ght. For the night, we groped with the lead into the Muschel
Balge, the tributary channel which laps round the inside of
Spiekeroog, and lay in two fathoms, clear of the outer swell, but
rolling a little when the ebb set in strong against the wind.

'A galliot passed us, going west, just as we were stowing sails; too
dark to see her name. Later, we saw her anchor-light higher up our
channel.

'The great event of the day has been the sighting of a small German
gunboat, steaming slowly west along the coast. That was about
half-past four, when we were sounding along the Harle.

'Davies identified her at once as the Blitz, Commander von Bruening's
gunboat. We wondered if he recognized the 'Dulcibella', but, anyway,
she seemed to take no notice of us and steamed slowly on. We quite
expected to fall in with her when we came to the islands, but the
actual sight of her has excited us a good deal. She is an ugly,
cranky little vessel, painted grey, with one funnel. Davis is
contemptuous about her low freeboard forward; says he would rather go
to sea in the Dulce. He has her dimensions and armament (learnt from
Brassey) at his fingers' ends: one hundred and forty feet by
twenty-five, one 4.9 gun, one 3.4, and four maxims--an old type. Just
going to bed; a bitterly cold night.

'_17th Oct._--Glass falling heavily this morning, to our great
disgust. Wind back in the SW and much warmer. Starting at _5.30_ we
tacked on the tide over the "water-shed" behind Spiekeroog. So did
the galliot we had seen last night, but we again missed identifying
her, as she weighed anchor before we came up to her berth. Davies,
however, swore she was the 'Kormoran'. We lost sight of her altogether
for the greater part of the day, which we spent in exploring the
Otzumer Ee (the gap between Langeoog and Spiekeroog), now and then
firing some perfunctory shots at seals and sea-birds... (nautical
details omitted). . . In the evening we were hurrying back to an
inside anchorage, when we made a bad mistake; did, in fact, what we
had never done before, ran aground on the very top of high water, and
are now sitting hard and fast on the edge of the Rute Flat, south of
the east spit of Langeoog. The light was bad, and a misplaced boom
tricked us; kedging-off failed, and at 8 p.m. we were left on a
perfect Ararat of sand, and only a yard or two from that accursed
boom, which is perched on the very summit, as a lure to the unwary.
It is going to blow hard too, t