ss through the Dardanelles: the jealous
Powers have said so. But Russia is the most patient nation on earth;
his "manifest destiny" is to sit in the ancient seat of dominion on the
Bosporus. Calmly, amid all the turbulence of international politics, he
awaits the prize that is assuredly his; but while he waits he plots and
mines and prepares for ultimate success. A past master of secret
spying, wholesale bribery, and oriental intrigue, is the nation which
calls its ruler the "Little Father" on earth, second only to the Great
Father in heaven. If one is curious and careful, one may learn which of
the Turkish statesmen are in Russian pay.

Looming larger--apparently--than Russia amid the minarets upon the
lovely Constantinople horizon is Germany, the Marooned Nation. Restless
William shrewdly saw that Turkey offered him the likeliest open door
for German expansion and for territorial emancipation. So he played
courtier to his "good friend, Abdul Hamid," and to the Prophet Mohammed
(they still preserve at Damascus the faded remains of the wreath he
laid upon Saladin's tomb the day he made the speech which betrayed
Europe and Christendom), and in return had his vanity enormously
ministered to. His visit to Jerusalem is probably the most notable
incident in the history of the Holy City since the Crusades. Moreover,
he carried away the Bagdad Railway concession in his carpet-bag. By
this he expects to acquire the cotton and grain fields of Mesopotamia,
which he so sorely needs in his business, and also to land at the front
door of India, in case he should ever have occasion to pay a call,
social or otherwise, upon his dear English cousins.

True, the advent of the Turkish constitution saw Germany thrown crop
and heels out of his snug place at Turkey's capital, while that
comfortable old suitor, Great Britain, which had been biting his
finger-nails on the doorstep, was welcomed smiling once more into the
parlor. Great was the rejoicing in London when Abdul Hamid's
"down-and-out" performance carried his trusted friend William along.
The glee changed to grief when, within a year--so quickly does the
appearance of the chess-board change in "the great game"--Great Britain
was once more on the doorstep, and fickle Germany was snuggling close
to Young Turkey on the divan in the dimly lighted parlor. Virtuous old
Britain professed to be shocked and horrified; he occupied himself with
talking scandal about young Germany, when he shou