e station in
the Lower Bay, with the fleet of detained vessels clustering about the
hospital ships.

[Picture: THE HARBOR OF NEW YORK, AS SEEN FROM THE NARROWS]

Straight ahead, on our left, is a bold headland, sloping away from east
to west, towards the Jersey coast. This is Staten Island, a favorite
resort for New Yorkers, and taken up mainly with their handsome country
seats. The bay here narrows rapidly, and the shores of Staten and Long
Islands are scarcely a mile apart. This passage is famous the world over
as _The Narrows_, and connects the Inner and Lower Bays. The shores are
high on either side, but the Staten Island side is a bold headland, the
summit of which is over one hundred feet above the water. These high
shores constitute the protection which the Inner Bay enjoys from the
storms that howl along the coast. It is to them also that New York must
look for protection in the event of a foreign war. Here are the
principal fortifications of the city, and whichever way we turn the
shores bristle with guns. On the Long Island shore is Fort Hamilton, an
old but powerful work, begun in 1824, and completed in 1832, at a cost of
$550,000. The main work mounts eighty heavy guns; but since the Civil
War, additional batteries, some of them armed with Rodman guns, have been
erected. A little above Fort Hamilton, and a few hundred yards from the
shore, is Fort Lafayette, built on a shoal known as Hendricks' Reef. It
was begun during the war of 1812, cost $350,000, and was armed with
seventy-three guns. It was used during the Civil War as a jail for
political prisoners. In December, 1868, it was destroyed by fire, and
the Government is now rebuilding it upon a more formidable scale. The
Staten Island shore is lined with guns. At the water's edge is a
powerful casemated battery, known as Fort Tompkins, mounting forty heavy
guns. The bluff above is crowned with a large and formidable looking
work, also of granite, known as Fort Richmond, mounting one hundred and
forty guns. To the right and left of the fort, are Batteries Hudson,
Morton, North Cliff, and South Cliff; mounting about eighty guns of heavy
calibre. It is stated that the new work on Sandy Hook will be armed with
two hundred guns, which will make the defensive armament of the Lower Bay
and Narrows over six hundred and thirteen guns, which, together with the
fleet of war vessels that could be assembled for the protection of the
city, woul