anxious, sad expression of Aunt Aston's
face, but soon forgot to wonder at it any
longer.

                   FLAGS.

THE flags of all nations are all primarily
associated with the army and navy, the troops
of soldiers aud the fleets of ships. They are
signals, however much they may afterwards
become trophies of honour and gallantry.
Each nation manages to have such flags as
may be readily distinguished from those of
other nations: and among those of any one
nation a wide diversity exists in the sizes,
the shapes, the patterns, and the colours, by
virtue of which they may be made to signify
different things and to convey different
intelligence. The terms flag, pendant, ensign,
jack, colours, have different conventional
meanings in the language of soldiers
and sailors. A military man seldom applies
the word flag, except to the small flags
attached to baggage-wagons, to distinguish
them one from another. What the world
usually calls a soldier's flag, he calls his
colours; and of these there are many
kinds, as camp-colours, field-colours, guard-colours.

We must, however, follow a fleet out upon
tho ocean to appreciate the true value of red,
white, and blue—the true significance of any
bright colours. As to national colours, on
land, it matters little what they are. If our
allied friends the French choose to adopt the
red, white, and blue—be it so; and if we
would hang out red, white, and blue in their
honour—be it so. Optical philosophers tell
us that red, yellow, and blue are complementary
each to the other two; and if we
choose to change vowel e into vowel i, and
hang out red, white, and blue as complimentary
to France—be it so.

The naval value of brightly-coloured flags
may be understood when we consider the
relation which the various ships of a fleet
bear to each other. A fleet being at sea, the
captains must all receive orders from one
fountain-head—the admiral in command.
This admiral has no messenget's, no aides-de-camp,
who can rattle off in a few minutes
to convey orders; he is on board one of
the ships, far distant, perhaps, from many
others, with an intervening sea so rough
that no small messenger-boats could live in
it. But, although circumstances are against
any such mode of communication, visible
signals are available with considerable advantage.
The ships being all on one general
level, each is visible from all the others, except
under some special circumstances; and
the captains manage, at any rate, that each
ship shall be in view of the admiral's

Here, at once, comes before us the value
of red, white, and blue—signals made by
means of colours—a chromatic language.

James the Second has the reputation of first
embodying into a code a system of signals
made by coloured flags. The thing was done
in a piecemeal manner before his time, but
he rendered the useful service of bringing it
into form, and the existing system is only an
extension of that which he devised. It is believed
that at the Battle of the Hogue the code
of signals was first used in its complete form
to convey both sailing and fighting instructions.
There are two different principles on
which signals, whether of sounds or colours,
may be conveyed. In one system, the signal
is known at once to express a definite order,
or to convey a definite piece of information,
according to a code of rules previously learned
in a book. In the other system, any
particular signal relates only to a particular
number; and the meaning of this number
can only be known to those who have access
to a particular book, wherein certain conventional
meanings of numbers are set down.
Some of the orders are given and sentences
transmitted, by the former method, referring
to manoeuvres which are not required to be
kept secret, and which are understood by
most officers and experienced seamen; but
the rest are of the other class. A signal
officer may tell his captain that the admiral
exhibits a particular number as a signal, but
it does not follow that that officer knows the
meaning of the number. There is a cipher—
a code of signals adopted by the Admiralty—
which is made known to few or many of the
officers, according to the exigencies of the
case. Hence there have been many codes of
signals proposed by inventors, each of whom
claims to have attained greater simplicity
and comprehensiveness than any of the others.
We have one now before us, in which the
author, by combining various small flags in
various ways, contrives to express nearly sixteen
hundred words and sentences, such as
are likely to be most useful at sea. One
combination, for instance, expresses bricks,
another potatoes, another cannon-balls; seven
little flags, particularly disposed, convey the
information—Weather has been variable,
with rain and dry weather, at the place I
came from: while eight little flags, under a
certain arrangement, seem to have the magniloquent
power of Lord Burleigh's shake of
the head, for they imply—Try to pick up
something floating in my wake, though you
should be obliged to yaw a little out of your
course. The flags differ in size, shape, colour,
pattern, and arrangement; and it thus arises
that so many different combinations may be
made by a few flags. Every ship takes out a
number of little flags for signals, whatever
may be the code by which those signals
receive interpretation. The British government,
and probably other governments in like
manner, have many flag signals which are not
made publicly known.

The colours of ship signals are connected in
a curious way with the arrangement of the