y was engaged near Portsmouth in raising a vessel which had sunk
there." It would be hardly fair to surmise the probable tendency of the
Khan's secret thoughts on thus witnessing the care bestowed on the
training of those destined hereafter to maintain the Feringhi yoke on
his native country; but he expressed himself highly gratified by all
that he saw; and we find him, shortly after, in attendance at a
spectacle more calculated than any thing he had yet witnessed, to
impress him with an adequate idea of British power--the launch of a
first-rate man-of-war at Woolwich.[16] "The sight was extremely
exhilarating, from the fineness of the day, and the immense crowds of
people, of all ages and both sexes, generally well dressed, who were
congregated on the land and the water, expecting the arrival of the
Queen. Her majesty appeared at one o'clock, and proceeded to the front
of the great ship, where a place, covered with red cloth, was prepared
for her; I had a seat quite close, and saw it all very well.... The
ceremony of _christening_ a ship is taken from that of christening a
child, which, as practised in the Nazarene churches, consists in
throwing water in its face, and saying a prayer; but here a bottle of
wine hung before her majesty, and opposite to it a piece of iron,
against which she pushed the bottle and broke it, and the wine was
sprinkled over the ship, which then received its name.... In a short
time the slips were drawn, and she glided nobly into the stream of the
Thames amidst the shouts of the spectators, and anchored at a short
distance. I went on board this immense floating castle, but observed
that she was not ready for sea, and I was told that she would require
some time to be rigged, provisioned, &c. Our party then returned to
Greenwich; and after my friends had dined, with whom I partook of a
delicate little fish now in season, (whitebait,) drove back to town."

The Khan had no leisure, on this occasion, to inspect the wonders of the
_top-khana_, or arsenal; but he paid a second visit for the purpose a
few days later, duly armed with an order from the Master-General of the
Ordnance, which is indispensable for the admission of a foreigner. His
sensations, on entering this vast repository of arms, were not unlike
those attributed to a personage whose fictitious adventures, though the
production of a _Feringhi_ pen, present one of the most faithful
pictures extant of the genuine feelings of an oriental on