The prosperity of the United States, the health of its eminent President, Mr. Roosevelt, and that good luck may always accompany the fleet under your command.
So much for the official welcome. The unofficial welcome was everywhere. It began as soon as the ships entered Callao Bay. There are no headlands or hills surrounding the harbor, which is practically an open roadstead. The fleet had to anchor two miles out. The harbor was crowded with all sorts of little craft laden to the danger point. Every tug, every launch, all the sailboats that could be found, rowing barges, dories, two large ocean-going steamers, came out to say howdy and bearing cheering people by the thousand. Some of the little craft fired national salutes with toy cannon. Those that had whistles tied down the cords. One tug was crowded with young men who insisted on giving the Cornell yell every time a ship passed by.
As soon as anchors were cast a look shoreward revealed that tens of thousands had come to the waterfront. Later when one went ashore he learned that the Government had declared a holiday in honor of the arrival of the fleet and that all of Callao and Lima, seven miles distant, had come down to see the ships. The stores and shops were closed as if it were Sunday. Business was at a standstill. Official visits were begun at once, but those who could get away made haste to go to Lima on the modern trolley system which in addition to two railroads accommodates the traffic between the two cities.
The visitor noted that Callao was an ill smelling place of garish colored houses and narrow streets—a mere port of 40,000 inhabitants—and that it had many of the characteristics of some of the cities on the southern shore of the Mediterranean. Once out in the flat country, the visitor was reminded somewhat of the country between Brooklyn and Coney Island. Truck farms were frequent. What looked to be American corn was growing profusely side by side with banana trees and sugarcane fields. Patches of good old fashioned vegetables—onions, cabbages, radishes, lettuce—were also under cultivation. Large herds of fine cattle grazed on some of the fields, and in others were herded splendid flocks of sheep. It looked almost like home. The fences alone were strange. They were made of thick blocks of dried mud. The entire cultivation was dependent upon irrigation from the Rimac River, the splendid mountain stream that dashes down from the Andes in a torrent clear to the sea.
Then one came to Lima itself, situated on a plain girdled by the foothills of the Andes, with its low lying houses, all made of mud plastered upon bamboo reeds, with not a roof in the city that would shed water, for in Lima it never rains; to Lima, the one city in the Western Hemisphere which has preserved a large amount of the architecture of the Middle Ages and is rich in traditions of the past. There in this city of 150,000 people with its well paved streets, its bustling activities, its fine climate (the temperature never goes above 80 degrees, although the city is only 12 degrees from the equator) and attractive people the Americans found plastered on every building in town a paper reproduction of the American flag with the words printed on it:
"Welcome to the American fleet!"
Peru's flag was posted by its side frequently. The Government had done it. You see every person in town couldn't come up to you and tell you that he or she was glad to see you. He or she was; but it had to be told in some other way, and so these placards voiced the feeling of the people. If anything else were needed to complete the greeting it was supplied when the Diario, the leading newspaper of Lima, came out with halftone reproductions of ships, officers and the Annapolis Academy, a page of news in English from the United States and a formal welcome to the fleet. This welcome was unique. It is worth reproducing at length. This is what it said:
Every social class in our country, all the elements which make up the life of Peru, have attended with sincere exhilaration to contemplate the gallant representatives of the power and greatness of the United States.
These ships come after a trial of resistance which has proved the discipline, the self-denial, the moral energy, the patriotic pride of race, all those eminent faculties which beautify the spirit and elevate the personality of the great republic of the north.
Peru has the glory and good fortune among the nations of America to offer its hospitable strand to serve as a shelter during the short stay which their itinerary imposes on our guests.