"After a few hours at 'Gib,' we were next sent across to Casa Blanca, where the appearance of the _Cornwall_ was about the first tangible evidence that French Africa had of the fact that England was really coming into the war in earnest. There was a good deal of unrest in Morocco at the time, for the Germans were even then at work upon their insidious propaganda among the Moslems of all the colonies of the Allies. The 'buzz' in the bazaars that the appearance of a British warship started must have served a very useful purpose at this critical juncture in carrying to the Arabs of the interior word that France was not going to have to stand alone against Germany. Our reception by both the French and native population of Casa Blanca was most enthusiastic, and during all of our stay a cheering procession followed in the wake of every party of officers or men who went ashore. "Leaving Casa Blanca, we were sent back to the Atlantic to search for commerce destroyers, ultimately working south by the Canaries and Cape Verde Islands to South American waters, where the _Karlsruhe_ was then at the zenith of her activities. The chase of this enterprising and elusive raider, whose career was finally brought to an inglorious end by her going aground on a West Indian Island, kept the _Cornwall_--along with a number of other British cruisers--steadily on the move, until the ominous and painful news of the destruction of Craddock's fleet off Coronel suddenly brought us face to face with the fact that there was soon going to be bigger game than a lone pirate to be stalked. "We never had the luck to sight even so much as the smoke of the _Karlsruhe_, although--as I only learned too late to take advantage of the information--the _Cornwall_ was within an hour or two's steaming of her on one occasion. I _did_ think we had her once, though--a jolly amusing incident it was, too. I was getting uncomfortably short of food at the time--a very common experience in the 'here-to-day-and-gone-to-morrow' sort of life we were leading;--so that when the welcome news reached me by wireless one morning that a British ship--Buenos Aires to New York with frozen beef--was due to pass through the waters we were then patrolling, I lost no time in heading over to intercept her on the chance of doing a bit of marketing.