ose range of the destruction of war. Even
at this early stage, therefore, while the danger to Venice is as yet not
urgent, the Italian Government is doing its best to surround her with
the protection of such neutrality as the conventions of war, for what
they are worth, secure to undefended and unoccupied towns. No person in
uniform is allowed to enter the place and the civilian population is
being encouraged to leave by free railway transport and subventions to
support them until they can settle elsewhere. Even in such tragic hours
Venice keeps up her old tradition of light-heartedness. The cafes round
the great piazza are full in the evenings with a cheerful crowd.
Moreover, to go into St. Mark's is to enter a sort of neolithic grotto;
the pillars, set about with sand-bags, have the girth of the arcades of
a Babylonian temple; bulging poultices of sacks protect each fresco; as
a building it reminds one of a German student padded for a duel. The
Doge's Palace, too, is more hidden with scaffolding than it could have
been when it was being built; each of those delicate columns of
different design is set around with a stout palisade of timber balks.
Venice, indeed, looks like a drawing-room with the dust-sheets on the
furniture and the chandeliers in bags, and to complete the parallel, the
family is going away before one's eyes.

Sad days for Italy, days unimaginable a month ago. There must, indeed,
be virtue in the Allies' cause since such ordeals as these still leave
our courage high.

Copyright, Century, March, 1918.

* * * * *

The bottling up of the Harbor of Zeebrugge and the attempted closing of
the Harbor of Ostend formed what was probably the most brilliant single
naval exploit of the war. These daring and successful attempts are
described in the narrative following.

BOTTLING UP ZEEBRUGGE AND OSTEND

THE OFFICIAL NARRATIVE

[Sidenote: The _Vindictive_ as she lies in Ostend Harbor.]

Those who recall High Wood upon the Somme--and they must be many, as it
was after the battles of 1916--may easily figure to themselves the decks
of H.M.S. _Vindictive_ as she lies to-day, a stark, black profile,
against the sea haze of the harbor amid the stripped, trim shapes of the
fighting ships which throng these waters. That wilderness of debris,
that litter of the used and broken tools of war, lavish ruin and that
prodigal evidence of death and battle, are as obvious and plentif