figures they are 1075 feet long, 157 feet wide, and 45 feet deep. In other words they are 80 feet longer, 50 feet wider, and 5 feet deeper than those of the Panama Canal. They are large enough to hold eventually a 60,000-ton ship, which is the dream of Herr Ballin. It follows that the largest battleships can easily pass through. The Canal itself is 98.65 km. (i.e. about 61 miles) long. It is 144 feet wide at the bottom, and 332 feet wide on the surface. The cost of building and improvements amounts to over 20,000,000l. Apart from its great strategical value, it saves ships going from the Baltic to the North Sea, or vice versa, a distance of 450 miles (80 as against 530).

About nine o'clock the champions of Germany's future were sighted. The battleship Helgoland' was leading, and she certainly cut through the water in great style. With a distance of about a thousand feet between them, seven other large ships followed. Two torpedoboat flotillas (i.e. 22 boats) accompanied them. Behind the 'Helgoland' came the 'Thüringen,' then the 'Oldenburg,' followed by the 'Ostfriesland,' the flagship of the 'Helgoland' class. Behind them, again, came some old acquaintances, viz. the ships of the 'Kaiser' class, consisting of the Kaiser,' the König Albrecht,' and the 'Friedrich der Grosse,' the flagship. The famous battlecruiser Moltke' brought up the rear.

་

The huge gates of all the four docks were open as soon as the warships appeared before them; and, without the delay of a second, the first four battleships were berthed inside. Everything worked with clock-like precision. The Helgoland' and her sister-ships fairly bristled with guns. She carried twelve 12-inch guns with a 66 per cent. capacity to each broadside. Surrounding the big ones, and (it seemed) in every available spot, were the lighter calibre guns, the 5'9 and 34-inch, of which she carried fourteen each. There seemed to be as many gun-barrels as quills on a porcupine's back.

I do not recall exactly how long it took those eight ships and their escorts-using all four locks-to pass from the Elbe into the Canal, but I am certain it was less than twenty minutes from beginning to end. Well,' enquired my official escort, 'Germany's cause is not lost yet, eh? with such "Prachtkerle" (magnificent fellows)

to stand guard over us.' But somehow my enthusiasm had subsided. It was a magnificent sight, yet it seemed sad. It was wonderful, yet I could not draw any inspiration from it. Again and again there came leaping back to my mind the solemn, confident answer of those two simple sailors: Grosse Manöver'; and, try as I would, I could not see in the whole performance anything else but a practical demonstration of England's sea-power. These splendid ships deserved a better fate than 'Grand Manoeuvres' in the Canal!

When I returned on board, the captain seemed surprised and at the same time relieved to see me back. 'Where the have you been?' he asked. 'This is the first time I know that any non-German ever spent so much time on land. We began to think you had been arrested. It does not take much, you know, in this part of the world in these days, to be locked up. A careless question, one yard off the straight and narrow path, and you're in for it.' While I had been well entertained on shore, they had had the usual performance on board. Every corner had been searched and examined by a staff of experts. The engines, too, were tested, to avoid a possible breakdown in the Canal. What were they searching for in these ships of legitimate traders attached to the German fleet? Dynamite, Sir. This is our war (they say). We are fighting for our existence, and we are not going to take anybody's word for anything. We make sure.'

We were not allowed to follow in the wake of the proud Armada, but had to await further orders. The surprise of the day was yet in store for me. About noon my friend the harbour official came to our boat and invited me once again to go for a little walk. As we reached the docks I could see in the distance the smoking funnels of a number of warships. What ships are those?' I asked. 'The same you saw this morning,' my cicerone replied; and, when I exclaimed, but they are coming towards us,' I am sure he was the proudest man in Germany that day. Yes, that's just it. That is what I wanted to show you. When they were about ten miles up the Canal they received sudden orders to turn about. They continued a distance of from one to two miles-according to the position of the squadron--to the

next turning-basin, swung round, and here they are again."' And indeed, there they came, in the order in which they had passed in.

Since the enlargements and improvements of the Canal, it has four turning-basins at different points, each with a minimum width at the bottom of nearly 1000 feet. They are for the use of the fleet only. Ordinary vessels, once they are in the Canal, must continue in the same direction. These improvements were only completed in July of last year (1914). A British squadron attended the opening festivities and passed through the Canal at that time. How far, far off those days seem now! In addition to the turning-basins there are eleven sidings (formerly eight). All the bridges have been rebuilt, so that most of them are now between 100 and 150 feet above the surface.

It was nearly one o'clock before we finally made our entrance into the Canal. The huge gaping mouths of the 'small' locks (nearly 400 feet long) swallowed us up, and ten minutes later we were inside. Together with the other small craft, the number of which by now had increased to seventeen, led by one naval tug and followed by another, our procession started at a fair pace on its sixty-one mile journey through the most jealously guarded stretch of waterway in the world. Once on the way, our progress was fairly rapid. I think we made our 8 to 9 knots easily. At Taterpfahl, about four miles beyond the locks, we passed underneath the first railroad bridge, a magnificent structure standing well over 140 feet above the level of the Canal. I noticed how very sparsely and compactly it seems to have been built. You might blow it up, but, unless there happened to be a train on it at the time, the debris could be picked up and removed from the Canal in a very short time. The supports stood well back from the banks, and no amount of dynamite could blow them into the waterway. The stations on both sides are over a mile distant from the Canal.

With the exception of an isolated hill here and there, the surrounding country was flat, marshy and generally uninteresting. It reminded me of the Norfolk Broads on a rainy day. Now and then we could see in the dim distance the top of a church-spire. Both sides of the

Canal were guarded at regular intervals by double sentries. Numerous military huts and sentry-boxes were stationed at every mile. There must have been a soldier for every hundred yards. Anti-aircraft guns were lavishly distributed along the entire distance, especially on and near the bridges. At less than twelve miles from the entrance we reached a small lake, which had been dredged and deepened and now forms turning-basin No. 4.

At Grünenthal, nineteen miles from the North Sea entrance, we passed under another magnificent fixed bridge, about 150 feet above the surface and with a span of 540 feet. I counted four large Krupp anti-aircraft guns on it. After passing several sidings, we reached Meckel Lake, another turning-basin. At Rendsburg, thirty-seven miles from our starting-point, we passed under the recently completed all-steel high-level railroad bridge, also some 150 feet above the water. Half a mile or so further on, a turn-bridge crossed the Canal; and I noticed a group of civilians, led and followed by two soldiers, crossing it. It looked like a transport of prisoners, but it was not. They were merely natives, crossing from one side of the Canal to the other.

From Rendsburg the Canal follows for about eight miles the old course of the Eider Channel made in 1874

by King Christian VII of Denmark. As complete darkness had overtaken us by the time we reached Rendsburg, we were ordered to enter a small harbour and make fast for the night. Nobody was allowed to land. Several Landsturm men were billeted on us, under command of a young Reserve Lieutenant. He was quite a pleasant fellow. In civilian life he was a Professor, and taught History at the University of Berlin. After having assigned his men their places and duties, he joined us in our cabin, and of course the conversation soon drifted into the topics of the day-the war, their ships, their chances of success in a naval battle.

'Why should we come out and risk the destruction of our fleet?' the officer replied, in answer to my enquiry on this point. We should have much to gain if we won, that is true enough, but I think the disaster, in case we should lose, would be far greater.' And he went on to explain, illustrating his discourse from English naval history, that so long as Germany kept its 'Fleet in Being,'

there was always a possibility of eluding the enemy's main forces, while he would be obliged to keep his fleet massed, so as to have a superiority in any naval engagement that might ensue.

He was a pleasant and interesting talker, but leading questions he swept aside. He chose his own line of argument and no amount of facts could turn him from it. I asked him what had become of their exports and their colonies? In what manner had the German fleet fulfilled its mission to 'protect our overseas possessions,' as Tirpitz expressed it when he demanded an increased Naval Budget? But it takes more than mere facts to shake a German's colossal confidence in the ruling powers. 'Wir werden sehen' (we shall see) was always his final

retort.

The country that greeted us next morning was quite different and a very pleasant change from the dull marshy flats of the day before. The Canal, after having turned east, now passed through a country of many small lakes, sprinkled with miniature islands. The surrounding hills varied in height from 50 to 300 feet and were covered with pine or beech woods. At Quarnbeck, about ten miles from the eastern entrance to the Canal, we passed through Flemhuder Lake, which forms turningbasin No. 1. Shortly before noon we reached the Baltic locks at Holtenau-Wick. As our cargo was destined for the Imperial Wharf, we had to go through a new series of examinations, before the necessary permits were issued. It took us the best part of two hours to clear; and, during that time, there was no 'kind and cultured' official to take me on a personally conducted tour of the locks. Still, as they are exactly of the same type as those at the North Sea entrance, I did not lose much.

(9) KIEL HARBOUR.

·

It was a most imposing spectacle that greeted us, when, after leaving the approaches to the locks, we turned south, entering Kiel Harbour proper. There before us lay the great Fleet in Being.' We passed close by the 'Lothringen,' the Markgraf,' the Nassau,' the 'Wittelsbach,' etc. Torpedo-boats, pinnaces, motor-boats, yawls, launches, boats of all kinds and descriptions,