nto the service before I was "thought
of," as he said, and, no doubt, the place is as well known to young
fellows and old "under the pennant" in these prosaic days of "floating
flat-irons and gimcrack fighting machines," as the "Fountain Inn" in
High Street and the "Blue Posts" at Point were to Peter Simple and Mr
Midshipman Easy in the early part of the century, when, to quote dear
old Dad again, "a ship was a ship, and sailors were seamen and not all
stokers and engineers!"

There was no harbour station then, as now, fronting and affronting
Hardway; no trace of the hideous railway viaduct shutting out all the
foreshore, both of which at present exist in all their respective native
uglinesses!

No; for the upper windows of the old hotel commanded a splendid view of
the whole of the harbour and the roadstead of Spithead beyond, and I
seem to see myself a boy again that August afternoon, looking out over
the picturesque scene in glad surprise.

After our early dinner, Dad pointed out to me the various objects of
interest; the old _Victory_, flagship then as she is now again after an
interval of thirty years or more, during which time she was supplanted
by the _Duke of Wellington_, which she has in time supplanted once more;
the _Illustrious_, the training-ship for naval cadets, near the mouth of
the harbour, where the _Saint Vincent_ is now moored; and the long line
of battered old hulks stretching away in the distance up the stream to
Fareham Creek, the last examples extant of those "wooden walls of old
England" which Dibdin sang and British sailors manned and fought for and
defended to the death, sacrificing their lives for "the honour of the
flag!"

Yes, I remember the name of every ship that Dad then pointed out to me.
I can picture, too, the whole scene, with the tide at the flood and the
sunshine shimmering on the water and the old _Victory_ belching out a
salute in sharp, rasping reports from the guns of her main deck battery,
that darted out their fiery tongues, each in the midst of a round puff
ball of smoke in quick succession, first on the port and then on the
starboard side, until the proper number of rounds had been fired and a
proportionate expenditure of powder effected to satisfy the requirements
of naval etiquette for the occasion, when the saluting ceased, as
suddenly as it began.

The afternoon wore on apace after this, the sun sinking in the west over
Gosport, beyond Priddy's Hard, amid a wealth