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The magnificence of this visit and reception being so extreme, King August, for one item, sailing to it, with sound of trumpet and hautbois, in silken flotillas gayer than Cleopatra's, down the Elbe, there was a rush towards Berlin of what we will not call the scum, but must call the foam of mankind, rush of the idle moneyed populations from all countries; and such a crowd there, for the three weeks, as was seldom seen.
Most of the Confederate ports had been either captured or were so strictly blockaded that it was next to impossible for the blockade-runner to get in or out, while the capture of the forts on the Mississippi enabled them to use the Federal flotillas of gunboats to the greatest advantage, and to carry their armies into the center of the Confederacy.
At a still earlier period, say in the seventies, one who in summer chanced to be on Lake Winnipeg at the mouth of the great Saskatchewan river which, by countless portages and interlinking lakes, is connected with all the vast water systems of the North would have seen the fur traders sweeping down in huge flotillas of canoes and flat-bottomed Mackinaw boats exultant after running the Grand Rapids, where the waters of the Great Plains converge to a width of some hundred rods and rush nine miles over rocks the size of a house in a furious cataract.
As both steamers and sloops are painted white, and the sails are perfectly dazzling in their purity, and twenty, thirty, and forty of these flotillas may be seen in the course of a morning, the Hudson river presents a very animated and unique appearance. It is said that everybody loses a portmanteau at Albany: I was more fortunate, and left it without having experienced the slightest annoyance.
In five minutes the sea was alive with flotillas of small boats, headed by launches, speeding for the Baiquiri dock. Some of the boats were manned by crews of sailors, while others were rowed by the soldiers themselves. Each boat contained sixteen men, every one in fighting trim and carrying three days' rations, a shelter tent, a gun and 200 cartridges.
In later days Strabo and Pliny tell us how flotillas of 120 ships proceeded from Myos Hormos to Okelis in thirty days on their way to India, going together for fear of the pirates who marauded this coast, and in those days the settlements on the Red Sea must have presented a far livelier aspect than they do now.
But this mission of Admiral Sims, and the eventual despatch of submarine flotillas to the war zone, were but two phases of the enormous problem which confronted the Navy Department upon the outbreak of hostilities. There was first of all the task of organizing and operating the large transport system required to carry our share of troops overseas for foreign service.
Captain Len Guy admirably combined boldness and prudence in his command of his ship. He never passed to leeward of an iceberg, if the distance did not guarantee the success of any manoeuvre whatsoever that might suddenly become necessary. He was familiar with all the contingencies of ice-navigation, and was not afraid to venture into the midst of these flotillas of drifts and packs.
There were also four cruisers of the "town" class, three light cruisers, and torpedo flotillas. The fight was, however, mainly between the battle-crusiers. As soon as Hipper heard of Beatty's approach he turned south-east.
The Germans, it appears, had got wind of the enemy plan, and arranged a somewhat similar counter-stroke. As Commodore Tyrwhitt's flotillas swept southward, they engaged and chased 10 German destroyers straight down upon Heligoland.
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