United States or Tonga ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Their progress was a devious one through the mine-strewn channel. There was a heavy sea even there, and the small lights on the mast on the pilot boat, as it came to a stop, described great arcs that seemed, first to starboard, then to port, to touch the very tips of the waves. "I'm not crazy about this," the girl said, as the wind tugged at her skirts. "It frightens me.
Thus, guarded by guarantees and recognition marks, there came regularly, and mostly safely, across wide oceans and through the dangerous mine-strewn Channel or around the Faroe Islands, the rice from Rangoon, corn from Argentina, beans from Manchuria, and wheat and meat and fats from America at the rate of a hundred thousand tons a month through all the fifty months of the relief.
They were at that moment on their way to the Sound, crippled sorely, yet afloat. Men groaned. Two battle-cruisers blown up in the Channel; what in God's name were two battle-cruisers doing in the mine-strewn Channel when their proper place was in one of the safe eyries overlooking the North Sea? A plausible explanation was offered.
In that mine-strewn sea the smallest and least conspicuous floating object demanded one's instant and most careful attention, and whipping my binoculars out of the case, strapped to the bridge rail, I quickly focused them upon it.
The whole proceeding seemed typical of the overbearing gruffness, the systematic attention to detail, and at the same time the thoroughgoing honesty of the German character. So I tucked the helmet under my arm, and, saying good-bye to Dr. van Dyke and Mr. Langhome, who had made my stay at The Hague so pleasant, I crossed the mine-strewn English Channel for Piccadilly Circus.
Once obtained, the food had to be transported overseas and through the mine-strewn Channel to Rotterdam, the nearest open port of Belgium, and thence by canals and railways into the starving country and its use there absolutely restricted to the civil population. Finally, the feeding of Belgium had to begin immediately and arrangements had to be made to keep it up indefinitely.
The immortal charge of the Light Brigade was of a piece with Gallipoli, but it was merely a battle fragment and its glorious record was written in blood within the scope of a comparatively few inspired minutes. In the mine-strewn Dardanelles and upon the sun-baked, blood-drenched rocky slopes of Gallipoli, death always partnered every sailor and soldier.
Then came the fruition of that historic propaganda which is best described by its own slogan: "The East for the East the West for the West," and all further intercourse was stopped by statute. Even prior to this, transoceanic commerce had practically ceased, owing to the perils and hazards of the mine-strewn waters of both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Word Of The Day