At a quarter to eight we set forth from our hiding-place, and five minutes later the party as a whole had its first view of the sea. The morning sun was on it, making sky and sea one undivided sheen. It was difficult to realise that at last we were near the coast. From the point where we were to the shore could be barely six miles. Within forty miles of the coast we had been at a height of something approaching 5000 feet, but each ridge we had passed had in front of it another to hide the sea from us. Thus it was that not until we had marched for twenty-three nights and twenty-two days did we first look on it. As we scanned the water through the field-glasses, it looked as dead as the adjacent country. Not a sail was in sight anywhere, not a single ripple disturbed the shining sheet of glass in front of us. With heads uncovered, and with thankful hearts, we stood gazing, but without being in any way excited. Thus it was that no shout like the "Thalassa! Thalassa!" of Xenophon's Ten Thousand broke from the lips of our little band that still August morning; although here was the end of our land journey at last in sight after a march of some 330 miles. Had we seen a single boat it would have been different. There was nothing. Our great desire now was to get down to the coast itself. We thought that there must surely be a village somewhere down on the shore, where we should be able either to get hold of a boat at night or to bribe a crew with a promise of much money if they would land us at Cyprus. Before us, the intervening country was covered with bare rocks, stunted trees, and scrub, and fell away to the sea in a series of small ridges and terraces. Still following the track, our party, weary and hot, came to a halt at 11 A.M. on the 30th August, two miles from the shore, in the shade of a ruined stone tower. There were similar square towers dotted along the coast; perhaps their ancient use, like that of our own Martello towers, had been to ward off a foreign invasion should need arise; or, in less exciting times, to show lights towards the sea to guide at night the ships in those waters. We stopped at the tower, because we thought it was unsafe to go farther and risk being seen by any coastguard that might happen to be stationed there. It was well we did so. From here Cochrane went on alone, and while he was away we saw our first boat. Coming round a headland of the coast, a few miles east of us, a motor-boat passed across our front and disappeared into a narrow bay a mile and a half to our west. She towed a cutter full of men. Cochrane also had seen them, and came back to the tower to tell us the news; unfortunately, he had not found the hoped-for village.