It was upon the whole fortunate that Lüdecke took the step of sinking the _Dresden_ himself. It might have caused awkward diplomatic complications had we taken possession of her in undoubted Chilean territorial waters, and yet we could not have permitted her any opportunity of escaping under the fiction of internment. Nothing would have been heard of internment if the English squadron had not turned up—the _Dresden_ had already made an appointment with a collier—and if we had not by our fire so damaged the cruiser that she could not have taken once more to the sea. Her self-destruction saved us a great deal of trouble. In the interval between the firing and the sinking of the _Dresden_, the Maritime Governor of Juan Fernandez suggested that the English should take away essential parts of the machinery and telegraph for a Chilean warship to do the internment business. Neither of these proceedings was necessary after the explosion. The _Dresden_ was at the bottom of Cumberland Bay, and the British Government apologised to the Chileans for the technical violation of territorial waters. The apology was accepted, and everyone was happy—not the least the officers and men of the _Dresden_ who, after months of aimless, hopeless wanderings, found themselves still alive and in a sunny land flowing with milk and honey. After their long stay in Tierra del Fuego the warmth of Chili must have seemed like paradise. The _Dresden_ yielded to the _Glasgow_ one item of the spoils of war. After the German cruiser had sunk, a small pig was seen swimming about in the Bay. It had been left behind by its late friends, but found new ones in the _Glasgow’s_ crew. That pig is alive still, or was until quite recently. Grown very large, very hairy, and very truculent, and appropriately named von Tirpitz, it has been preserved from the fate which waits upon less famous pigs, and possesses in England a sty and a nameplate all to its distinguished self. With the sinking of the _Dresden_ the cruise of the _Glasgow_, which I have set out to tell, comes to a close. She returned to the South Atlantic, and for a further stretch of eighteen months her officers and men continued their duties on board. But life must for them have become rather dull. There were no more Coronels, or Falkland Islands actions, or hunts for elusive German cruisers. Just the daily work of a light cruiser on patrol duty in time of war. When in the limelight they played their part worthily, and I do not doubt continued to play it as worthily, though less conspicuously, when they passed into the darkness of the wings, and other officers, other men, and other ships occupied in their turn the bright scenes upon the naval stage. CHAPTER XIII THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS: SOME IMPRESSIONS AND REFLECTIONS PART I