The United States Army Transport Hancock had been assigned to the Commission for the trip from San Francisco to Manila and it was at noon on a pleasant day in mid-April—the seventeenth—that she pulled away from the crowded dock and headed straight for the Golden Gate and the long path across the Pacific that leads to the other side of the world. There were forty-five people in our party and, although most of us had met for the first time in San Francisco, we soon became well acquainted, as people do on shipboard, and proceeded at once to prove ourselves to be a most harmonious company.
The Hancock was the old Arizona, a one-time greyhound of the Atlantic, which the Government had purchased and remodelled for service as an army transport. A considerable fleet of such vessels plied the Pacific at that time, carrying large consignments of troops to and from the Philippines and, though there are not so many now, I still read with interest of the comings and goings of ships whose old, friendly sounding names became so familiar to us in the course of our residence in the East. The Grant, the Sherman, the Sheridan, the Thomas, and others, all named for great American generals, awaken memories of interesting days. The Hancock was later given up by the Army and turned over to the Navy on account of her heavy consumption of coal. She is now used as a recruiting ship at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
We found her very comfortable. There were few people aboard besides the members of our party, and, as she was equipped to carry the officers and men of an entire regiment, we found ourselves commodiously- quartered. Moreover, the commissary of the transport service had received instruc-
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