I have dwelt upon the characteristics of the rival squadrons at the risk of being wearisome since an understanding of their qualities is essential to an understanding of the action. On October 31st, the _Glasgow_ put into Coronel, a small coaling port near Concepcion and to the south of Valparaiso, which had become von Spee’s unofficial base. He did not remain in territorial waters for more than twenty-four hours at a time, but he got what he liked from German ships in the harbour. The _Glasgow_ kept in wireless touch with the _Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_, which were some fifty miles out at sea to the west, and von Spee picked up enough from the English wireless to know that one of our cruisers was at Coronel. At once he despatched the _Nürnberg_ to shadow the _Glasgow_, to stroll as it were unostentatiously past the little harbour, while he with the rest of the squadron stayed out of sight to the north. In the morning of November 1st out came the _Glasgow_ and made for the rendezvous where she was to join the other cruisers and the _Otranto_, an armed liner by which they were accompanied. The wireless signals passing between the watching _Nürnberg_ and von Spee were in their turn picked up by the _Good Hope_, so that each squadron then knew that an enemy was not far off. Cradock, an English seaman of the fighting type, determined to seek out the Germans, though he must have suspected their superiority of force. Neither side actually knew the strength of the other. Cradock spread out his vessels fan-wise in the early afternoon and ordered them to steam in this fashion at fifteen knots to the north-east. [Illustration: THE SOUTH SEAS.]