exception of aerial warfare ever devised or developed—­that of hunting down in all weathers over the wide spaces of the Atlantic those modern sea monsters that prey upon the Allied shipping.  For the superdreadnought is reposing behind the nets, the battle-cruiser ignominiously laying mines; and for the present at least, until some wizard shall invent a more effective method of annihilation, victory over Germany depends primarily on the airplane and the destroyer.  At three o’clock one morning I stood on the crowded deck of an Irish mail-boat watching the full moon riding over Holyhead Mountain and shimmering on the Irish Sea.  A few hours later, in the early light, I saw the green hills of Killarney against a washed and clearing sky, the mud-flats beside the railway shining like purple enamel.  All the forenoon, in the train, I travelled through a country bathed in translucent colours, a country of green pastures dotted over with white sheep, of banked hedges and perfect trees, of shadowy blue hills in the high distance.  It reminded one of nothing so much as a stained-glass-window depicting some delectable land of plenty and peace.  And it was Ireland!  When at length I arrived at the station of the port for which I was bound, and which the censor does not permit me to name, I caught sight of the figure of our Admiral on the platform; and the fact that I was in Ireland and not in Emmanuel’s Land was brought home to me by the jolting drive we took on an “outside car,” the admiral perched precariously over one wheel and I over the other.  Winding up the hill by narrow roads, we reached the gates of the Admiralty House.

The house sits, as it were, in the emperor’s seat of the amphitheatre of the town, overlooking the panorama of a perfect harbour.  A ring of emerald hills is broken by a little gap to seaward, and in the centre is a miniature emerald isle.  The ships lying at anchor seemed like children’s boats in a pond.  To the right, where a river empties in, were scattered groups of queer, rakish craft, each with four slanting pipes and a tiny flag floating from her halyards; a flag—­as the binoculars revealed—­of crimson bars and stars on a field of blue.  These were our American destroyers.  And in the midst of them, swinging to the tide, were the big “mother ships” we have sent over to nurse them when, after many days and nights of hazardous work at sea, they have brought their flock of transports and merchantmen safely to port.  This “mothering” by repair-ships which are merely huge machine-shops afloat—­this trick of keeping destroyers tuned up and constantly ready for service has inspired much favourable comment from our allies in the British service.  It is an instance of our national adaptability, learned from an experience on long coasts where navy-yards are not too handy.  Few landsmen understand how delicate an instrument the destroyer is.