Growl? Lord bless your soul! he wouldn't be happy and the ship wouldn't be happy and the officers would be alarmed if he didn't growl. But sulk! Not on your life! He wants his ship to get the record in shooting, rowing, boxing, economic consumption of coal, signal work, speed and every other contest that enters into fleet life. He'll back his money on his own ship and when he fights he's willing to go down fighting with her if that's to be his fate. Dibdin's ballads of the true English sailor are as true to-day as when they were written, a century ago. And they are as true of the American sailor as of the English. Here is one that sums up Jack's seagoing life: Jack dances and sings and is always content; In his vows to his lass he'll ne'er fail her. His anchor's a-trip when his money's all spent; And this is the life of a sailor. And so you see that a warship may have guns and magazines and ponderous engines and coal bunkers and deep recesses in her hold, and her purpose may be to destroy and kill, but with it all there's good fellowship abounding in her gradation of compartments, and perhaps on reading this you get some indication of what was meant in the beginning of this article by the statement that socially a warship houses a series of clubs. Good clubs they are, too! [Illustration: _Courtesy of Collier's Weekly_ Entering the Golden Gate] CHAPTER XIV END AND LESSONS OF THE CRUISE TO THE PACIFIC With the arrival of the battleship fleet at San Francisco on May 6, 1908, the longest cruise ever made by a fleet of battleships of any navy came to an end. About one month was consumed by brief stays in various California anchorages on the way from Magdalena Bay to San Francisco. On the long cruise the fleet was reviewed by the Presidents of four republics--President Roosevelt, at Hampton Roads; President Penna, at Rio Janeiro; President Montt, at Valparaiso, and President Pardo, at Callao. According to the log of the Louisiana, on which the Sun's correspondent sailed, the fleet cruised 13,738.7 knots, or in round numbers 13,750 sea miles. Estimates of the exact distance vary on the sixteen battleships, according to the calculation of individual navigators. Some days' runs were estimated by dead reckoning, and there was no way of determining to a knot the distance that the ships travelled.