the gale we were only making

knots, and

that at that rate I never would make port.

courses

are

There were three courses open to me: to let Three her drift, consuming my oil, in the hope that it would blow over; to run into a Spanish port; possible. or to run for France, my destination, and, if I fell short of it, to yell for help by radio, and trust to luck that they could send out and pick me up. The first course was too risky. I would be making untold miles to leeward all the time, would probably roll the masts and funnels out of her, and maybe burst down anyhow, too far off for help. The second choice was the safest. I could reach Ferrol or Vigo all right, but they would probably try to intern me; and while I had heard that King Alfonso was a regular guy and a good scout to run around with, the ensuing diplomatic complications would make me about as popular in Allied circles as the proverbial skunk at a bridgeparty. So I took the final alternative, and jammed her into the teeth of it for all I thought she could stand without imitating an opera hat or an accordion. And, glory be, she made The it, the blessed little old cross between a porpoise destroyer and a safety-razor blade! Whether the gale France. really moderated, or I got more nerve, I don't know; but anyhow I gave her more and more, half a knot at a time, until we were actually making appreciable headway against it. never thought any ship could stand the bludg eoning she got. It seemed as if every rivet must shear, every frame and stanchion crush, under the impact of the Juggernaut seas that hurtled into her. As a thoroughbred horse starts and trembles under the touch of the whip, so she reared and trembled, only to bury herself again in the roaring Niagara of water. Oh, you thoroughbred high-tensile steel! blue- Steel the blooded aristocrat among metals; Bethlehem aristocrat or Midvale may claim you-you are none the metals.

I

makes

among

Torpedo

detonators spilt on deck.

less worthy of the Milan casque, the Damascus blade, your forefathers! Verily, I believe you hold on by sheer nerve, when by all physical laws should buckle or bend to the shock!

And so we kept on. Don't you know, how in the stories it is always in a terrific gale that the caged lion or gorilla or python breaks loose and terrorizes the ship? We don't sport a

menagerie on the, but I did pick up the contents of the dry gun-cotton case, which had broken and spilt the torpedo detonators around on deck contiguous to the hot radiator! And, of course, the decks below were knee-deep in books, clothes, dishes, etc., complicated in some compartments by a foot or two of oil and water.

Well, the next day we made a little more, and the seas were only gigantic, not titanic. The oil was holding out better, too, as we struck a better grade in some of our tanks, and I saw that we had a fighting chance of making it. By night I felt almost confident we could, and I really slept some. Next day I expected to make land, but, of course, had little idea how far I might really be from my reckoning. Nevertheless, we sighted Light about where I expected to, and laid a course from there into the harbor. It was a rather thick, foggy day, and pretty soon I noted a cunning little rock or two, dead ahead, where they didn't by any means belong. So I rather hurriedly arSoundings rested further progress, took soundings, and bearings of different landmarks, and found that we were some twenty-five miles from our reckoning so far, in fact, as to have picked up the next light-house instead of the one we thought.

and landmarks.

After this 'twas plain sailing, though I had never been into that port before. Made it about noon, took possession of a convenient mooring-buoy inside the breakwater-which buoy I found out later was sacred to the

French flag-ship or somebody like that-called on our Admiral there, and was among friends. Yes, by heck, I let 'em buy me a drink at the club-I needed it! Had oil enough left for

just about an hour more!

While the great campaigns were being waged on the western fronts, there was being carried on in a more remote part of the world a series of operations which involved as hard fighting and as many difficulties as were encountered in any other field of action. The campaigns in East Africa which resulted in driving the Germans from their former colonies are described in the following narrative.

Learned
South

Africa in
the Boer

War.

I

EAST AFRICA

JAN CHRISTIAAN SMUTS

N the strenuous days of the Boer War I learned to know my South Africa from the Indian to the Atlantic Ocean as one learns a country only under the searching test of war. I came to know the unfrequented paths, the trackless parts of the bush, the wastes where people do not often go. I believe it is generally admitted that I covered more country than any other commander in the field on either sideand my movement was not always in the direction of the enemy!

When the present war broke out, I proceeded once more on my extensive travels, and I became something of an expert in the waterless, sandy wastes of the southern half of German Southwest Africa. As for the Kalahari Desert, over which the movement of men and transport was supposed to be quite impossible, we Obtaining did not rest until we had sunk bore-holes for

water on

the Kalahari Desert.

water for hundreds of miles, and until we had moved a large force of thousands of mounted men across an area in which it was thought no human being could ever move. One of the reasons of our success in that campaign was that, moving through the Kalahari Desert, we struck the enemy country at its very heart. The travels of Livingstone, of Selous, who was a comrade of mine in this war, and of other illustrious men in those vast solitudes of southern Africa were as joy-rides to what we had to undergo in conducting a big campaign against the enemy, and still more against nature.

A campaign in

Africa.

study of

When that campaign was over, and I thought my traveling days were past, the call came to East East Africa, and 1916 was spent in traveling over the vast tropical expanses of that fascinating country. I need scarcely say that a military commander has often very special opportunities of learning geography. He has to study the country with the eyes not of the scientist or the traveler or the hunter, but of the soldier responsible for the lives and the movements and supplies of large masses of men. It is one thing to follow the track of the elephant or to stalk the lion or antelope or to collect butterflies or other gorgeous things; it is quite a different and, from the point of view of learning geography, certainly a far more enlightening, task to lead a large army over those virgin solitudes, where your problem involves the careful study not only of topographi- Careful cal features, but of all the numerous natural topogconditions which affect your progress. To pro- raphy vide for the needs of a small safari may be a light or delightful task; but the difficulties and requirements of a large force, moving forward against an alert, ubiquitous foe, compel you to probe into everything: the nature of the country, with its mountains and rivers, forests and deserts, for scores of miles around; its animal and human diseases; its capacity for supplies and transport; its climate and soil and rainfall. And one of your first discoveries is that the books of the travelers are mostly Books of wrong. What to them was perhaps a paradise all wrong. of plant or animal life is to you, moving with your vast impedimenta, a veritable purgatory. You soon come to agree with Scripture that all men are liars, and from this rule you do not even except the missionaries who write with their heads in the clouds; nor do you except the writers of intelligence books compiled in Whitehall from the hunting tales of the trav

necessary.

travelers

E.W.-2 Vol. III