"Archipelago Rio, ere Noah on old Ararat anchored his ark, there lay anchored in you all these green rocky isles I now see, but God did not build on you, isles, those long lines of batteries, nor did our blessed Saviour stand godfather at the christening of you, you frowning fortress of Santa Cruz, though named in honor of Himself, the divine Prince of Peace. "Amphitheatrical Rio! in your broad expanse might be held the Resurrection and Judgment Day of the whole world's men-o'-war, represented by the flagships of fleets--the flagships of the Phoenician armed galleys of Tyre and Sidon; of King Solomon's annual squadrons that sailed to Ophir, whence in aftertimes, perhaps, sailed the Acapulco fleets of the Spaniards, with golden ingots for ballasting; the flagships of all the Greek and Persian craft that exchanged the warhug at Salamis; of all the Roman and Egyptian galleys that, eaglelike, with blood dripping prows, beaked each other at Actium; of all the Danish keels of the Vikings; of all the mosquito craft of Abba Thule, King of the Pelaws, when he went to vanquish Artinsall; of all the Venetian, Genoese and Papal fleets that came to shock at Lepanto; of both horns of the Spanish Armada; of the Portuguese squadron that under the gallant Gama chastised the Moors and discovered the Moluccas; of all the Dutch navies led by Van Tromp and sunk by Admiral Hawke; of the forty-seven French and Spanish sail-of-the-line that for three months essayed to batter down Gibraltar; of all Nelson's seventy-fours that thunderbolted off St. Vincent's, at the Nile, Copenhagen and Trafalgar; of all the frigate merchantmen of the East India Company; of Perry's war brigs, sloops and schooners that scattered the British armament on Lake Erie; of all the Barbary corsairs captured by Bainbridge; of the war canoes of Polynesian Kings, Tamma-hammaha and Pomare--ay, one and all, with Commodore Noah for their Lord High Admiral, in this abounding Bay of Rio might all come to anchor and swing round in concert to the first of the flood.