After some valuable battleships were sent to the bottom by the German
submarines it was realized that "Big Lizzie" was too vulnerable and
valuable to be kept in these waters; so in the later months her place
was taken by some weird craft that excited great curiosity among the
sailormen. These were the "monitors" which were just floating
platforms for big guns. They were built originally for the rivers of
South America, but it was discovered that their shallow draft made them
impervious to torpedo attack; and as they were able to get close in
shore, their big guns made havoc of the Turkish defenses. They do not
travel at high speed and appear to waddle a good deal, but they have
been most invaluable right along, and were of great assistance lately
to the Italians in holding up the German drive. They have been used
also around Ostend and are of prime importance wherever the flank of an
army rests on the sea. I have picked up portions of their shells and
seen the shrapnel lying like hail on sand-hills in Arabia (more than
twenty miles from the Suez Canal, which was the nearest waterway).


We also passed some other amazing-looking craft which were being towed
down the Red Sea. They looked like armored houseboats, and were for
use up the Tigris. I should not like to have been boxed up in one, for
it looked as if they would have to use a can-opener to get you out, and
it did not appear to me as though the sides were bullet-proof. But
trust the Admiralty to know what they are doing! Pages could be filled
with the mere cataloguing of the various kinds of ships used by the
navy in this war, and I am told that these river "tanks" were the prime
factor in the advance in Mesopotamia.


A marine court would decide that the _River Clyde_ was not a ship at