and Bella should return through
France to England, and that Nicholas should take charge of them.

Our plans being fixed, they were at once carried into effect, and the
same evening I found myself alone in my yacht, with no one but the
skipper and crew and the faithful Lancey, to keep me company.

The world was now before me where to choose. After a consultation with
my skipper, I resolved to go on a cruise in the Black Sea, and perhaps
ascend the Danube, in spite of the rumours of possible war between the
Russians and Turks.

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Note 1. "A Treatise on Coast-Defence ... Compiled from official
reports of officers of the United States. By Von Scheliha,
Lieutenant-Colonel and chief engineer of the department of the Gulf of
Mexico of the army of the late Confederate States of America."

CHAPTER SIX.

TURK AND BULGARIAN--A WRESTLING MATCH AND A DISPUTE.

River navigation is, to my mind, most captivating; but space forbids
that I should enlarge on it, and on many other points of interest in
this eventful voyage. I shall therefore pass over the Dardanelles and
the Bosporus, leaving the great and classic Stamboul itself behind
untouched, and transport the reader at once to one of those "touches of
nature" which "make the whole world kin."

It is a little village on the Danube river--the mighty Danube, which
bears the fleets of the world on its ample breast.

We had been a considerable time in the river, for we took things very
leisurely, before reaching the village to which I refer. It was named
Yenilik. While I had been rejoicing in the varied scenery--the lagoons
and marshes of the several mouths of the great river, and the bolder
prospects of hill and dale higher up--I had not been idling my time or
making entire holiday of it, for I had devoted myself to the study of
the Turkish language.

My powers as a linguist may not perhaps be above the average,
nevertheless I confess to a considerable facility in the acquisition of
languages. Russian I already knew very well, having, as before
intimated, spent a considerable time in St. Petersburg.

Desiring to perfect myself in Turkish, I undertook to teach my man
Lancey. Not that I had much opinion of his ability--far from it; but I
entertain a strong belief in the Scriptural idea that two are better
than one. Of course I do not hold that two fools are better than one
wise man; but two m