Page:Autobiography of Rear Admiral Charles Wilkes.djvu/87

61 the other corps, but a soldier is soon brought into size by the rigor and stays adapted to bring him into the required Shape. The marching and ordinary parade duty was beautifully gone through with, but there it ended. The Bands were well appointed [and] instructed. I was told of the rigid drill of these troops and can well believe it, and the special discipline of body & limbs to bring the man to this one standard. To end my account of Russia and St Petersburg, I had my curiosity satisfied. There is not much to gain in the way of interesting information or amusement & one would tire with the monotonous character of its appearance and the want of life a capital city ought to give. It may be called a phlegmatic city; it cloys, and there is no desire left to again visit it.

We anchored for the night in the entrance to the harbor of Revel, and thence we proceeded into the Baltic and down towards Copenhagen. On our way a ridiculous incident took place during one night. The officer of the deck was ordered to keep a bright lookout for all lights; the night was a beautiful starlight [one], the ship moving along under a fine breeze. A light was reported from aloft, and thence to the Comdr. This was unexpected & orders sent to put the ship about immediately; great confusion ensued, the helm put down and the ship in stages went around. In a few minutes the Comdr came on deck, and the supposed light turned out [to be] a brilliant star rising—"by Zounds." It proved a good joke to all the watch, and the poor officer of the Deck, Lieutenant [Samuel] Downing, got the benefit of it. In truth, Charles Ellery and myself were the authors of it, exhibiting the want of knowledge of the Lieut, for no light could have been seen in that direction as none existed. The officer of the deck never knew and appeared always to me not to take the slightest interest in the movements of the ship regarding only the duty of trimming yards & sails; this is still a great omission on the part of officers. At the time I write of, few of them knew anything about navigation or taking of observation[s] of any kind, but they continued in the service and were finally promoted by seniority, when their deficiencies became evident though too late for the good of the Navy and its operations.

Off Gothland [Gotland] island we were quite close with the land and no light to be seen. The Comdr ordered a shotted gun to be fired which soon aroused the lightkeeper who rekindled the fire, the light being in the nature of a bonfire who kept it up by fagots of wood. It answered our purposes, but it showed alas the primitive state of Navigation and the untoward neglect of the watchers.

We remained a few days at Copenhagen, in the Roads. The Hornet, Captn [George C.] Read, joined us here, but the sea and current were so strong we could not have much communication. Capn Read reached the Guerriere very fortunately. They gave him a line astern in case he missed the ship, which he did, and succeeded only through its aid in getting on board. Paddy Read, as he was generally known, was not in the most pleasant humour on his getting on board and his temper was evident. He was a fine looking and manly officer and one of great