The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1908-09-25
bLUEJACKETS
At MELBOURNE

This morning the American warships
lay motionless upon a flashing sunlit
sea, their FURNISHED ornaments afre
with rays of light A close inspection
disclosed active preparations for the
landing of 5000 armed men. Launches,
tcthered to strings of open boats, link
ed together stern by bow, dragged their
long trailers to the vessel s sides. The
sailors and marines, rifles in their
hands, actively climbed the gangways.
The trailing boats were loaded down TO
the water, and with the Stars and
Stripes floating in the breeze at the
prows, the launch tugs pulled away for
the land. The number of sailors who
can be packed into one little boat is
worthy of note. Big or little they
count in boat space as fifty to twenty.
great day, and the debarkation was
witnessed by almost as many police
men as civilians. The great crowds
were to come later, and come they did
to an extent that half spoilt the COM
fort of everybody. Standing on Mac
quarie headland, with Farm Cove on
the left hand and Woolloomooloo Bay
on the right, the seascape was strik-
ing and beautiful. Upon the Farm
Cove waters the launches and boats
swept towards the hammered pavilion of
the official landing place, pulling up at
the pontoons with jerk and unloading
the straightbacked supple marine. Now
and then the sharp word of command
or the blast of trumpet reverberated
in echoes among the rocks. On the
breast of the less polished and undec-
grated Woolloomooloo harbor, with its
barriers of implanted wharf sheds, coal
hulks and unpretentious shipping, the
sailors boats piled backwards and for
wards in long strings, adding at each
trip to the walls of sailor uniforms in
course of formation at the foot of the
Domain.
AS each squad of marines jumped
ashore with their rifles they formed
in double file under the cliffs and
"stood easy" With their smart peak
ed caps, buff leggings, light blue pants
and yellow stockings they looked dap
per and active. Their ranks include
many who are scarcely past boyhood.
They do not represent one type of man
hood, but many. The body of Austria.
liam troops, of British troops, of Ger
man lluulS HItbtHNs SOlut HtntIdi lSsi-
ture However diverse the men may
be in variety of physical attributes,
the critical spectator found in these
fine, virile fellows from the advancing
western world certain characteristics
of quite number of peoples, and, as
yet, an imperfect development of a
composition of national character
drawn from the most virile races, and
more virile perhaps than any of them.
Here were more than lingering traces
of the heavy visaged, phlegmatic Teu-
ton; the dark eyes and the mobile
countenance of the French; the swar.
| thy skin and the lean cheek bones that
seemed to point to a far back trace
of, Indian blood the thick red hair
| and long upper lip of n kind of EN-.
| bryonic Irishman, or the faxen hair
and fresh pink features, throwing back
to the Saxon, the most striking Amer
lean traits. Right along the lines
could be traced the long spare jaws, a
hawk-like keenness of sense, and in
Americans are not big men. Their
Americans are not big men. Their
| general height is from feet inches
to feet 9 inches, and the weight IF
those who have reached manhood, from
| 10 stone to IL stone.
"Drass,o commanded an officer.
The long lines came to attention, and
| took their dressing from the right with
| an easy celebration. There was not
the snap and spring Of, say, the I'm
perial troops who landed here eight
years ago, but it did not seem neces
sary. The rifle butts did not strike the
ground with one bang. They got there
with clatter.
| Nombeur,n commanded the officer
fWan, Tu, Tnray, Fouerr, Five,
Sex -
There was time to spare, and the
marines again "stood easy' under a
| fine silken Stars and Stripes, or the
flag of the marine corps, blue sheet
| of silk, with white center, bearing
a blue anchor. The officers displayed
these remnants with pride. Once the
companies were standing easy, jaws be-
gan to chew right along the lines, and
the lighted points of cigarettes flashed
in all ranks. Many chewed and
smoked at the same time.
Below the Macquarie heights in the
narrow streets of Woolloomooloo, sail
ors were standing at ease in double col
umns that wound round the wharf
buildings and disappeared from sigh
at the sharp street turnings. The fea
ture of these sailor.clad ranks was ex
treme boyishness. The average age OF
the sailors is twenty-five years, hui
there are soft-skinned, hairless youths
of seventeen and eighteen. These
Americans do not accord with the gen
eral notions of seafaring men, as gath
cred from an experience of British
bluejackets. The thicksct man, will
broad back, tremendous limbs, heavy
hips, bull neck and broad, sunburnt
face, who leaves the British man-of
war to sweep the street with his wide
| blue trousers, while he assumes an all
of defiance to all circumstances, and
sucks black putty pipe with the bow
upside down, is hardly to be found il
America Is fleet. "Ha, there's a Brit
ish tar" exclaimed an onlooker, now
and then, as his eye caught some squat
powerful youth, but the exclamationi
we're not frequent. The American sail
ors are. lean, slimly built and smart, al
they "stood easy" reheetively smok
ing their cigarettes or Clearinghouse
times both. Their sharp, and Otter
pale, faces, full of energy, ambition