Sufficient unto the night was the misery thereof. Sea sickness came over quite a few, which was duly abetted by the stifling air. Those near the hatch-ways were fortunate in getting to the deck rails when their inner recesses were most severely tempest-tossed. Those who were hemmed in on all sides by human forms, who lay stretched on the stairs, in hallways, benches and wherever there was an inch of space, had a difficult time when they attempted to find a passage way through the closely matted carpet of humanity. Col. C. G. Mortimer, the regimental commander, came down from his station on the deck and found it well-nigh impossible to get through the corridor of the forward saloon. Through the hours of the long night the King Edward was convoyed across the channel at a speed nearing 25 knots an hour. Early morning of Sunday, August 4th, drew the King Edward near the shores of Northern France. At 2 p. m. the ship approached a harbor, but it was not until daylight that those on board could see a sign on a warehouse of a pier, bearing the name Cherbourg. CHAPTER XIV. SO THIS IS FRANCE! "So this is France!" For the first time the boys of Battery D repeated this phrase in all its reality as they stood upon elevated ground in the vicinity of the British Rest Camp at Cherbourg and viewed the vista of harbor, four miles distant, where, from the gang-plank of the King Edward they set foot on French soil on Sunday morning, August 4th, at 8 o'clock. The panorama presented the naval and commercial harbors, from which Cherbourg, the seaport of Northwestern France, derives its chief importance. The eye can see the three main basins, cut out of the rock, with an area of fifty-five acres, which forms the naval harbor and to which are connected dry-docks; the yards where the largest ships in the French navy are constructed; magazines and the various workshops required for an arsenal of the French navy. A glance about reveals surrounding hills, in which batteries are located in fortification of the works and the town. A second glance toward the harbor shows a large naval hospital close to the water's-edge, at the mouth of the Divette, on a small bay at the apex of the indentation formed by the Northern shore of the Peninsula of Cotentin. There is also at the mouth of Divette, the commercial harbor, connecting with the sea by a channel. This harbor consists of two parts, an outer harbor and an inner basin. Outside these harbors is the triangular bay, which forms the road-stead of Cherbourg. The bay is admirably sheltered by the land on three sides, while on the North it is sheltered by a large breakwater, which is protected and leaves passage for vessels. The passages are guarded by forts placed on islands intervening between the breakwater and the mainland, and themselves united to the mainland by breakwaters.