One rough day on the bay I took passage in a small steam-launch to visit the Olympia, where the Admiral’s flag floated, to call on him.  There was plenty of steam, and it was pleasant to get out a good way behind the breakwater, for the waves beyond were white with anger, and the boat, when departing from partial shelter, had proceeded but two or three hundred yards when it made a supreme effort in two motions—­the first, to roll over; the second, to stand on its head.  I was glad both struggles were unsuccessful, and pleased with the order:  “Slow her up.”  The disadvantages of too much harbor were evident.  The slow-ups were several, and well timed, and then came the rise and fall of the frisky launch beside the warship, the throwing of a rope, the pull with a hook, the stand off with an oar, the bounding boat clearing from four to ten feet at a jump; the clutch, the quick step, the deft avoidance of a crushed foot or sprained ankle, with a possible broken leg in sight, the triumphant ascent, the safe landing, the sudden sense that Desdemona was right in loving a man for the dangers he had passed, the thought that there should be harbors less fluctuating, a lively appreciation of the achievements of pilots in boarding Atlantic liners.  The broad decks of the Olympia, built by the builders of the matchless Oregon, had a comforting solidity under my feet.  The Admiral was believed to be having a nap; but he was wide awake, and invited the visitor to take a big chair, which, after having accompanied the launch in the dance with the whitecaps, was peculiarly luxurious.  The Admiral didn’t mind me, and had a moment’s surprise about an observer of long ago strolling so far from home and going forth in a high sea to make a call.  I confessed to being an ancient Wanderer, but not an Ancient Mariner, and expressed disapprobation of the deplorable roughness of the California Albatross, a brute of a bird—­a feathered ruffian that ought to be shot.

The Admiral would be picked out by close attention as the origin of some millions of pictures; but he is unlike as well as like them.  Even the best photographs do not do justice to his fine eyes, large, dark and luminous, or to the solid mass of his head with iron-brown hair tinged with gray.  He is a larger man than the portraits indicate; and his figure, while that of a strong man in good health and form and well nourished, is not stout and, though full, is firm; and his step has elasticity in it.  His clean-shaven cheek and chin are massive, and drawn on fine lines full of character—­no fatty obscuration, no decline of power; a stern but sunny and cloudless face—­a good one for a place in history; no show of indulgence, no wrinkles; not the pallor of marble, rather the glint of bronze—­the unabated force good for other chapters of history.  It would be extremely interesting to report the talk of the Admiral; but there were two things about him that reminded me of James G. Blaine, something of