e hours' heavy engagement
between the Turkish forts and the allied ships which has been fought
actually within the Dardanelles today as an impression of the
bombardment as seen at a distance of fifteen miles or so from the top of
a high, steep hill called Mount St. Elias, at the northern end of
Tenedos.

Over the ridge of Kum Kale you plainly see, like a great blue lake, the
first reach of the Dardanelles up to the narrow neck between Chanak and
Kilid Bahr. It was up and down in this stretch of water that the largest
vessels of the allied fleet steamed today for over four hours, hurling,
with sheets of orange flame from their heavy guns, a constant succession
of shells on the forts that guard the Narrows at Chanak, while the
Turkish batteries, with a frequency that lessened as the day went on,
flashed back at them in reply, with the difference that, while the
effects of the Allies' shells were continually manifest in the columns
of smoke and dust that were signs of the damage they had wrought, a
great number of the enemy's shots fell in the sea hundreds of yards from
the bombarding ships, sending torrents of water towering harmlessly into
the air.

Not that the successes of the day have been won without cost. I saw
several ships, French and British, struck by shells that raised volumes
of white smoke, and one of the French squadron is toiling slowly home at
this moment down by the head and with a list to port, while, so far as
one could make out with a glass, several boatloads of men were being
taken off her.

The ships left their stations between the Turkish and Asiatic coasts and
Tenedos early this morning and by 11 they were steaming in line up the
Dardanelles.

It was 11:45 when the first notable hit was made by an English ship. I
could see eight vessels, apparently all battleships, lying in line from
the entrance up the strait. The ship furthest up appeared to be the
Queen Elizabeth, and I think it was she that fired the shot which
exploded the powder magazine at Chanak. A great balloon of white smoke
sprang up in the midst of the magazine which leaped out from a fierce,
red flame, and reached a great height. When the flame had disappeared
the dense smoke continued to grow till it must have been a column
hundreds of feet high.

[Illustration: [map of the Dardanelles]]

In the five minutes that followed this shot three more shells from the
Queen Elizabeth fell practically on the same spot, and two minutes la