It is dawn. We are moving in a long file towards the Austrian islands. From cruiser to cruiser the cocks are calling and answering each other. As their clear call salutes the dawn, it is accompanied by the cackling of our poultry-yard. In the fresh air the melancholy cattle are lowing, and the restless sheep are bleating; each of our dinners diminishes their number. To the officers on watch there rises the country smell from the henhouses, the cattle manure, and the hay, their fodder; and the air is filled with all the sounds of an awakening farm. Into the preoccupations of the watch creep precious memories and nostalgia; one would like to be in some country place, surrounded by meadows and woods, and one wants to close one’s eyes so that nothing may destroy the dream. But it is the green sea that forms our meadows; and the Dalmatian Isles, which emerge from the mist, are the groves of our horizon. The three big cruisers with six stacks are in the upper Adriatic, at the approaches to Lissa, a bastion of the Austrians on that sea, over which we sail without opposition. Further south, toward the isles of Lagosta or Pelagosa, the armored squadrons move at reduced speed. Once again, the tenth or twentieth time--we have lost count--the French “naval army” emerges from the dawn and offers the challenge they will not accept. Only a short distance away, Lissa wakens under our eyes. Pleasant wooded slopes clothe this island; a tiny town, the principal place, surrounds a quiet harbor. We do not need our glasses to count the houses or even the windows; the people who come into the streets raise their hands to Heaven at sight of us and retreat behind their doors, which they barricade. The ribbon of water separating us from the shore is hardly broader than a river, and without taking aim our guns could pulverize houses and people. The Germans, in our place, would assure themselves a tremendous triumph, which their journals would celebrate in the list of German victories. But the French are incorrigible; they will never learn these illustrious methods, and will never destroy defenseless cities and men. Think what you will, our gospel contains no such precept.