The bigness of the sea and the difficulty of finding single vessels, though one may be equipped with all the aids of cable and wireless telegraphy, will begin to be realised. I have told how the _Dresden_ passed the _Glasgow_ on the 18th. She had been at the Rocas Islands on the 14th. The _Karlsruhe_, too, had been at the Rocas Islands on the 17th. She, also, had come south, though Cradock, with his squadron, was hunting for her in the north up to the far latitudes of Halifax. The two German cruisers, which had seemed so far away from the _Glasgow_ when she was at Rio calculating possibilities on August 1st, had both evaded the West Indies squadron and penetrated into her own slenderly guarded waters. Upon August 30th the _Glasgow_, _Monmouth_, and _Otranto_ were back at their Pirates’ Lair, which they could not leave for long, since it formed their rather precarious base of supply, and there they learned that the _Dresden_ had sunk the British steamer _Holmwood_ far to the south off Rio Grande do Sul and must be looked after at once, since she might have it in mind to raid our big shipping lines with the River Plate. Here on the 31st they learned also of the action in the Heligoland Bight, and of the German invasion of France, and of the retreat from Mons. The land war seemed very far off, but very ominous to those Keepers of the South Atlantic in their borrowed base upon a foreign shore thousands of miles away. My readers, especially those who are the more thoughtful, may ask how the _Glasgow_ was able with a clear conscience to hie away to the north and leave during all those weeks our big shipping trade to Brazil, Uruguay, and the Argentine uncovered from the raiding exploits of all the German liners lying there which might have issued forth as armed commerce raiders. The answer is that none of the German liners had any guns. The spectre of concealed guns which might upon the outbreak of war be mounted, proved to be baseless. The German liners had no guns, not even the _Cap Trafalgar_, sunk later, September 14th, off Trinidad Island by the _Carmania_. The _Cap Trafalgar’s_ guns came from the small German gunboat _Eber_, which had arranged a meeting with her at this unofficial German base. The project of arming the _Cap Trafalgar_ was quite a smart one, but, unfortunately for her, the first use to which she put her borrowed weapons was the last, and she went down in one of the most spirited fights of the whole war. The _Carmania_ had come down from the north in the train of Rear-Admiral Cradock.