276 THE MEDITERRANEAN, PHYSICAL AND HISTORICAL. 



ity of the open seas than to run the gauntlet of the numerous strateg- 

 ical positions of the Mediterranean, such as Port Mahon, Bizerta, and 

 Taranto, each of which is capable of affording impregnable shelter to a 

 hostile fleet, and though the ultimate key to the Indian Ocean is in our 

 own hands, our passage to it may be beset by a thousand dangers. 

 There is no act of my career on which I look back with so much satis- 

 faction as on the share I had in the occupation of Perim, one of the 

 most important links in that chain of coaling stations which extends 

 through the Mediterranean to the farther East, and which is so neces- 

 sary for the maintenance of our naval supremacy. It is a mere islet, it 

 is true, a barren rock, but one surrounding a noble harbor, and so em- 

 inently in its right place that we can not contemplate with equanimity 

 the possibility of its being in any other hands than our own. 



It is by no means certain whether exaggerated armaments are best 

 suited for preserving peace or hastening a destructive war ; the golden 

 age of disarmament and international arbitration may not be near at 

 hand, but it is even now talked of as a possibility. 



Should the poet's prophecy or the patriot's dream be realized and a 

 universal peace indeed bless the world, then this sea of so many vic- 

 tories may long remaiu the harvest field of a commerce nobler than 

 conquest. 



