On the east side of the estuary of the Weser is Bremerhaven, with three large harbour basins and several docks, including the dry dock of the North German Lloyd steamers. About twenty miles north of Bremerhaven, at the mouth of the Elbe, is Cuxhaven, which between 1892 and 1895 was turned into a port capable of berthing the largest ocean-going steamers. It is the outport of Hamburg, the greatest seaport on the Continent of Europe, and the Hamburg-America steamers make it their headquarters. Nature has already fortified the ports along this coast, for the estuaries on which they stand consist of a network of mazy channels winding amidst deadly sandbanks, which can only be threaded safely by pilots who spend their lives in the work. The Germans have, however, not trusted solely to this natural protection, but have set up very strong forts at all points where there is danger of attack.
The whole coast is followed by a double line of railways, built not for trade but for purposes of war--probably for an invasion of England. The Germans watch the coast most jealously, and will not allow visitors to approach the chief forts. In the year 1911 they imprisoned a British Territorial officer, Captain Bertrand Stewart--the first to give his life in the war--on the false charge of spying out the defences of the towns and islands along this precious seaboard.
[Illustration: The Island of Heligoland. Part of the harbour is shown on the right.
About the centre of the North Sea line of coast, thirty-five miles to the northward of Cuxhaven, is the island of Heligoland, which is the fortified outer guard of the Kiel Canal and the key to the German coast defences. For eighty-three years the Union Jack waved over it, but in 1890 it was ceded to Germany. It is a sandstone islet, one mile in length and 650 yards in breadth, with almost vertical cliffs on all sides. So soft is the sandstone that the sea makes great inroads on it. In the year 800 A.D. the circumference of Heligoland was 120 miles, but by 1300 A.D. it had been reduced by the everlasting gnawing of the sea to forty-five miles. Now it is but three or four miles round. The Germans have surrounded it with a concrete wall, so that the sea can no longer eat it away.