a whole afternoon amidst the ruins of Carthage.
So there is a pleasant greeting between us at
once, and some absinthe and some cigars, and
a great deal of chatter and laughter, after the
cordial fashion of the French. When my
companions step back into their caique, and the
oarsmen give way for land, I shout a last good-by
to them, and turn round to enjoy the old
traveller's privilege of feeling at home anywhere.
There is the captain's cabin, stocked with a
fair library; there is plenty of good-fellowship
when one wants it; and there is a bolt to the
door, for a heart full of thoughts about the
home-land, when the eyes grow dim and the
spirits too heavy for anything but quiet and
self-communion.

It is, however, by no means a dull episode in a
life to pass four days with a party of French naval
officers. I have a lively and grateful recollection
that we had a most excellent cook, and on one
occasion, at ever so much a clock at night, an
amateur chef, who distinguished himself highly
with respect to an impromptu supper. The
officer charged with the commissariat was
especially a wonderful fellow. It seemed as if the
smiles of all who loved him had left their bright
reflexion on his open, handsome, ingenuous face.
He sang such songs, that when he threw back his
curly head and parted his lips to give voice to
them, melancholy was put to flight at once; and
I remember that it was by moonlight in the
silent bay of Sinope, which a few years ago was
startled with the tremendous roar of the Russian
guns, and the feeble replies of the Turk, that
we mustered on deck with some visitors from
shore, and some kind of uncouth local music,
and danced the daylight back again.

So we steamed along, keeping jolly vigils by
night, over old yarns and eau sucrée and
vingt-et-un, and lying down beneath shady awnings,
half asleep, between breakfast and dinner. The
charm of fresh companionship was on us all.
It is not a mean one. Nothing we knew, nothing
we said, was trite or stale to each other.
There was, indeed, the ancient friendship
between the captain and me, but that was so old,
that it had grown young again, and, winged by
bygone memories and new likings, the gay
hours flew unheeded.

We never lost sight of the coast, the storied
shores of Grecian fable, where infant navigation
tried her untaught arts, and forgotten
colonists from forgotten mother countries came
out to show what valour, and hope, and energy,
can do in a strange land. Here, stood forgotten
towns and fortresses, once of great renown.
Here, toiled and wrought, and fought, and
trembled, forgotten populations who scorned the
weak but cruel sway of the Byzantine emperors.
The unskilled seamen who manned the rude barks
which bore the mighty hearts of the crusaders
sought these seas when the Western lords who
had sold fair patrimonies in France and
Germany and England, were beaten back by the
sword of the Saracen and the fierce suns of
Syria, and went forth to wrench new heritages
from the unwarlike Greeks. Here, came the
noble ships of mediæval Italian republics, and
the roaming merchant sailors of Venice and
Genoa. Over these waters, at a later time,
sailed the bearded embassies of the Dukes of
Muscovy, seeking ghostly counsel and Christian
talk with the Patriarch of Constantinople. Here,
where the miserable little whitewashed mosques
rise in the crooked streets of wretched villages,
once stood some of the most magnificent of the
Greek Christian churches. But when the pure
faith of Christ was degraded into an ignoble
superstition, the avenging angel came with a
flaming sword, and, for centuries, drove out the
idolaters from the land and left a terrible
desolation. Then first began to swarm upon the
Euxine, the galleys of those terrible miners who
rushed out from their fastnesses amidst the far-
off golden mountains, and marched under the
banner of the blacksmith's apron to the conquest
of Christendom. Back, over these waters, they
returned again and again, as if the fulness of
time for the divine vengeance were not yet come,
but they returned laden with spoil and booty;
at last they returned no more, and the city
of Constantine changed its name to Stamboul.
Later still, over these billows steamed the
mighty armaments of the Muscovite; but with
small thought of the patriarch and his blessing
now. Here, came out to meet them the
mightier fleets of France and England, no longer
bearing a few obscure barons seeking to win a
fortune and a bride from the effeminate satraps
of a decaying empire, but filled with the
resentful manhood of two mighty nations. Here,
came also the descendants of those Genoese
captains who had traded sword in hand about
these coasts long ago, and rekindled into
war-like ardour at the sight of the mouldering keeps
and watch-towers which had been won and held
by their ancestors. Let the waters, as they
moan round the noble harbour of Sebastopol,
say what lies buried in their quiet deeps, and
how it all ended: while we pass on to Samsoon,
and see the caravans start for Bagdad, and thence
to where the woodlands cluster and the valleys
smile about the imperial city of Trebizond.

We are standing, a gossiping, but rather
thoughtful group of middle-aged gentlemen, on
the Maidan, or the largest open space in
Trebizond. Here, perhaps, when the Moslem
soldiery first swept over it in the path of wrath,
the dainty dames of the most civilised portion of
the world were borne about in litters, to drink
back health and win rosy cheeks from the soft sea
breezes; their hair wreathed into the form of
helmets, such as their beloved ones wore, who
kept the marshes on the northern frontier.
Surrounded by slaves, lapped in such lavish
luxury, and environed by such glories of art and
such splendour as we wot not of, those ladies
lived their wanton lives away. They were a
sad race those old Greek colonial women.
Perhaps Bâs Tapa' (the azure hill) echoed to the
chastened imagery and noble declamation of some
stray philosopher from Athens; or the wandering
jugglers and snake-charmers of India amused