The current of the Black Sea was the best armor for the defenders of this aquatic defile against the attacks of the fleets.

They had only to throw into the strait a quantity of floating mines and the blue river which slipped by the Dardanelles would drag these toward the boats, destroying them with an infernal explosion.

On the coast of Tenedos the Hellenic women with their floating hair were tossing flowers into the sea in memory of the victims, with a theatrical grief similar to that of the heroines of ancient Troy whose ramparts were buried in the hills opposite.
The third trip in mid-winter was a very hard one, and at the end of a rainy night, when the faint streaks of dawn were beginning to dissipate the sluggish shadows, the _Mare Nostrum_ arrived at the roadstead of Salonica.
Only once had Ferragut been in this port, many years before, when it still belonged to the Turks.

At first he saw only some lowlands on which twinkled the last gleams from the lighthouses.

Then he recognized the roadstead, a vast aquatic extension with a frame of sandy bars and pools reflecting the uncertain life of daybreak.