedge
of police patrol boats formed great w
whose apex was the Olympia. Thanking
them ahead and astern were the harbor
fireboats spouting great columns of water
that turned threateningly toward the ex-
cursion boats either side when they at
tempted to crowd the line of march.
But the pageant back of this powerful
van guard not limited to a sextuple
line of ships. 1t was a sinuous marine
monster half mile wide whose vertebrate
were the ships of the white squadron and
| whose ribs were rows upon rows of every
sort of floating thing that had ever run
by steam in New York harbor.
Thousands View the Spectacle
Thousands viewed the spectacle 1t
moved up past Staten Island, thousands
more watched it from the anchored sailing