The straits of the Bosporus, which connect the Sea of Marmora with the Black Sea, are but fifteen miles long and of an average width of but about one fourth of a mile.  In natural scenery and artistic embellishments this is probably the most beautiful reach of water upon the globe.  It is the uncontradicted testimony of all tourists that the scenery of the Bosporus, in its highly-cultivated shores, its graceful sweep of hills and mountain ranges, in its gorgeous architecture, its atmospheric brilliance and in its vast accumulations of the costumes and customs of all Europe and Asia, presents a scene which can nowhere else be paralleled.

On the Asiatic shore, opposite Constantinople, lies Scutari, a beautiful city embowered in the foliage of the cyprus.  An arm of the strait reaches around the northern portion of Constantinople, and furnishes for the city one of the finest harbors in the world.  This bay, deep and broad, is called the Golden Horn.  Until within a few years, no embassador of Christian powers was allowed to contaminate the Moslem city by taking up his residence in it.  The little suburb of Pera, on the opposite side of the Golden Horn, was assigned to these embassadors, and the Turk, on this account, denominated it The swine’s quarter.

Passing through the Bosporus fifteen miles, there expands before you the Euxine, or Black Sea.  This inland ocean, with but one narrow outlet, receives into its bosom the Danube, the Dniester, the Dnieper, the Don and the Cuban.  These streams, rolling through unmeasured leagues of Russian territory, open them to the commerce of the world.  This brief sketch reveals the infinite importance of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus to Russia.  This great empire, “leaning against the north pole,” touches the Baltic Sea only far away amidst the ices of the North.  St. Petersburg, during a large portion of the year, is blockaded by ice.  Ninety millions of people are thus excluded from all the benefits of foreign commerce for a large portion of the year unless they can open a gateway to distant shores through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles.

America, with thousands of miles of Atlantic coast, manifests the greatest uneasiness in having the island of Cuba in the hands of a foreign power, lest, in case of war, her commerce in the Gulf should be embarrassed.  But the Dardanelles are, in reality, the only gateway for the commerce of nearly all Russia.  All her great navigable rivers, without exception, flow into the Black Sea, and thence through the Bosporus, the Marmora and the Hellespont, into the Mediterranean.  And yet Russia, with her ninety millions of population—­three times that of the United States—­can not send a boat load of corn into the Mediterranean without bowing her flag to all the Turkish forts which frown along her pathway.  And in case of war with Turkey her commerce is entirely cut off.  Russia is evidently unembarrassed with any very troublesome scruples of conscience in reference to reclaiming those beautiful realms, once the home of the Christian, which the Turk has so ruthlessly and bloodily invaded.  In assailing the Turk, the Russian feels that he is fighting for his religion.