Passing the mouth of the Dardanelles we got a wonderful view of the stage whereon the Great Showman has caused so many of his amusing puppets to strut their tiny hour. For the purpose it stands matchless. No other panorama can touch it. There, Hero trimmed her little lamp; yonder the amorous breath of Leander changed to soft sea form. Far away to the Eastwards, painted in dim and lovely hues, lies Mount Ida. Just so, on the far horizon line she lay fair and still, when Hector fell and smoke from burning Troy blackened the mid-day sun. Against this enchanted background to deeds done by immortals and mortals as they struggled for ten long years five thousand years ago,--stands forth formidably the Peninsula. Glowing with bright, springtime colours it sweeps upwards from the sea like the glacis of a giant's fortress.
So we sailed on Northwards, giving a wide berth to the shore. When we got within a mile of the head of the Gulf of Saros, we turned, steering a South-westerly course, parallel to, and one to two miles distant from, the coastline. Then my first fears as to the outworks of the fortress were strengthened. The head of the Gulf is filled in with a horrible marsh. No landing there. Did we land far away to the Westward we must still march round the marsh, or else we must cross it on one single road whose long and easily destructible bridges we could see spanning the bog holes some three miles inland. Opposite the fortified lines we stood in to within easy field gun range, trusting that the Turks would not wish prematurely to disclose their artillery positions. So we managed a peep at close quarters, and were startled to see the ramifications and extent of the spider's web of deep, narrow trenches along the coast and on either front of the lines of Bulair. My Staff agree that they must have taken ten thousand men a month's hard work from dark to dawn. In advance of the trenches, Williams in the crow's nest reported that with his strong glasses he could pick out the glitter of wire over a wide expanse of ground. To the depth of a mile the whole Aegean slope of the neck of the Peninsula was scarred with spade work and it is clear to a tiro that to take these trenches would take from us a bigger toll of ammunition and life than we can afford: especially so seeing that we can only see one half of the theatre; the other half would have to be worked out of sight and support of our own ships and in view of the Turkish Fleet. Only one small dent in the rockbound coast offered a chance of landing but that was also heavily dug in. In a word, if Bulair had been the only way open to me and I had no alternative but to take it or wash my hands of the whole business, I should have to go right about turn and cable my master he had sent me on a fool's errand.