In accordance with the excellent naval policy of President Jackson, our flag was shown in every Greek and Turkish port. Wool, opium and drugs were the staples of export carried in American vessels, and most of those met with were armed with small cannon and muskets. Arriving at Port Mahon, the home of our military marine, June 25, 1832, Perry reported a list of the vessels convoyed. It was found that in the eighty-two days from Alexandria, the _Concord_ had visited twelve islands, anchored in ten ports, and that the ship had lain in port only sixteen days, being at sea sixty-four days. As strict sanitary regulations had been enforced, the health of the crew was unusually good. At the transfer of the few invalids and of those whose terms of service had expired, the bugler struck up the then new, but now old, strain of “Home, Sweet Home,” which brought tears to many of the sailors’ eyes. The sight, so unusual, of a crying sailor, suggested to a visitor on board that these tears were of sorrow for leaving the _Concord_, than of joy for returning home. The surrounding cliffs sent back the notes in prolonged and saddened echoes. The heart-melting Sicilian air, without whose consecrating melody, the stanzas of John Howard Payne might long since have sunk into the ooze of oblivion, seemed then, as now, the immortal soul of a perishable body. CHAPTER XI A DIPLOMATIC VOYAGE IN THE FRIGATE BRANDYWINE. IN his next cruise which we are now to describe, Perry was to take a hand directly in diplomacy, and rehearse for the more brilliant drama of Japan twenty years later.