The voyage from Taranto to Salonica, via the Ionian Sea round Cape Matapan, took about three days, which was a great improvement on the Marseilles route, although it was by no means free from danger, and at times ships only travelled at night and had to take shelter in various intermediate ports, which, of course, increased the time. The usual precautions against submarines were taken, and the ships were painted all sorts of colours in curious geometrical designs, and the systems of intelligence and signalling were perfected. But in spite of all these efforts, many ships were lost on the Taranto-Salonica route, and still more among those which continued to cross from Marseilles or Southampton. Not infrequently, when a ship was expected carrying precious reinforcements or long-desired supplies, the ugly news would be flashed across the seas that she had been lost. Italian losses were not very numerous on this route, but among them was the large steamer _Minas_ which sank with many hundreds of soldiers. The possibility of shortening the dangerous passage was carefully studied. The first idea had been to land the troops somewhere in Greece and forward them by the Greek railways. But at that time the Greek Government, although nominally neutral, was really assisting the Central Empires and refused to grant permission for Allied troops to traverse Greek territory, and even if it had been forced to do so it would certainly have placed every conceivable obstacle in the way. This plan having been dropped, the Italians began to study the Santi Quaranta route. There was an elementary Turkish road or rather track across Albania, but it was absolutely impassable for lorries, and even light carts could not always use it. As soon as the Italian occupation in South Albania began to extend inland, work was commenced on the road between Santi Quaranta and Ersek, while the French started on the section between Florina and Ersek over the Pisoderi pass. By the spring of 1917 a few motor cars had succeeded in going over the whole route, although not without serious difficulty. In the summer the immense work was accomplished, and by the end of July the first columns of lorries began to circulate regularly between Santi Quaranta and Florina. But the carrying capacity of the road was limited, as was the capacity of the depots and magazines at Santi Quaranta, so that the route could not serve all the Allied armies and was not even sufficient for all the supplies of the Italian contingent, the more so as part of it was also used by the Albanian force. It was therefore decided to use it only for the mails land the transport of Italian troops; supplies, save in quite exceptional cases, continued to be sent by sea to Salonica. Allied officers, however, especially Serbs going to and from Corfu, made great use of it. Its main advantage lay in the fact that the passage from Taranto or Brindisi to Santi Quaranta was only one