WITH A KITE BALLOON AT THE DARDANELLES. "Show a leg! Show a leg! Rise up and shine! Lash up and stow! The sun's burning your bloomin' eyes out!" So bellows the Master at Arms down the hammock flat, and I awake to see above, outlined by the edges of the hold, a square panel of burnt blue Asiatic sky. Across my hammock strikes a scorching beam of sunlight, and in a few moments I have pulled over my bare skin a washed-out overall suit and have put my naked feet into a heavy pair of boots, and I am dressed for the day. The hammock is lashed up, unhooked, and stowed, and at the shrill whistle of "Fall in," I hurry up the companion to the blinding heat of the aft deck of H.M. Kite Balloon Ship _Manica_, which a few months before was a small tramp steamer. Being but a second-class air mechanic (general), and so, therefore, in the lowest category, I stand in the rear line of parti-coloured men,--some in khaki shorts and white shirts, some in khaki jackets, some in blue naval coats. "Parade. 'Shun. Answer to your names.... All present, sir. Parade, stand at ease!" The duty officer, in white flannel trousers and trim blue-and-gold coat, calls us again to attention, and tells the master-at-arms to send us to balloon stations at once. "Parade--balloon stations--carry on!" At once we break off, and hurry down the dim crooked gangway connecting the aft deck with the balloon deck forward. Soon we break once more into the sunlight, with the tall canvas wind screen on the left, and on the right the clumsy orange bulk of the kite balloon lying along the wide wooden deck, on which it is held by rows of canvas bags filled with sand, which are hooked in clusters, like ripe fruit, to its netting. My position is No. 1 starboard, so I hurry at once to the forward end of the deck and stand by to remove the bags. The whistle is blown, and we lift the bags up, and remove the hooks from the netting, and hang them lower down. As bag after bag is moved the great bulk of the balloon begins to rise up, until beneath its body can be seen the men working on the opposite side of the deck. Now the network is out of reach, and therefore we hang clusters of bags round the splicing of the ropes. Then the balloon, its loose underside flapping slightly in the wind, is allowed to rise sufficiently to permit the basket party to carry the willow-woven basket to its position in the centre of the deck. As soon as the basket is fixed to its rigging the balloon is dragged down again by the men at the ropes, the sandbags are removed, and the balloon is let up till the basket is just resting on the deck. The two observers, with their charts and binoculars, climb aboard, and then the order is given, "Let her up gently!"