When in Marseilles I like to make a little pilgrimage by funicular to Notre Dame de la Garde, the church of those who go down to the sea in ships, and, strolling through its dim, hushed transepts, to read the inscriptions, some naïve, some pathetic, on the hundreds of votive tablets placed there in gratitude and thanksgiving by those who have been saved from storm and shipwreck. I like to dine in the quaint little restaurants which fringe the waterfront on the delicacies for which Marseilles is famous—_langouste_, _homard_, crab, scallops, oysters, fish, and, of course, _bouillebaisse_. But particularly I like to stroll along the edge of the harbor, with its forest of masts and funnels, and watch the ships, flying the flags of many nations, coming from or setting forth for strange, far-off, outlandish ports on all the Seven Seas. * * * * * The short winter’s day was drawing to a close when the _Duc d’Aumale_ nosed her way cautiously between the arms of the Marseilles breakwater and lifted to a choppy sea. From her lofty pinnacle above the city Our Lady on Guard seemed to bid us a benign farewell. Atop the cliffs off our port bow the Corniche Road twisted and wound and doubled upon itself like an uncoiled lariat tossed carelessly upon the ground. Further to the north, the peaks of the Maritime Alps reared themselves majestically skyward, purple-cloaked and ermine-caped. To starboard rose the rocky islet, crowned by the grim Château d’If, where Monte Cristo sought to ease his solitude by proclaiming, “The world is mine!” And before us, its foam-flecked surface turned to a field of dancing gold by the westering sun, stretched the Mediterranean—the road to Africa. Ah, “outward bound!” The words beget A dream of mosque and minaret And golden dalliance In orange gardens redolent Of nights of stars and wonderment. “Down Channel!”—down the foam-besprent Blue highway to Romance. CHAPTER II THE GATE TO BARBARY Bizerta, the great naval base and fortress on the northern coast of Tunisia, is a French pistol aimed straight at the head of Italy—or perhaps it would be a closer simile to say the toe. It commands the narrowest part of the Mediterranean, where the Middle Sea contracts to a width of less than four score miles. In fact, were the French to mount on Cape Bon a gun having the range of the one with which, in the spring of 1917, the Germans shelled Paris, they could drop their projectiles on the shores of Sicily.