he relative
directions, or, as the sea phrase is, their "bearings," and the
particular facilities each offers for operations of war. This furnishes
the ground plan, the skeleton, detached from confusing secondary
considerations, and from which a clear estimate of the decisive points
can be made. The number of such points varies greatly, according to the
character of the region. In a mountainous, broken country they may be
very many; whereas in a plain devoid of natural obstacles there may be
few, or none save those created by man. If few, the value of each is
necessarily greater than if many; and if there be but one, its
importance is not only unique, but extreme,--measured only by the size
of the field over which its unshared influence extends.

The sea, until it approaches the land, realizes the ideal of a vast
plain unbroken by obstacles. On the sea, says an eminent French
tactician, there is no field of battle, meaning that there is none of
the natural conditions which determine, and often fetter, the movements
of the general. But upon a plain, however flat and monotonous, causes,
possibly slight, determine the concentration of population into towns
and villages, and the necessary communications between the centres
create roads. Where the latter converge, or cross, tenure confers
command, depending for importance upon the number of routes thus
meeting, and upon their individual value. It is just so at sea. While
in itself the ocean opposes no obstacle to a vessel taking any one of
the numerous routes that can be traced upon the surface of the globe
between two points, conditions of distance or convenience, of traffic
or of wind, do prescribe certain usual courses. Where these pass near
an ocean position, still more where they use it, it has an influence
over them, and where several routes cross near by that influence
becomes very great,--is commanding.

Let us now apply these considerations to the Hawaiian group. To any one
viewing a map that shows the full extent of the Pacific Ocean, with its
shores on either side, two striking circumstances will be apparent
immediately. He will see at a glance that the Sandwich Islands stand by
themselves, in a state of comparative isolation, amid a vast expanse of
sea; and, again, that they form the centre of a large circle whose
radius is approximately--and very closely--the distance from Honolulu
to San Francisco. The circumference of this circle, if the trouble is
taken to