The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1911-07-29
The Great Naval Review at Spithead
The American Battleship Delaware
Was "T'he Greatest Fighting Uni"
Correspondence of the London
Standard

Standard)
LONDON, July Sin London, on
Saturday morning, we left grey and
weeping skies behind, to find Kings
weather at Southampton. AS the good
ship "Soudan," sometime P. and o.
liner, and now transport in His Ma
jesty's service, steamed down South
ampton water the lovely Hampshire
country on either side and the gentle,
\wooded slopes of the Isle of Wight
hay bathed in warm sunshine. A
breeze which increased in strength
as the day wore on set the velvet
green foliage of the trees a-shimmer
and just ruffled the surface of the
sea. 1t was a perfect summer day,
and the glory and the beauty of the
great naval spectacle we had come to
witness was enhanced thereby. That,
at least, was the opinion of the null
titude of people who came from all
over England, from many parts of
Europe, and even from across the At
lantic, to see the review. But weather,
after all, is but a secondary consid-
GRAFTON when the review of naval
force is in question. Nowadays we do
not dress up our ships for ceremonial
occasions as we do our soldiers, to
sparkle and glow in the sunlight and
catch the public eye. On the con-
trary, we clothe them in the most
sombre garb, bereft of all color and
ornament, intended to be inconspicu-
Gus.
There are many people who are of
opinion that the modern warship is
seen at her best only in dirty water,
when the skies lower and the spind-
rift flies shrielling from the lash of the
blast; when the grey hull wallows in
the trough of a grey sea, returning
buffet for buffet manfully, and keep
ing doggedly her course. Then the
bare and formless hulk of steel be-
comes a thing of strenuous life, and
acquires a beauty that touches the
majestic and sublime. l shut my eyes
and try to construct the picture that
would be presented if those mighty
ships, instead of lying calmly at an
Choir on the placid bosom of the So
lent, were threshing their way through
a storm in the North Sea to meet the
foe; clearing for action with the black
smoke sliding backwards from the fun
nels, with the trembling needles of the
guages showing full heads of steam,
with every man ebert, every nerve
strained, to do his duty in that SUI
Preme moment of the shock of battle
for which by years of careful training
he had been prepared.
Scene of Majesty.
No Imagination, however fertile, can
conjure up all the awful majesty of
such a scene, and no mortal man will
ever witness it in it's entirety when
il comes to be played. In the reek and
clash of the conflict even the actors
in it will be but vaguely conscious Of
the parts they play. But if it is not
given to the landsmen to see the fleet
actually at the work for which it has
been made, we may we'll content our
selves with the spectacle that it can
offer to us in peace time-such as it
did offer to us on Saturday when
drawn up in the Solent for inspection
by our sailor King.
1t was off Calshot Light, as we
turned into the Solent, that we got our
first glimpse of the fleet. Across the
simmer of green waters, faint in
reek of smoke and mist, arose forest
of bare spars, filling all the space be-
tween the Isle of Wight and the Hamp-
shire shore. Presently an underground
Of grey hulls became visible, and then
the color signal flags and ensigns, like
forest flowers. Nearer and nearer we
drew, and the forest resolved itself
INTO avenues, avenues OF SHIPS, great
and small. To our left were torpedo
boats and destroyers, scores of queer,
Squat, black shapes, silhouetted upon
the water; and beyond them-we
were told, for we could not see them
submarines. Nearer to us, also to port,
were little and speedy scouts, curiously
constructed ships for sowing the seas
with devasting mines, narrow, many
fUnnelled cruisers, and away in Stokes
Pay more black-hulled destroyers. We
looked down on the Blake" the oldest
vessel in the lines, built in 1889, but a
ship that has done magnificent service,