Chapter 50 - Page 2

lines of batteries;
nor did our blessed Saviour stand godfather at the christening of
yon frowning fortress of Santa Cruz, though named in honour of
himself, the divine Prince of Peace!

Amphitheatrical Rio! in your broad expanse might be held the
Resurrection and Judgment-day of the whole world's men-of-war,
represented by the flag-ships of fleets--the flag-ships of the
Phoenician armed galleys of Tyre and Sidon; of King Solomon's
annual squadrons that sailed to Ophir; whence in after times,
perhaps, sailed the Acapulco fleets of the Spaniards, with
golden ingots for ballasting; the flag-ships of all the Greek and
Persian craft that exchanged the war-hug at Salamis; of all the
Roman and Egyptian galleys that, eagle-like, with blood-dripping
prows, beaked each other at Actium; of all the Danish keels of
the Vikings; of all the musquito craft of Abba Thule, king of the
Pelaws, when he went to vanquish Artinsall; of all the Venetian,
Genoese, and Papal fleets that came to the shock at Lepanto; of
both horns of the crescent of the Spanish Armada; of the
Portuguese squadron that, under the gallant Gama, chastised the
Moors, and discovered the Moluccas; of all the Dutch navies red
by Van Tromp, and sunk by Admiral Hawke; of the forty-seven
French and Spanish sail-of-the-line that, for three months,
essayed to batter down Gibraltar; of all Nelson's seventy-fours
that thunder-bolted off St. Vincent's, at the Nile, Copenhagen,
and Trafalgar; of all the frigate-merchantmen of the East India
Company; of Perry's war-brigs, sloops, and schooners that
scattered the British armament on Lake Erie; of all the Barbary
corsairs captured by Bainbridge; of the war-canoes of the
Polynesian kings, Tammahammaha and Pomare--ay! one and all, with
Commodore Noah for their Lord High Admiral--in this abounding Bay
of Rio these flag-ships might all come to anchor, and swing round
in concert to the first of the flood.

Rio is a small Mediterranean; and what was fabled of the entrance
to that sea, in Rio is partly made true; for here, at the mouth,
stands one of Hercules' Pillars, the Sugar-Loaf Mountain, one
thousand feet high, inclining over a little, like the Leaning
Tower of Pisa. At its base crouch, like mastiffs, the batteries
of Jose and Theodosia; while opposite, you are menaced by a rock-
founded fort.

The channel between--the sole inlet to the bay--seems but a
biscuit's toss over; you see naught of the land-locked sea within
till fairly in the strait. But, then, what a sight is beheld!
Diversified as the harbour of Constantinople, but a thousand-fold
grander. When the Neversink swept in, word was passed, "Aloft,
top-men! and furl t'-gallant-sails and royals!"

At the sound I