The only individual we saw in the whole passage who thoroughly convinced me of his sincerity was a bloated ruffian who hailed us from the stern of the barge he had edged into a ferry slip to give us room to pass. "Go back to England, you English swine!" he roared to the accompaniment of a lewd gesture. We learned later that he gave both the _Hercules_ and _Verdun_ the same peremptory orders. Yes, he was quite sincere, that old bargee, and for that reason I have always thought more kindly of him than of all the rest of his grimacing brethren and sistern we saw along the canal that day. A spectacled student (though it is quite possible he was trying to put the same sentiment in politer language) was rather less convincing. "English gentlemen," he cried, drawing his loose-jointed frame up to its full height and glaring at the bridge of the _Viceroy_ from under his peaked cap, "why do you come here?" That may have been intended for a protest, or, again, he may merely have been "swanking" his linguistic accomplishments. The bluejackets were splendid. There were places--notably at several industrial establishments where crowds of rather "on-coming" girls in trousers exerted their blonde witcheries to the full in endeavours to "start something"--when the least sign of friendliness from the ship would have undoubtedly been met with loud acclaim. But not a British hand did I see lifted in response to the hundreds waved from the banks, while many a simpering grin died out as the moon-face behind it passed under the steady stare of the imperturbable _matelots_ lining the rails of the steadily steaming warships. The length of the Kiel Canal is just under a hundred kilometres (about sixty miles), so that--at the speed of ten kilometres an hour to which we were limited--the passage required about ten hours, exclusive of the time spent in locking in and out. As it was an hour after dawn when we began the passage at Brunsbüttel, the short winter day was not long enough to make it possible to reach the other end in daylight. By five o'clock darkness had begun to settle over the waters, and the grey mists, piling ever thicker in the narrow notch between the hills, deepened through violet to purple before taking on the black opacity of the curtain of the night. Then the lights came on--parallel rows of incandescents narrowing to mist-softened wedges of blurred brightness ahead and astern--and we continued cleaving our easy effortless way through the ebony water.