Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/80

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Twenty Years Before the Mast.
63

Glorious Fourth is not forgotten here, for our ship was dressed in many and gay colors, from stem to stern, and from the main truck to the water’s edge. At twelve o’clock, noon, a national salute was fired from the sloop- of-war Falmouth and immediately answered by H. B. M. ship Samorang. Such exchanges of international courtesy do much to keep up the kindly feeling between the two countries.

THE SOUTHERN CROSS.

On the 8th Benjamin Olden, a marine who had died the day before on board the ship Peacock, was laid at rest in the quiet graveyard on the little island of San Lorenzo. His body was escorted to the grave by a corps of marines. The "Southern Cross" was directly over our heads, and when on shore we could hear the gen-