n
scribbling. Wrote my first epistle to K., using for the first time the
formal "Dear Lord Kitchener." My letters to him will have to be formal,
and dull also, as he may hand them around. I begin, "I have just sent
you off a cable giving my first impressions of the situation, and am now
steaming in company with Generals d'Amade and Paris to inspect the
North-western coast of the Gallipoli Peninsula." I tell him that the
real place "looks a much tougher nut to crack than it did over the
map,"--I say that his "impression that the ground between Cape Helles
and Krithia was clear of the enemy," was mistaken. "Not a bit of it." I
say, "The Admiral tells me that there is a large number of men tucked
away in the folds of the ground there, not to speak of several field
Batteries." Therefore, I conclude, "If it eventually becomes necessary
to take the Gallipoli Peninsula by military force, we shall have to
proceed bit by bit." This will vex him no doubt. He likes plans to move
as fast as his own wishes and is apt to forget, or to pretend he has
forgotten, that swiftness in war comes from slow preparations. It is
fairer to tell K. this now, when the question has not yet arisen, than
hereafter if it does then arise.

Passing the mouth of the Dardanelles we got a wonderful view of the
stage whereon the Great Showman has caused so many of his amusing
puppets to strut their tiny hour. For the purpose it stands matchless.
No other panorama can touch it. There, Hero trimmed her little lamp;
yonder the amorous breath of Leander changed to soft sea form. Far away
to the Eastwards, painted in dim and lovely hues, lies Mount Ida. Just
so, on the far horizon line she lay fair and still, when Hector fell and
smoke from burning Troy blackened the mid-day sun. Against this
enchanted background to deeds done by immortals and mortals as they
struggled for ten long years five thousand years ago,--stands forth
formidably the Peninsula. Glowing with bright, springtime colours it
sweeps upwards from the sea like the glacis of a giant's fortress.

So we sailed on Northwards, giving a wide berth to the shore. When we
got within a mile of the head of the Gulf of Saros, we turned, steering
a South-westerly course, parallel to, and one to two miles distant from,
the coastline. Then my first fears as to the outworks of the fortress
were strengthened. The head of the Gulf is filled in with a horrible
marsh. No landing there. Did we land far away to the We