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White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War by Herman Melville
page 286 of 536 (53%)
Genoese, and Papal fleets that came to the shock at Lepanto; of
both horns of the crescent of the Spanish Armada; of the
Portuguese squadron that, under the gallant Gama, chastised the
Moors, and discovered the Moluccas; of all the Dutch navies red
by Van Tromp, and sunk by Admiral Hawke; of the forty-seven
French and Spanish sail-of-the-line that, for three months,
essayed to batter down Gibraltar; of all Nelson's seventy-fours
that thunder-bolted off St. Vincent's, at the Nile, Copenhagen,
and Trafalgar; of all the frigate-merchantmen of the East India
Company; of Perry's war-brigs, sloops, and schooners that
scattered the British armament on Lake Erie; of all the Barbary
corsairs captured by Bainbridge; of the war-canoes of the
Polynesian kings, Tammahammaha and Pomare--ay! one and all, with
Commodore Noah for their Lord High Admiral--in this abounding Bay
of Rio these flag-ships might all come to anchor, and swing round
in concert to the first of the flood.

Rio is a small Mediterranean; and what was fabled of the entrance
to that sea, in Rio is partly made true; for here, at the mouth,
stands one of Hercules' Pillars, the Sugar-Loaf Mountain, one
thousand feet high, inclining over a little, like the Leaning
Tower of Pisa. At its base crouch, like mastiffs, the batteries
of Jose and Theodosia; while opposite, you are menaced by a rock-
founded fort.

The channel between--the sole inlet to the bay--seems but a
biscuit's toss over; you see naught of the land-locked sea within
till fairly in the strait. But, then, what a sight is beheld!
Diversified as the harbour of Constantinople, but a thousand-fold
grander. When the Neversink swept in, word was passed, "Aloft,
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