We were most hospitably entertained at Batoum by the general in command and his staff, our railway-car being run away into a quiet siding. We were driven out first to a low-lying coast battery in which a couple of 10-inch guns had very recently been mounted, and where we saw detachments at drill; it appeared that the _Breslau_ had paid a call some four or five months before, had fired a few projectiles into the harbour and the town, and had then made off; it was hoped to give her a warm welcome should she repeat her tricks. The emplacement between the two filled by the 10-inch was occupied by a huge range-finder, apparently on the Barr and Stroud principle, with very powerful lenses. We afterwards drove up to one of the forts guarding the town on the land side, from which a fine view was obtained over the surrounding country. Then we went on board the hospital ship _Portugal_. A Baroness Meyendorff, cousin of our Meyendorff, was found to be matron-in-chief, and she took us all over the vessel, which was to proceed during the night to pick up wounded at Off, the advanced base of the force which was moving on Trebizond and which we were to visit next day. In the afternoon we had a fine run along an excellently engineered road up the Tchorok valley, a deep trough in the mountains. The air in this part of the world seemed delightfully genial after the rigours of Scandinavia, Petrograd and Mohileff, reminding one of Algiers in spring; the vegetation was everywhere luxuriant on the hillsides, the ground was carpeted with wildflowers, and oranges abounded in the groves around the town. Up about 3 the next morning, we boarded a destroyer to make the run to Off, which was eighty-five miles away along the coast, and put off out of the harbour through the gap in the torpedo-net about dawn. It was a lovely morning without a breath of air; this was as well perhaps, because the interior of the vessel, an old-type craft making a tremendous fuss over going, say, 18 knots, was not particularly attractive. The officers on board could not speak English or French, which struck one as odd, but apparently the personnel of the Black Sea fleet rarely proceeded to other waters--to the Baltic, for instance, or the Far East. All went smoothly until we were within about a dozen miles of our destination when a wireless message was picked up announcing that the _Portugal_ had just been torpedoed and was sinking close to Off, and asking for help. We cracked on all speed, the craft straining and creaking as if she would tumble to pieces, and I doubt if we were making much more than 25 knots then; but by the time that we reached the scene of the disaster any of the personnel who could be saved were already on board other vessels and being landed. We learnt that several of the male personnel and two or three of the nurses, including the Baroness Meyendorff, had, unhappily, been drowned.