By and by we got pretty close under this rock, and then we could see some men in naval uniform standing on a ledge beside a little cannon, which they fired off just as we ran from the breaking waves that were dashing across the mouth of the harbor into the oil-smooth water within. The ship answered the salute with a roaring blast of her whistle, and then we rounded the crag where the pavilion stood, and found ourselves in what looked like a bowl-shaped bay, walled in by precipices so high as to make our vessel seem utterly insignificant. Then on one side of this bowl, fifty feet or so above the water, was seen a row of little light-colored wooden houses, built on a narrow bench on the mountain side. There was a flagstaff before the largest of the buildings, and a neat picket fence before the whole row. From the centre of this fence a stairway ran down the steep decline from the bench to the beach, and from the foot of the stair a narrow pier projected a hundred feet into the bay. There were davits on both sides of the pier, with boats hanging to them, and not far away was a big lifeboat of heavy model lying at anchor. The grass that had grown below the water line of the lifeboat was so long that it could be seen a hundred yards away as she rolled lazily in the dead swell. As soon as we had cast anchor a couple of officers and a crew of sailors came down to the pier, and then rowed off to us in one of the boats. There were enthusiastic greetings between those in the boat and their friends on the ship. The little row of houses built on a cleft, so to speak, in the side of the rugged mountains that border St. John Bay is known among Argentine seamen as the "Sub-Prefectura del Puerto San Juan del Salvamiento." It was established late in the Antarctic summer of 1884. It should be kept in mind that the chief object of creating a Government post on Staten Island was for the support of a lighthouse to guide ships bound around the Horn, but a secondary consideration was the providing of a place of refuge with a depot of provisions for the crew of any ship so unfortunate as to be wrecked thereabouts. It was estimated that from seven hundred to one thousand ships of various nationalities pass within sight of Staten Island every year, and that before this light was established about one in a hundred was wrecked there. These estimates were wrong, but they had the effect of establishing the station. In the United States the crew of a first-class lighthouse consists of three men. That of a life-saving station consists of a coxswain and not less than six men. To man the third-class lighthouse on Staten Island four men were provided, while in addition to the coxswain and crew of a lifeboat there was a naval officer of the rank of a lieutenant, known as the prefect; a second in command of a lower rank, a secretary to the prefect, a valet, a cook, a baker, and a file of soldiers.