One of the grandest of these veterans was the very one upon whose deck Nelson himself fell in the moment of triumph. I suppose England would rather part with ten colonies than with that illustrious old ship. We passed along within thirty steps of her, and I was just trying to picture in my mind the tremendous scenes that had transpired upon her deck upon that day, the proudest in England’s naval history, when the venerable craft, stirred by the boom of saluting cannon, perhaps, woke up out of her long sleep and began to vomit smoke and thunder herself, and then she looked her own natural self again, and no doubt the spirit of Nelson was near. Still it would have been pleasanter to be on her decks than in front of her guns; for, as the white volumes of smoke burst in our faces, one could not help feeling that a ball might by accident have got mixed up with a blank cartridge, and might chip just enough off the upper end of a man to disfigure him for life; and, besides, the powder they use in cannon is in grains as large as billiard chalks, and it does not all explode--suppose a few should enter one’s system? The crash and roar of these great guns was as unsettling a sound as I have ever heard at short range. I took off my hat and acknowledged the salute, of course, though it seemed to me that it would have been better manners if they had saluted the Lord Mayor, inasmuch as he was on board. THE WORLD’S GREATEST NAVY ON VIEW We went out to the Spithead and sailed up and down there for four hours through four long ranks of stately men-of-war--formidable ironclads they were--the most insignificant of which would make a breakfast of a whole fleet of Nelson’s prodigious ships and still be hungry. The show was very fine, for there were forty-nine of the finest ironclads the world can show, and many gunboats besides. Indeed, here in its full strength was the finest navy in the world, and this the only time in history that just such a spectacle has been seen, and none who saw it that day is likely to live long enough to see its like again. The vessels were all dressed out with flags, and all about them frolicked a bewildering host of bannered yachts, steamers, and every imaginable sort of craft. It would be hard to contrive a gayer scene. One of the royal yachts came flying along presently and put the Shah on board one of the ironclads, and then the yards of the whole fleet were manned simultaneously, and such another booming and bellowing of great guns ensued as I cannot possibly describe. Within two minutes the huge fleet was swallowed up in smoke, with angry red tongues of fire darting through it here and there. It was wonderful to look upon. Every time the _Devastation_ let off one of her thirty-five-ton guns it seemed as if an entire London fog issued from her side, and the report was so long coming that if she were to shoot a man he would be dead before he heard it, and would probably go