Soon comes the welcome cry, "There she is, Fire Island light, right over the starboard bow." The watcher in the lighthouse telegraphs the steamer's arrival to the quarantine station and the ship news office, and long before noon the vessel reaches quarantine. Here the health officer boards her, and if it is found that she has no case of contagious disease on board she is permitted to proceed to her dock, which she reaches in about one hour and a half, including the time of examination. Meanwhile she has been met down the bay by a revenue cutter having a squad of customs officers on board and declarations have been made and signed by the cabin passengers as to the contents of their trunks, which are searched as soon as the vessel arrives at her dock. Here, also, an officer of the Immigration Bureau takes charge of the steerage passengers and has folk and baggage conveyed to the Barge Office for the examination which will impel their return to the place from which they came or end in the granting of permission for them to enter the land of mystery and promise. Within the hour in which the liner reaches her moorings on the New York or Jersey shore the last passenger has taken his departure, shore leave has been granted to the majority of the ship's company and waiting hands have promptly taken in hand the task of making ready for the leviathan's next ocean pilgrimage, since, as I said at the outset, one voyage is no sooner ended than preparations for another are begun. CHAPTER III THE MAN-OF-WARSMAN It is by no means an easy task to secure admission to the United States Navy, and of those who present themselves for enlistment in ordinary times about one man in a dozen is accepted. Landsmen furnish a great majority of recruits, and of these more come, it is said, from New York than any other city in the country. The candidate who presents himself on board of any one of the receiving ships constantly in commission for enlistment purposes is first put through a rigid oral examination designed to prove his mental and moral makeup. If he passes this test the recruiting officer turns him over to the examining surgeon, by whom the discovery of the slightest physical defect is counted as sufficient ground for the candidate's rejection. If, however, he passes the doctor he is vaccinated and sent back to the recruiting officer, who swears him in for a three years' cruise, after which he is turned over to the paymaster's clerk to draw his uniforms and small stores.