At evening of the second day out we got abreast of Rhodes, with Karpathos on the port-bow. Rhodes stood afar off: would we had come nearer! The long darkening streak of Karpathos was our real introduction to the Archipelago. All night we ploughed through the maze of islands. "Not bad for the old man," said the second-mate next day; "he's never been here before, and kept going through a muddy night." The night had been starless. And when morning broke we lay off Chios, with a horrible tempest brewing in the north. A storm was gathering up in the black bosom of Chios. Here were no smiling wine-clad slopes, no fair Horatian landscape. All that seemed somehow past. A battle-cruiser lay half a mile ahead. She had been expecting us, together with two other transports and a hospital-ship in our wake. A black and snaky destroyer bore down from far ahead, belched past us, turned in her own length abreast of the transports, flashed a Morse message to the cruiser across the darkening water, and we gathered round her. She called up each in turn by semaphore: "Destroyer will escort you westward"; and left us. The journey began again. There was not a breath of wind; no beam of sunlight. The water was sullen. The islands were black masses, ill-defined and forbidding. This introduction to the theatre of war was apt. We were bearing up into the heart of the Sporades in an atmosphere surcharged and menacing. No storm came. It was the worse for that. Gone were the golden "isles that crown the Ægean deep" beloved of Byron. Long strata of smoke from the ships of war lay low over the water, transecting their shapes. After lunch the sun shone out. In the middle afternoon we came west of Skyros, and left our transports there. They were French: Skyros is the French base. At the end of the lovely island we turned east and set our course for Lemnos. It was ten before the lights of Lemnos twinkled through the blackness. At 10.30 we dropped anchor in the outer harbour of Mudros Bay. The light on the northern horn turned and flashed--turned and flashed upon us. Inside the boom a cruiser played her searchlight, sweeping the zone of entrance. A French submarine stole under our bows and cried "All's well," and we turned in to sleep. We were up before the dawn to verify the conjectures as to land and water hazarded in the darkness and the cruiser's pencil of light. At sunrise we moved in through the boom. Here were the signs of war indeed: a hundred and fifty transports lying at their moorings; a dozen cruisers before; the tents of the Allies clothing the green slopes. * * * * * Lemnos is beautiful. The harbour is long and winds amongst the uplands. We were anchored beside an islet, flecked with the colour of wild-flowers blooming as prodigally as the Greeks said they did when they sailed these seas. The slopes about the shore were clothed with crops and vines. Behind were grey hills of granite.