As dawn was breaking on July 10, 1916, a submarine came alongside a tug in Hampton Roads and asked for a pilot. The pilot went aboard and found himself on the subsea freighter _Deutschland_, first merchant submarine to be built and the first to make a voyage. She came from Bremerhaven, a distance of 4,000 miles, in sixteen days. Reports had been current since the _U-35_ made her trip to Cartagena that the kaiser would send a message to President Wilson by an undersea boat. The American public scouted the idea as being impossible of accomplishment, but the report persisted, and cities along the Atlantic Coast line had been on the watch for several days. The _Deutschland_ eventually turned into Hampton Roads, piloted by a waiting tug, and tied up at a Baltimore dock. The submarine, which was the largest ever seen in American waters, became a seven days' wonder. Captain Paul Koenig and his twenty-nine men and officers told some interesting stories of their trip across the ocean. It was said that the _Deutschland_ could remain submerged for four days. When they got into the English Channel there was a cordon of warships barring exit to the Atlantic that made them extremely cautious. So Captain Koenig let his vessel lay on the bottom of the channel for a day and a night while the men enjoyed themselves with a phonograph and rousing German songs. When their enemies thinned out to some extent the submarine started again on her way and headed directly for Baltimore, which she reached without special incident. The _Deutschland_ immediately received the name of supersubmarine. Some thousand tons of dyes and other valuable products filled her hold. They were reported to be worth $1,000,000. The vessel was able to make twelve knots an hour on the surface and about seven knots when submerged. She traveled most of the way across on the surface, being under water about one-third of the time. In addition to her valuable cargo, she brought a special message from Kaiser Wilhelm to the president. No other submarine, so far as known, had made a trip of such distance as the _Deutschland_ up to that time. Longer voyages have been accredited to several British submarines, but they were either made with a convoy or broken by stops enroute. Soon after the beginning of the war, several Australian submarines journeyed from their far-away home ports to the Dardanelles, traveling 13,000 miles. They called at various points in the two Americas. Submarines built in America and assembled in Canada proceeded from Newfoundland to Liverpool before the _Deutschland_ crossed the Atlantic, but they had another ship as convoy. The _Sultan Selim_ and the _Midullu_ clashed with Russian ships in the Black Sea, July 11, 1916, sinking four merchant vessels. They also bombarded harbor works on the Caucasian Coast near Puab. Both attacking vessels made their escape without injury.