Slowly the Connecticut led the way and, when just beyond old Fort Santa Cruz on the eastern side, boomed a salute to the port. From a little rock all smoothed off and fairly polished, given up entirely to a fort, Villegagnon, came the answering salute. Instantly the whistles of hundreds of craft were set loose and tied down. No American has ever heard such a shrieking of vessels except at the international yacht races off Sandy Hook. The noise at Sandy Hook was greater because the number of boats about was greater; that's the only reason. How-de-do and welcome came from big and little craft all loaded down with people in their Sunday best, if they have such things down here. Parenthetically it may be remarked that judging from the way the women dress for street wear every day is Sunday with them in the matter of clothes. There were half a dozen boat crews out in eight-oared barges. Launches, rowboats, steamers, ferryboats, sailing craft of all kinds were just inside the harbor entrance. Soon magnificent Botafoga Bay unfolded itself with that wonderfully beautiful long reach of avenue, Bairo-Mar, running four miles in a crescent from the heart of the city toward Sugar Loaf, all set out in artistic landscape treatment. It was black with the people. Then the fleet approached the city proper. With a glass one could make out that the hills, the houses, the waterfront were black with the people. As Vice-Admiral Maurity afterward said in a speech: "The whole of the population of Rio, of all ages, chiefly belonging to the fair sex, could not avoid going out of their houses to crowd the neighborhoods of the harbor, the hills and islands around it, and all other points of view from the city of Rio and the Nictheroy's side, in order to greet the passage of the American fleet and to better appreciate the interesting display of her manoeuvres." Moreover, the population had been waiting there practically for two days. The fleet was scheduled to come in on Saturday. All of Saturday and far into the night tens of thousands had waited upon the hills and waterfronts. They were back, we were told, early on Sunday morning and they blackened and whitened the entire city. The American officers were almost dumfounded. What does it all mean, was the general inquiry. On steamed the Connecticut, and it was discovered that there was a German cruiser, the Bremen, in the harbor. More salutes! By the way, it may be remarked that Admiral Evans got the Rear Admiral's salute inside the harbor, the proper one that his two-starred flag requires. He got another Vice-Admiral's salute--and many persons thought it was a delicate hint to the United States--when the Italian cruiser Puglia came in a day or two later and gave him fifteen guns.