Vol. XXVIII, No. 1 



WASHINGTON 



July, 1915 



CHANNEL PORTS-AXD SOME OTHERS 



By Florexce Craig Albrecht 

 Illustrations from Photographs by Btnil Poole Albrecht and A. IV. Cutler 



THE sturdy old vessel is coming 

 into port after an eventless voy- 

 age. Seven days of ceaseless 

 plowing through a shimmering sea, 

 under a great round dome, now radiant 

 light, now dusky velvet, star- sprinkled. 

 The Scillys have floated by. foam- 

 washed, mist-wrapped, fairly islands in 

 a magic world all cloud and water. The 

 stately white shaft upon Bishops Rock 

 has risen, passed our vision, and gone 

 down on the western horizon. Lands 

 End thrusts its rocky headland toward 

 us, and back of it. softly purple, lays 

 Cornwall and England. 



Steadily the ship goes on and smoothly 

 the panorama passes — rock and headland 

 and cliff, now green, now golden with 

 gorse, now bare and rugged: inlet and 

 bay and harbor, with here and there an 

 isolated house, a tiny village, a preten- 

 tious town, a great port. 



An unfriendly coast? Yes. with heavy 

 seas and winds, with thick sea-fogs — a 

 dangerous one : rocks ever ready to tear 

 holes in the stoutest vessel, currents ever 

 ready to drive them on. But a pictur- 

 esque coast : a wonderfully beautiful 

 coast, both upon summer days and in 

 winter storms : a coast with many har- 

 bors, none too easy of entrance by rea- 

 son of rocks and tides, many impossible 

 for any but the smallest craft, but all 

 made as serviceable as natural difficul- 

 ties permit. 



It was their picturesqueness, not their 

 serviceability, which once occupied us so 

 delightfully through long sunny days 

 "before the war." That there was no 

 suggestion of warfare in them I will not 

 say ; there are. in fact, very few English 

 or Cornish ports which along with their 

 vivid smugglers' tales do not mingle one 

 or two of battle on sea or land. 



MEMORIES IX EVERV PORT 



Too many fleets have gone up and 

 down the channel since history began not 

 to have left memories in every possible 

 port. But they were so long ago. those 

 battles ! So long ago that one saw merely 

 the picturesque side of them — the valor, 

 the courage, the victory : one saw the 

 boats that came into harbor battered, 

 perhaps, imperfectly manned, but with 



flags flying bravely 



and men . cheering 



wildly : one did not remember those that 

 had sailed away to come back no more. 



How changed our thoughts today. The 

 sea has closed over a bright young head 

 we knew : not the glory, not the pride of 

 victory flaunts its banners before our 

 dazzled eyes : with clear, sad vision we 

 mark the sorrow, the cost of war. 



What are they like now. those ports. 

 big and little, along the British Channel : 

 ports from which we have watched the 

 Ashing fleets sail to the north or come in 

 heavy laden : ports where great ocean 

 liners came and went perpetually: ports 



