CHAPTER XXV.

THE HAVEN AT LAST—HOME IN THE THAMES. The “Mighty Thames”—Poor Jack Home Again—Provident Sailors—The 272 Belvedere Home and its Inmates—A Ship Ashore—Rival Castaways—Greenwich Pensioners—The Present System Compared with the Old—Freedom Outside the Hospital—The Observatory—The Astronomer Royal—Modern Belief in Astrology—Site of Greenwich Park—Telescopes and Observations—The Clock which Sets the Time for all England—Sad Reminiscences—The Loss of the _Princess Alice_—The Old _Dreadnought_—The Largest Floating Hospital in the World—The Trinity House: Its Constitution, Purposes, and Uses—Lighthouses and Light‐vessels—Its Masters