After the papers had been landed at Kavak, the pasha and interpreter came to the bridge and asked for a few minutes’ talk with the captain, who was in excellent temper at having cut through the fog and saved daylight through the narrow waters.  The pasha was dressed gorgeously, and many decorations adorned his uniform.  He shook the proud commander warmly by the hand, and through his interpreter gratefully thanked him for carrying himself and his suite safely to their destination.  He did not undervalue the great danger of having them aboard in the event of being chased and captured, nor did he under-estimate the risk that had been run in steaming into dangerous waters during a dense fog; and in order that the captain might be assured of his grateful appreciation, he begged to hand him two hundred Turkish pounds for himself.  After suitably offering his thanks for so generous a gift, the captain again asked the interpreter the name of the distinguished general he had had the honour of carrying as a passenger, and was again told that such questions could not be answered.

Before the sun had sunk beneath the horizon, they had reached Scutari; and in order that the passengers might be disembarked comfortably, the anchor was dropped.  Caiques came alongside for them and for their baggage.  The captain went to the gangway to see the pasha safely into the boat, and to say his adieux to him.  After he had got safely seated in the caique, and the interpreter was about to follow, the commander held out his hand to him and said—­

“Before bidding good-bye, may I again venture to ask if I have had the honour of conveying Osman Pasha to Constantinople, or whom I have conveyed?”

The interpreter, with an air of injured pride, drew himself up to his full height, and said—­

“Captain, I have told you not to ask such things.  Good-day.”

But that was how one of the heroes of Plevna made his first English ally by sea.

A Russian Port in the ’Sixties

My first visit to Russia was at the age of thirteen.  I was serving aboard a smart brig that had just come from the Guano Islands in the Indian Ocean.  The captain and officers belonged to the “swell” type of seaman of that period.  The former has just passed away at the age of eighty-four.  He was in his younger days a terror to those who served under him, and a despot who knew no pity.  In an ordinary way he was most careful not to lower the dignity of his chief officer in the eyes of the crew, but wherever his self-interest was concerned he did not stick at trivialities.  I have a vivid recollection of a very picturesque passage of words being exchanged between him and his first mate.  The officer had been commanded to go ashore in the longboat at 5 a.m. on the morning after arrival for the labourers who were required to assist the sailors to discharge the cargo.  The infuriated mate asked his commander if he took him for a “procurator” of Russian serfs, and reminded him that his certificate of competency was a qualification for certain duties which he was willing to perform; but as this did not come within the scope of them, he would see him to blazes before he would stoop to the level of becoming the engager of a drove of Russian convicts.