[Illustration: SEMAPHORE STATION ON KIEL CANAL, FROM "HERCULES"] As we fared inland only the gradually heightening banks told that the country was increasing in elevation. Ponds and bogs were still frequent, and it was not until the first low hills were reached that there appeared to be enough drainage for the land to shake itself free of water. Here the country took on a more cheerful aspect, due principally to the fact that the people, many of whom were working, seemed less "bogged down"--mentally and physically--than their countrymen in the water-logged areas near the sea. Most of them were capable of recognizing us as Allied warships (something which few of the others appeared to have done), and when this had sunk home they usually hurried down to the bank of the canal for a closer view. Most of these isolated farming people were undemonstrative, and it was not until the more sophisticated inhabitants of the villages and towns were encountered that women and children were seen to wave their hands and men to doff their hats and bow. Most of the population, both agricultural and industrial, is found toward the Kiel rather than the Brunsbüttel end of the canal. At one point we came upon two men and a girl feverishly engaged in skinning a horse, which appeared to have dropped dead in the furrow. Or rather, they had already skinned it and were busy cutting up the carcass. Watching through my glass from the bridge of the _Viceroy_, I saw all three of them rush helter-skelter over a hill and out of sight as the _Hercules_ came abreast of them, only to hurry back and resume their grisly work when she had disappeared around a bend just ahead. When they again took to their heels on sighting the _Viceroy_, I asked the pilot what they were afraid of. The law required, he replied, that the authorities should be notified of the death of any head of live stock in order that the meat (in case it was deemed fit for human consumption) should be distributed through the regular rationing channels. These people, he thought, were in the act of stealing their own dead horse, and doubtless their guilty consciences made them fear they would be reported and delivered up to justice. Since witnessing this incident I have found myself rather less inclined to dwell in retrospect on that huge, juicy "beefsteak" I had devoured with such gusto when it was the _pièce de résistance_ on the menu of our luncheon at the Nordholz Zeppelin station a couple of days previously.