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Show ALL WELL WITH THE SHIPS. Today the great fleet of American battleships, under command of Admiral Ad-miral Evans, sails from I?io for Buenos Ayres. 11 trip of 1.020 knots, and is scheduled to arrive on Saturday next, .January 25th; that, is, this was the first programme. Later dihgranis of the voyage, however, omit tho trip to Buenos Ayrcs, and take the fleet to Punta Arenas direct. ' a journey of 3250 knots. At Punta Arenas the ships will renifilii ine days, preparatory prepara-tory to their passage through the Straits westward into trie Pacific. Whon Admiral Evans started on his journey, ho said, that the fioct was ready for a feast, a fight, or a frolic. Thcv have had .tho -feast and the frolic in plenty, beginning with their arrival at Trinidad on December 23rd. where they had almost a wenk of tropical enjoyment. en-joyment. The fleet arrived at Trinidad ono day ahead, of. time, and spent Christmas Christ-mas da3' there' in the most enjoyable festivities, Jf the ships put) into Montevideo Mon-tevideo and Buenos Ayrcs as first scheduled, they vi)l have another fine time of summer enjoyment, beginning next Saturday; so that the fleet's feastand frolic arc likely to continue, but the fight is nowhere in eight, nor is it in the least likely to be. The fleet is doing fine iu its great ' trip. It will probably get on well and presumably without accident until it arrives at Pmlta Arenas. The critical point is passing ' .through the channel westward. It is noteworthy that iu ail of the journev of the tied so far, nnd. this will be true for the greater part of tho ' trip, that tho fleet, though nominally nom-inally going westward, 3.5 enst of its point of departure, much of tho timo a long.wn3' cast. Tfc will not go ns far west as Hampton Roads until it gets well up along -the coast of South Amorica, and is about to enter tho port of Callao, whoro it is scheduled to arrive on March 4th next. From thcro tho westing will bo made, the first Hchcdnled stop being nt Acapulco, Mexico, where a stay of five days is planned, and then the arrival at MTtigdalcna I5ay, where a slay of indefinite in-definite duration for target practice is tho programme. The fleet has cn;jo3'cd fair weather; the officers and men have had good health, tho only sickness reported being be-ing that of Admiral Evans himsolf at Rio Janeiro, whero a rheumatic foot is reported to have kept him in his cabin during tho whole of the sluy. Whether this rheumatic foot is physical or diplomatic, it is impossiblo at this distance to 6av. Wo shall probably hear more about it later on. It is a. jo3 to the people of the whole country coun-try to know that thoso who man the Jleot aro having such a good time, and that the fleet itself is in such excellent excel-lent condition. Wo trust thai it ma' remain so throughout tho voj'agc and uutil the end. And wo trust when tho ships get into Pacific waters that II103' will permanent!' remain there. |
