go aheid; me carburretty's to borrow a rocket-line. I fruz," and he eventually drifted congratulated the old pensioner ashore at Tynemouth. The who had fired the rockets, for Daring lived up to her name, he was still feeling rather hurt and went full-speed up the that I had disdained to make coast, blowing her siren-I had use of his life-saving arrangeheard a siren to seaward about ments. 8.30, and eventually hit the rocks near St Mary's Light, two miles north of my position, and sank like a stone. Commander S- and the rest of the crew pulled down to the Tyne in two small boats, and had a fairly rough passage. Commander S- and I left the ship at 8 A.M. to look for the boat. We landed at Howden and went to his car, and found all the cylinders cracked. The sentry, whom he had left in charge, had turned the wrong tap; instead of draining the radiator he had turned on the petrol, and the frost had done the rest. We then found a soldier batman driving a car, and we commandeered it, as we found that the owner was on leave. Taking two of my crew, we drove over the frozen snow up the coast road, looking for the wreck. When we got to Whitley Bay, there was I swam off to the boat to have a look round, and found that she was just as we had left her the night before, except that there was a slight trace of chlorine gas due to salt water in the battery tank, also some of the loose gear in the boat had broken adrift and smashed up several electrical fittings. When I got back we decided that we would try and haul the boat up on the beach, take out all the heavy gear, patch her bottom, and refloat her at high water. About 3 o'clock the tide was low enough to enable us to get on board in waders. We opened up all the hatches to clear the fumes, blew out all the water and fuel tanks, and made fast a big hemp hawser to the boat's bow. There was a covetous crowd of motor owners watching 2000 gallons of the best petrol being blown into the sea, but there was no help for it. At about 9.30 that night it was high water, so at 9 o'clock, with the permission of the colonel commanding and the great goodwill of his officers, we had about 100 soldiers down on the sand manning the hawser. Luckily we had a very high tide, and after twenty minutes we felt the boat yield about a foot; the soldiers, who, like sailors, enjoy doing I anything which is not their legitimate job, redoubled their efforts, and the boat slid off the rocks across a strip of deeper water, and grounded gently on the sand. Helped by the swell, we coaxed her six inches at a time up the sand till the tide started to ebb, then secured her for the night. There was a certain captain in the Yorkshires for whom I shall always have a warm spot in my heart. Not only did he organise my military salvage party and arrange billets for my crew, but he gave me a room in his house. When I had finished work at about 11.30, I found a fire in my room, a hot-water bottle in my bed, and a hot toddy on the table! Could a man do more for a complete stranger! Next day we pulled out the four torpedoes through the bow tubes, and stripped the boat of everything which we could remove to lighten her, sending all the gear away in a lorry. Steel plates and sheets of rubber were brought round by the Bonaventure's repair party, and at low water we careened the boat and patched all the holes except two or three small ones right aft, which were buried in the shifting sand. We laid out two kedge anchors in the sand, one on either bow of the boat, attached a single block to the ring of each, and rove a hemp from the bridge through each block and away up the sand. Two tugs came out from the Tyne, VOL. CCXVIII.—NO. MCCCXXII. and made fast one behind the other on to a 44-inch wire secured round round my conning tower. At high tide I went on the bridge and conducted the entertainment. The two bow-lines were again manned by soldiers, and I worked on each alternately till the boat started to roll slightly. Then I signalled to the tugs, "Slow ahead both." The tugs started to work up speed, so, foreseeing what would happen, I signalled "Stop!" They went on to full speed and the wire parted, and our efforts were wasted for the day. I was very disappointed, especially as the stern of the boat was getting more and more sanded up. That evening I discussed the matter with a retired salvage expert, and next morning all hands were busy filling sandbags, which we borrowed from the military. These bags, when filled, we built into two walls, making a V-shaped figure, the point of the V being at the stern of the boat, and the sides running down to the sea at an angle of 45 degrees to the water's edge. The idea of this is that the sea tends to sweep away the sand inside the walls why I don't know, but it certainly worked well on this occasion. Next day at high water I had all my crew on board, all the soldiers on the bow-lines, and two tugs, each one with its separate wire on to the conning tower-one towing north-east and the other south-east. It was an unusually high tide, and I did 2 K 2 not begin operations till the in writing out a service letter, top of high water. I started with a copy of my log and in with the starboard bow-line replies to all the questions reand south-eastern tug, then quired by King's Regulations vice versa. At the second effort to be asked in such cases. we shifted her stern sideways Carlin arrived from Whitley about a foot, and hope ran Bay, where he had been staying high: then she started to with the soldiers-quite unmove seawards slowly, getting known to me, ostensibly to faster and faster, and then off look after my private belong. she slipped with a run, both ings. He was a pensioner of tugs going full speed. I had the "Private Paget" type, a cobble standing by on each with a remarkable gift for side of the reef, and all hands narrative, and I'm certain that on the bridge in case of acci- his impressionable hosts were dents. The stern slid over the deeply thrilled by the experi rocks easily enough, but the ences of "the first marine who boat drew more water amid- had ever been shipwrecked in ships. She started to go down a submarine." by the bow, and I was afraid we should get stuck again; but we were going fairly fast, so in spite of some fearful bumps we managed to "porpoise over the ridge. The water came right up to our feet as she went down by the stern into the deep water on the far side of the rocks, while three of us stood on the conning tower lid to keep the water out of the boat, and the cobble closed to take us off if required. However, she floated on an almost even keel, though we found later, on docking, that she had two more large holes in the midship ballast tanks. We started off for our inglorious trip to the Tyne in tow of a tug, and the cox'n produced a tot of rum all round to keep out the cold. I spent next day, Christmas, C8 was docked at Swan & Hunter's yard, where all defects were made good, and a Court of Inquiry was held in the Bonaventure, at which I had to answer a good many awkward questions. Taking into consideration my inex perience and the sketchy methods of navigation which one had to adopt in a "C" class submarine, I was let down lightly: Lieutenant Powell is to be informed that he has incurred their Lordships' displeasure, and that he is to be more careful in future." When I received my message from the Admiralty, a senior officer said to me: "Well, everybody has to run aground once during his his career, 80 you're lucky to get it over in a rotten little boat like 'C8.'" I swallowed the insult to my first command. THROUGH THE LINES TO ABD-EL-KRIM'S A JOURNEY RECENTLY UNDERTAKEN IN A LITTLE-KNOWN COUNTRY. BY GERALD SPENCER PRYSE. THE rivers are still monstrously swollen on the ninth day, and mountains steaming in hot sunshine, when we take affectionate leave of the friends we possess in the household of Kayed Mohammed el Boccali, the chieftain himself being conspicuously absent when the time arrives. In point of fact, he has not been visible for several days, though the guesthouse adjoins his own establishment, and all our meals have been prepared in his kitchen. The askar make it abundantly clear there ought to be ceremony about such a departure; and the general assemblage, by their rather shamefaced air, show themselves of the same opinion. For one's own part, however, the dominant emotion is that of relief. We are half on the look-out for some trick, and it is no great surprise to find ourselves deprived of mules at a rendezvous outside the village, where, by the holding up of instructions from El Makhzen, we are compelled to resume the journey as common men on foot. The sense of lurking danger has made swift decision III. necessary; so everything not absolutely essential is quickly discarded, and the journey continued with only a twenty-four hours' allowance of bread and figs, and a few frowsy European garments in the bottom of a sack. Yet so great is the sense of relief, that the two following days are very cheerfully spent sliding about sodden mountains, in shoes that have to be tied together with fragments torn from the sack, neither of us being able to walk any distance in the loose sbabeet of the country. But one soon discovers compensations in all this. Not only has more intimate contact with the members of the Boccali house party been effected by their leader's churlishness, but the new intimacy with those around seems likely to continue. The fury of Mohammed the Askari is in itself a sustaining spectacle. That he, the pride of the Beni Ouariel, the fierce and trusted emissary of El Makhzen, should have been spurned by a beggarly Kayed of the Jabala! Somebody will be thrown into the Kaasba for this. One could not speak plainly to Boccali in his own household, but one may fearlessly toss out opinions on the open mountain. Meanwhile a forlorn little procession is struggling over slippery rocks, by ways that are hard to find, even where they have not been entirely blotted out by avalanches from above; or converted into cascades by the tendency of water to find its way through the nearest available channel to sea-level. Sometimes almost carried off one's feet by running streams, and sometimes sinking into a marsh; one wonders what even the most capable mule would have made of the problem. It is a day of mighty effort, sustained by still mightier curses. Everywhere is activity after the period of forced inaction. Troops of soldiers held up by the torrents are hastening by. Old women and children, household belongings piled on their backs, are continuing their task of refurbishing homesteads long deserted; men not away with the harka are occupied with the heavy work of ploughing up land recently recovered from the enemy, before it is too late; while women distribute the seed. Already the sun is burning hot, and the heads of these toilers are crowned with straw hats possessing immense umbrella brims, worn over the handkerchiefs or towels without which they would never appear in public. Almost invariably their legs are enclosed in buskins from knee to ankle, to ward off thorns, a device which gives to these limbs a curiously Arcadian appearance. The average colouring among the women, who are at such pains to shield themselves from the sun, is not so dark as one may observe in Southern Europe, and there are occasional blueeyed Scardinavian types to be encountered. I remember a girl, fair-haired and tall, with athletic limbs inadequately concealed by a striped cotton garment extending barely to the knees, who approached with so frank an expression of curi osity on her countenance, as to leave one in doubt whether she might not be some Brunhilde transported from the north, rather than the invari able Ayesha or Fatima of the country. That the Riffi descend from the same Iberian or Berber stock as do the Khabyles of Algeria and the inhabitants of the Atlas, seems evident. Yet they are differentiated by unmistakable traits from others of that race. One is driven to the conjecture that at some time Northmen have descended on a coast-line abounding in excellent little harbours from Taleses to Beni Boufra and Bades and Ajdir, as they did also in Yorkshire or Northum berland or Sicily. Here are rock-bound bays in plenty, where ships might safely be pulled up on to the beach. Doubly isolated by mountain and by war, the Riffi themselves seem to have conserved the vestige of such an infusion, though it is less conspicuous among the inhabitants of the |