the invulnerable monitors of the Union, ships of every flag now ride and rest. Not alone the little “square-rigged vessels” which Washington saw, but big ocean steamships, of which the _Savannah_ was the pioneer, now plow their way to foreign and domestic ports. The shipping of Savannah exceeds that of all the South Atlantic and Gulf ports from Baltimore to Mobile. [Illustration: R. M. CHARLTON, POET, JURIST, U. S. SENATOR.] [Illustration] [Illustration] MOBILE “THE GULF CITY” BY PETER J. HAMILTON Perhaps Mobile is the only American city which has seen five flags wave as emblems of the peaceful rule of as many civilized powers. She has been French, English, Spanish, American and Confederate by turn, and her street names perpetuate her varied story. In the original Creole limits, we find Dauphin and Royal, of the French era; Government, St. Joseph, and Conception, of the Spanish; just without, come many American names like Jackson, Franklin, Monroe, and Congress; and the Mexican War produced Monterey; while Beauregard, Davis Avenue, and Charleston Street, among others, point to Confederate times and feelings. The Latin element is merged in the Teutonic, but it is still shown by the narrow thoroughfares, in the character of the people, and in some of their institutions and diversions. Steam, electricity, sewers, waterworks, shell roads and handsome buildings have caused a long and romantic history to be half forgotten. Let us recall its chief events. The region had a story even back of the European. Not only are Dauphine Island and the Portersville coast at the mouth of the bay fringed with banks of oyster-shell, but on the marsh islands of the Mobile delta, and in the swamps adjoining, one often finds huge piles of clam-shells and high mounds of earth. These sometimes contain human bones and ornaments, and point to a large native population before the white man came.