Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1917-12-27
Sailor Writes Of
Voyage on U. S. S.

Mrs. J. B.. Maxedon of B street
was the recent recipient of letter
from her son arthur, who is in the
navy and is on board the U. S. s.
Pittsburgh. Arthur enlisted in the
dispensatory corps and has later been
transferred to the medical depart
ment of the surgical corps. The let
ter in part follows;
Il am writing to tell you of our
trip down to South America. We
left San Diego, CAL, on May S, and
were under way five days when we
anchored off San Jose, Guatamala,
where we stayed for about four days.
From there we went to Balboa, the
American city of Panama. / made
a liberty in Panama that night and
visited my first city out of United
States. Panama is fairly nice town,
but it is a place that looks dirty on
account of the narrow streets and
the open front stores, but in Balboa
where the American colony live 1t
is very pretty and some nice houses
In Balboa is the largest dry dock in
the world, and we went into dry
dock there and repaired the ship.
Ion May "a we went through the
Panama canal, starting at o'cloci;
in the morning, and in an hour or
so arrived at the first of the locks,
the Miraflore locks, two in number.
and later the Pedro Miguel We then
went through the most interesting
part of the canal the Culebra cut,
which certainly was a fine piece OF
work From there we went through
the Gatun lake and then through the
Gatun locks, and around in Colon at
2 p. m. the same day.
Colon is about the same as Pan
anna, only smaller. The American
colony there is called Christobol,
which is about the same as Balboa.
The supplies and coal for ships are
kept here.
"On May 20 we got under way and
steamed south June 10 we crossed
the equator and had big celebra-
ton. Were initiated in the Royal
Order of Neptune's Rex, as the sail
ors call it. The initiation was an
amusing sight, everybody dumped in
a big tank, eating balls of dough with
pepper on them, and such things.
1--WE arrived in Bahea, Brazil, af-
ter being under way for 16 days.
Bahea is city CT about 250,000 pop
ulatiom, and is a very dirty city for
one that size. It has narrow streets
and they are not kept clean | had
one liberty there. but was not very
enthusiastic about the place. We
then got under way and went to Rio
de Janeiro, which is pretty city of
over a million population. We had
a good time there and learned to
speak a little Portuguese. which is
somewhat similar to Spanish, The
people treated us fine, and the av-
enues were lined with tall palms and
were beautiful Rio is a good place
to make a liberty for a while, but
after you have been over there a few
times a person gets tired of it,
about July IL we arrived ir
Montevideo, Uruguay, where we GER
tainly got fine reception. AS we
came in the harbor large number
of boats came to meet us, and they
certainly gave us welcome-all the
whistles blowing and the bells ring
ing. When we went ashore every
body was teaching us to speak Span
ish. giving invitations to homes and
such.
"The best place of all was Buenos
Aires. We certainly received a well
come there. | never saw such a
crowd of people before, and they GER
tainly treated us royalty. A person
could not pay to go to show, and |
heard Caruso sing here. The Argen-
tine people gave us fine dinners and
entertainments Everybody was
friendly and tried to talk, and it was
hard to understand anything at first,
but in a little while we could under
stand some of the Spanish, after
which we got along all right. The
ship got under way and left Buenos
Aires on August 2, and we went back
to Rio de Janeiro. | think that is a
pretty good trip for fellow that has
not been in the navy year, isn't it"
1t certainly is some experience TO
me-"
Mrs. James Barrett left last even