The sea was dull and leaden, reflecting a dull and leaden sky, as we steamed out past the old _Victory_--significant reminder of great danger of the past greatly overcome--to the Solent, lined like a busy street with great dull, leaden-hued ships. It seemed fitting so, more fitting to the spectacle than a bright heaven and dancing water; for the Fleet had little suggestion of gaiety as it stretched line upon line out to the horizon where sea and sky met. It told rather of a grim resolve to meet menace with menace. So dominant was the note of sternness that the colours of the bright bunting flaunted by the ships faded out of the eye, and one only saw the vast bulk of brooding power. There was an Armada of one hundred, and again almost half a hundred vessels, ranging from the great fortress of the _Dreadnought_ type to the viperish destroyers, bringing danger with their speed, and the uncanny submarines, stealing under the water, invisible to the ships they threaten except for a little staff, slender as the antenna of an insect, serving as an eye to the brain below, for offence or defence. Yet practically all those 144 vessels were the fruit of the previous ten years' work; and there was melancholy proof in the row of big ships sulking in the far background--apparently stern, vigorous, and great in strength, but excluded from this parade as useless--of how quickly Time, bringing new inventions, destroys the usefulness of the sea-fighting machine. How vast the task of maintaining a power so hard to bring to life, so quick to decline! The monstrous strength of the elephant comes only of slow growth; once attained, it is slow to decay and fall. But the unit of sea-power seems almost shorter of life than of gestation. [Illustration: BATTLESHIPS MANOEUVRING] Past the serried lines of destroyers, we were carried to cross the stern of the _Dreadnought_, noting best thus its wide bulk, and turned down a long lane of water lined with battleships. With happy symbolism, the right edge of sea-guardians represented the nations of the Empire--_Africa_, the _Commonwealth_, _New Zealand_, the _Dominion_, _Hindustan_, _Hibernia_, _Britannia_, with _King Edward VII._ at their head. It was good to be represented, if only by a name, in such a Fleet. Then to the submarines, swimming like a school of killer-whales on the surface of the sea; then again to the big cruisers to see the _Invincible_, the _Inflexible_, the _Indomitable_, proudly flaunting their justly insolent names; then to note, with a throb of grateful memory, a new _Temeraire_ of deadliest might riding beside a ship bearing Nelson's name; and, finally, to be received in welcome on the giant deck of the _Dreadnought_, noting the linked lines of bluejackets, the oldest element of British naval supremacy, and the spider-webs of the wireless telegraphs, the newest sign of British resolve to keep that supremacy.