To the youth of America I would like to send a message: Europe is one continent attached to still another even greater land mass. That other is the continent of Asia, filled with many strange races, all speaking different languages. Even Europe itself is split up into many nations speaking more than thirty different tongues. This I believe is largely responsible for the constant wars that are the curse of Europe. As an old sailor who has sailed before the mast around this world many times, I want to tell you Americans how lucky you are to live in a great country occupying a large part of this continent, with the wide Atlantic for a barrier on one side and the Pacific on the other. Yours is a great inheritance. You should be proud of it. You should make yourselves worthy of it. As a sailor who has sailed under many flags and whose friends and pals are the citizens of many countries and many climes, it is my dream that one day we shall all speak the same language and have so many common interests that terrible wars will no longer occur. But keep your bodies fit, and if your country needs you, just remember the motto of the sea: "Don't jump overboard! Stay with the ship!" To all my countrymen, wherever they may be, I would like to say: Look up to the bright sun and not into mouse holes where it is dark. Take my lads for your example. When their ship was wrecked on the coral reef of that atoll in the South Seas there was one thing that was not wrecked--their courage. Even when the _Seeadler_ met her fate, from stem to stern went up the cry, taken from an old refrain, "The German oak still stands." AUF WIEDERSEHEN! --------------------------------------------------------------------- [Illustration: Mopelia] Mopelia, a coral atoll of the Society Islands, where the Sea Devil planned a brief sojourn, and where the _Seeadler_ was wrecked by a tidal wave. "A circular reef studded with waving palms and within the reef a lovely, placid lagoon. The coral shore was snow white and, with the sun's rays reflecting from it, it looked like a sparkling jewel set in an alabaster ring, like emeralds set in ivory." --------------------------------------------------------------------- APPENDIX (Note A, see page 107.) Lloyd's Register of 1917-18 describes the _Pass of Balmaha_ as follows: Steel ship (captured and taken to Cuxhaven), built 1888 by R. Duncan & Co., Port Glasgow, gross tonnage 1571, length 245.4, breadth 38.8, depth 22.5. Until the World War, she was British-owned, and up until her fatal voyage her master was Capt. "Dick" Lee of Nova Scotia. * * *