FLORIDA AND THE WEST INDIES 51 



wealth ; Washington of her greatness. Here is a 

 degree of stately elegance undreamt of in the city 

 on the Hudson. No one pushes you off the side- 

 walk. There are open spaces, empty streets. 

 Trees have room to grow and spread their 

 welcome shade over the city's arteries. From 

 White House to Capitol stretches a broad ribbon 

 of white and green — Pennsylvania Avenue. The 

 gleaming Potomac glides past a lovely city in 

 which the American nation is, to use its own 

 favourite expression, making good. Farther north 

 you realise the breathless battle of the dollar, the 

 strenuous struggle of the Trust, the buzzing amphi- 

 theatre which witnesses the death-throes of 

 millionaire gladiators in the net of speculation. 

 Washington reveals rather the soothing splendour 

 of a past, the brotherhood of nations, the glory of 

 a good fight fought for the honour of a great nation, 

 which is something higher than gold or oil. 



The one episode of my brief stay in the capital 

 was a meeting with the President, one of the two 

 ambitions that took me across the ocean. On calm 

 reflection, I believe that I even put the privilege 

 of shaking hands with Mr Roosevelt higher than 

 catching a tarpon of anything less than three 

 hundred pounds. He had for years made strong 

 appeal to my imagination as both statesman and 

 sportsman, a combination dear to all who have a 

 kind thought for Derby, Palmerston, and other 

 great names of the past. Was ever such another 

 man of Destiny .'' The term has been loosely 

 applied to those that have played a greater part in 

 the world's history, but it fits with peculiar appro- 

 priateness the man whose rivals made him Vice- 



