Southampton is the principal base for the smaller transports. Large vessels--the _Olympic_ and her sisters--come and go from the port, but it is by the quick turns of the smaller vessels that the huge traffic of the base is cleared. Tramping through the streets of the ancient town to turn in at the dock gates, company after company of troops file down the quayside to embark on the great adventure. The small craft are berthed at the seaward end of the docks, and the drifting white feathers at their funnel-tips marks steam up in readiness for departure. The drab-grey of their hulls and decks is quickly lined by ochre tint of khaki uniforms. There is no halt to the long lines of marching men, save on the turn of the stream to another gangway. By long practice, the Naval Transport Staff and the embarkation officers have brought their duties to a finished routine. There is not here the muster, the enumeration, the interminable long-drawn march and counter-march on the wharf-side, that is the case with the larger ocean transports. Crossing the gangway, carrying pack and equipment, the troops settle down on the decks in a closely packed mass. Anon, with no undue advertisement, the transports unmoor from the quay and steam down Southampton Water. Off St. Helens, the night covers them and they steal out swiftly on the Channel crossing. INTERLUDE BUT for the flat-topped dwellings, the domes and minarets, of the town that stands in the alluvial valley, Suda Bay is not unlike a Highland loch in its loneliness and rugged grandeur. The high surrounding mountains, the lofty snow-capped summit of Psiloriti standing up in the east, the bare hill-side sloping to the water with no wooded country to break the expanse of rock and heath, the lone roadway by the fringe of the sea that leads to the wilds, are all in likeness to the prospect of a remote Sutherland landscape. The darkling shadows on the water, the play of sun and cloud on the distant uplands, completes the picture; sheep on the hill-side set up plaintive calls that echo over the Bay. The heavy westerly gale that was reason for our being signalled in from sea has blown itself out, and the water of the Bay stands still and placid. All that is left of the furious squalls of yesterday has not strength to keep us wind-rode in the anchorage, and we cast about to the vagaries of the drift.