from Tilbury to Rotterdam. At Tilbury I saw pontoon bridges across the
Thames, patrol boats and submarine chasers rushing back and forth
watching for U-boats, which might attempt to come up the river. I
boarded the _Batavia IV_ late at night and left Gravesend at daylight
the next morning for Holland. Every one was on deck looking for
submarines and mines. The channel that day was as smooth as a small
lake, but the terrible expectation that submarines might sight the
Dutch ship made every passenger feel that the submarine war was as real
as it was horrible.

On the 17th of March, arriving at the little German border town of
Bentheim, I met for the first time the people who were already branded
as "Huns and Barbarians" by the British and French. Officers and
people, however, were not what they had been pictured to be. Neither
was Germany starving. The officials and inspectors were courteous and
patient and permitted me to take into Germany not only British
newspapers, but placards which pictured the Germans as pirates. Two
days later, while walking down Unter den Linden, poor old women, who
were already taking the places of newsboys, sold German extras with
streaming headlines: "British Ships Sunk. Submarine War Successful."
In front of the _Lokal Anzeiger_ building stood a large crowd reading
the bulletins about the progress of the von Tirpitz blockade.

For luncheon that day I had the choice of as many foods as I had had in
London. The only thing missing was white bread, for Germany, at the
beginning of the war, permitted only Kriegsbrot (war bread) to be baked.

All Berlin streets were crowded and busy. Military automobiles,
auto-trucks, big moving vans, private automobiles, taxi-cabs and
carriages hurried hither and thither. Soldiers and officers, seemingly