ons "had had," until Secretary Chandler
started the movement of renovation by the first of all necessary
steps, the official exposure of the sham to which we had allowed
ourselves to be committed. There is an expression, "quaker guns,"
applied to blackened cylinders of wood, intended to simulate cannon,
and mounted upon ramparts or a ship's broadside to impose upon an
enemy as to the force before him. We made four such for the
_Macedonian_, to deceive any merchant-men we spoke as to our battery,
in case she should report us to an _Alabama_; and, being carried near
the bows, much trouble they gave us, being usually knocked overboard
when we tacked ship, or set a lower studding-sail. Well, by 1885 the
United States had a "quaker" navy; the result being that, not the
enemy, but our own people were deceived. Like poor Steece's passengers
on board the _Ariel_, we were blissfully sheltering behind pine
boards.

In 1867, however, these old ships and ancient systems were but just
passing their meridian, and for a brief time might continue to live on
their reputation. They were beautiful vessels in outline, and repaid
in appearance all the care which the seamen naturally lavishes on his
home. One could well feel proud of them; the more so that they had
close behind them a good fighting record. It was to one such, the
_Iroquois_, which had followed Farragut from New Orleans to Vicksburg,
that I reported on the second day of that then new year. She was
destined to China and Japan, the dream of years to me; but, better
still, there was chalked out for her an extensive trip, "from Dan to
Beersheba," as a British officer enviously commented in my hearing. We
were to go by the West Indies to Rio de Janeiro, thence by the Cape of
Good Hope to Madagascar, to Aden at the mouth of the Red Sea, to
Muscat at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, and so by India and Siam
to our first port in Chinese waters, Hong Kong. The time, too, was
apposite, for Japan had not yet entered upon the path of modernization
which she has since pursued with such revolutionary progress. Some
eight or ten years ago there lunched with me a young Japanese naval
officer, who I understand has occupied a position of distinguished
responsibility during the recent war with Russia. I chanced to ask him
if he had ever seen a two-sworded man. He replied, Never. He belonged
to the samurai class, who once wore them; but in actual life they have
disappeared. When the _Iroquois_