IN THE HARBOUR.
The anniversary of the battle is celebrated regularly, and the old ship is once each year made radiant with flowers. A beautiful wreath is always placed upon the spot on the deck where the hero fell.
It does not seem possible that the great, clumsy-looking vessels that were used in those days could even be navigated, to say nothing of fighting with them. The “Victory,” which is only one of a half dozen of the same kind now laid up—put on the retired list—in Portsmouth Harbor, is a huge floating castle, and required, when in commission, one thousand men to operate her. She is fifty-eight feet from the main deck to the hold, though she seems, with her four decks above the water line, to be even higher than that. Comparing her with the long, narrow iron-clad of to-day, it requires a considerable stretch of imagination to realize that she had once been really in service, and no slight service, either.
IN THE HARBOR.
A two hours’ trip around the harbor is one of constantly increasing interest. There are ships and ships. Here are immense men-of-war, full rigged and ready for a cruise, alongside of which is a trim yacht flying the pennant of the Royal Yacht Squadron. Here a huge merchantman, with a cargo from Bombay, perhaps. Beyond, a great white steamer, larger than the transatlantic passenger steamship, that takes England’s soldiers, these same red-coated fellows we see strutting about here with their diminutive caps jauntily perched over their left ear, out to India to help keep the natives quiet and subdued. Right here is the Queen’s private yacht, the “Albert and Mary,” a vessel of large dimensions, and fitted up in the most exquisite manner. This is the ship the Queen takes her little excursions in, and occasionally sends it across the channel to bring over some distinguished personage whom she wishes to honor.