to Don John, Admiral of Savoy; Duke Urbino, Admiral of Genoa; the Admiral of Naples, and the Commandeur of Castile.  The reserve, under the command of the Marquis of Santa Cruz, consisted of thirty-five galleys.  Immediately in rear of the Real, or royal galley of Don John, was that of the Grand Commander Requesens.  The number of seamen, soldiers, officers, and galley-slaves in the fleet amounted to over eighty thousand persons; twenty-nine thousand infantry had been embarked, of which number nineteen thousand were Spaniards.  Opposed to the Christians on this day was a Turkish fleet which had on board no less than one hundred and twenty thousand men embarked in two hundred and fifty galleys, without counting an innumerable host of smaller vessels.

[Illustration:  SEBASTIAN VENIERO.  Inset, portraits of Don John and Pope Pius V. Heroic statue of Don John dominating Christian and Turkish Fleets.  The breath of the Almighty destroying the Turkish fleet at Lepanto.]

The authorities on whose accounts of the battle this description is based are Prescott, the famous historian; P. Daru, a member of the Academie Francaise, who wrote an exhaustive Histoire de Venise and Don Cayetano Rosell, member of the Spanish Academy, who is responsible for an exposition of the subject, known as Historia del combate naval de Lepanto.  From a comparison of the works of these eminent men one fact emerges with great clearness, which is that the battle of Lepanto was an indiscriminate melee which was decided by some of the most desperate fighting ever recorded, but which depended hardly at all upon the tactical abilities of the men in chief command.  It is true that we are told Don John issued written instructions to the commander of each ship, but we are left in the dark as to what these instructions were, while at the same time we discover that in his line of battle, which in the first instance appears to have been that of “single line ahead,” the galleys of all nationalities were inextricably mixed up; making it thereby impossible for the Papal, Spanish, and Venetian commanders to deal, as they should have done, exclusively with their own men.  On the other hand, Occhiali kept together the squadron of the Sea-wolves; he outgeneralled and had all but defeated John Andrea Doria, when the end came and he was obliged to retreat.

We are, however, anticipating.  Don John passed down his own line in a light “fregata” giving a few words of exhortation and advice to each ship under his command.  If the bastard brother of the King of Spain did not exhibit any large measure of ability as a leader on this occasion, he was perhaps none the less the right man in the right place, as he had about him so winning a way, he was so striking and gallant a figure, that the hearts of all under his command went out to him.  The seamen and soldiers of the great armada greeted him with enthusiastic shouts of delight as he bade them remember in whose cause it was that they fought.  The last of the Knights-errant must have made a brave show as he passed down that line four miles in length, the sun shining on his damascened armour, and his yellow curls streaming out from beneath his helmet.