Knightsbridge Barracks. I was then to feel my way along the
wall until I came to a row of houses set back from the sidewalk. They
would bring me to a cross street. On the other side of this street was
a row of shops which I was to follow until they joined the iron railings
of Hyde Park. I was to keep to the railings until I reached the gates
at Hyde Park Corner, where I was to lay a diagonal course across
Piccadilly, and tack in toward the railings of Green Park. At the end
of these railings, going east, I would find the Walsingham, and my own
hotel.

"To a sailor the course did not seem difficult, so I bade my friend
goodnight and walked forward until my feet touched the paving. I
continued upon it until I reached the curbing of the sidewalk. A few
steps further, and my hands struck the wall of the barracks. I turned
in the direction from which I had just come, and saw a square of faint
light cut in the yellow fog. I shouted 'All right,' and the voice of
my friend answered, 'Good luck to you.' The light from his open door
disappeared with a bang, and I was left alone in a dripping, yellow
darkness. I have been in the Navy for ten years, but I have never known
such a fog as that of last night, not even among the icebergs of Behring
Sea. There one at least could see the light of the binnacle, but last
night I could not even distinguish the hand by which I guided myself
along the barrack wall. At sea a fog is a natural phenomenon. It is as
familiar as the rainbow which follows a storm, it is as proper that
a fog should spread upon the waters as that steam shall rise from a
kettle. But a fog which springs from the paved streets, that rolls
between solid house-fronts, that forces cabs to move at half speed, that
drowns policemen and extinguishes the electric lights of the music hall,
that to me is incomprehensible. It is as out of place as a tidal wave on
Broadway.

"As I felt my way along the wall, I encountered other men who were
coming from the opposite direction, and each time when we hailed each
other I stepped away from the wall to make room for them to pass. But
the third time I did this, when I reached out my hand, the wall had
disappeared, and the further I moved to find it the further I seemed
to be sinking into space. I had the unpleasant conviction that at any
moment I might step over a precipice. Since I had set out I had heard
no traffic in the street, and now, although I listened some minutes, I
could only