She at once said she would be delighted to take me to see her old friend Hamid Pasha, who was quartered in one of them and was always willing to give her and her friends a cup of tea.

When we arrived at the gate of the fort the sentry and the officer in charge would on no account allow us to pass until the lady said that she was a friend of the Pasha, when we were at once admitted and passed to his quarters.

He was a charming host, and received us with the greatest kindness, and after showing us his own quarters and the many curiosities he had collected he took us all round the fort and pointed out its ancient and modern devices for defence, and finally showed us its guns.  Two of these, in a somewhat prominent position where they could easily be seen from outside, were covered with canvas covers.

My excitement naturally grew intense when I saw these, and I secretly begged the lady to persuade him to allow us to look at them, and he at once acquiesced, thinking I was an American, and, grinning all over his face, said, “These are our very latest development.”

I almost trembled as the covers were drawn off, and then I recognised guns, truly of a modern make but not very new nor powerful, and then he gave away the whole secret by saying:  “Of course, we are trying to impress a certain power with the idea that we are re-arming our forts, and therefore we are letting it be known that we are keeping these guns a dead secret and covered from view of any spies.”

On another occasion it fell to my lot to inspect some of the defences of the Dardanelles, and I found it could best be done from the seaward.  This involved my taking passage in an old grain steamer running between Odessa and Liverpool, and my voyage in her was one of the most charming and original that it has been my lot to take.

A tramp steamer loaded down with grain until its cargo is almost running out of the ventilators is—­contrary to all expectations—­quite a comfortable boat for cruising in.  The captain and his wife lived in comfortable cabins amidships under the bridge; the after deck was stocked with pigs and chickens, which fed liberally on the cargo.  The captain’s good lady was a Scotch woman, and therefore an excellent cook.

Everything was most clean and comfortable, and the captain most thoroughly entered into my various schemes for observing and examining the defences of the coast as we went along.

He allowed me practically to take command of the ship as regards her course and anchoring.  From side to side of the Dardanelles we wandered, and when we came abreast of one of the forts that needed study we anchored ship.

Our erratic procedure naturally invited investigation, and when a Government pilot boat put off to enquire our reason for anchoring in a certain bay he came to the conclusion that our steering gear was not in very good order and that we had stopped to repair it.