Caesar was glum when he came back from Gaul; Napoleon grim; Paul Jones defiant; Peary blunt; Roosevelt abrupt; Dewey deferential; Wilson brooding; Pershing imposing. Lindbergh was none of these. He was a plain citizen dressed in the garments of an everyday man. He looked thoroughly pleased, just a little surprised, and about as full of health and spirits as any normal man of his age should be. If there was any wild emotion or bewilderment in the occasion it lay in the welcoming crowds, and not in the air pilot they were saluting. The cruiser _Memphis_, on which Lindbergh travelled, passed through the Virginia Capes on her way to Washington a few minutes after five P.M. of the afternoon of June 10. Here Lindbergh got the first taste of what was to come. A convoy of four destroyers, two army blimps from Langley Field and forty airplanes of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps accompanied the vessel as she steamed up Chesapeake Bay. As the night fell they wheeled toward their various bases and were soon lost to view. They gave no salute; and, for all the casual observer might have noted, they were merely investigating this newcomer to their home waters. But they left an indelible impression upon those in the _Memphis_ that the morrow was to be extraordinary. Saturday June 11, 1927, dawned hot and clear in Washington. It was evident early in the day that something far out of the city’s peaceful summer routine was going to happen. Streets were being roped off. Special policemen were going to their posts. Airplanes flew about overhead. Citizens began gathering in little clumps up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, many seating themselves on fruit boxes and baskets as if for a long wait. The din that greeted the _Memphis_ off Alexandria, suburb of Washington, began the noisy welcome that lasted for several hours. Every roof top, window, old ship, wharf and factory floor was filled with those who simply had to see Lindbergh come home. Factory whistles, automobiles, church bells and fire sirens all joined in the pandemonium. In the air were scores of aircraft. One large squadron of nearly fifty pursuit planes maneuvered in and out of the heavy vaporous clouds that hung over the river. Beneath them moved several flights of slower bombers. The giant dirigible airship, the U.S.S. _Los Angeles_, wound back and forth above the course of the oncoming _Memphis_. By eleven o’clock the saluting began. Vice Admiral Burrage, also returning on the _Memphis_, received his customary fifteen guns from the Navy yard. The President’s salute of 21 guns was exchanged. Firing from the cruisers’ battery and from the shore stations lent a fine rhythmic punctuation to the constantly increasing noise from other quarters.