Not so many miles from the Island of Femern, where the German warship _Gazelle_ was torpedoed by an English submarine in the spring of 1915, although the fact was never communicated to the English Press, it was said to be situated. A small, exceedingly convenient harbour, with at least eighteen feet depth of water at all tides, and it was said to be capable of great developments. Its existence was not chronicled in ordinary guide-books nor on the maps in general circulation. Visitors were not welcomed and the local inhabitants were fearful lest their neighbourhood should be seized and overrun by undesirable foreigners. During the period with which we are concerned frost at night was intense. All open marshland was frozen as solidly as if encased in iron, whilst the ice-bound ditches, canals, and drains were levelled to the headland with drifted snow. Storms, of varying magnitude, were of daily occurrence. Cruel winds swept the bleak area visited, cutting through the thickest of garments till the marrow in one's very bones seemed congealed. No one at the time, acting from his own free will, would have appreciated either a business or a pleasure trip to the harbour in question. Yet early one eventful morning, when the weather was at its worst and everyone else had sought shelter, we braved the elements and attempted to lay a course through the maze of marshland roads, dams and banks, which would not have been an easy task to many of the natives. Our struggle to win through these and other unseen difficulties seemed hopeless. But our minds were made up. We were both determined, obstinate, persistent. Many times we were blown flat by the violence of the storm. Many times we fell, sunk to our necks, in a snowdrift. Many times we lost our way and had to retrace our steps or correct our course. But all the while we proceeded forward, with lips compressed and faces set in grim determination, to accomplish the task we had in hand; to view, to inspect, and to survey roughly the harbour and its works. Not a soul was observable upon all that vast flat area stretching away uninterruptedly to the horizon as far as the eye could command on either hand. The distant, dull, booming, angry roar of the sea upon the breakwaters and the shrieking wind made conversation impossible. No cover was available until the great embankment was attained. It guarded some tens of thousands of acres of reclaimed land. What a relief it was to us poor wayfarers to reach this comparative haven of peace, an oasis in the desert of howling storm! We had traversed many, many weary miles of most awful walking, under most exhausting circumstances, and a long rest was indeed welcome. Having reached the embankment unobserved, the remainder of the venture was, comparatively speaking, an easy matter.