Looking Seaward Again

E-text prepared by Steven Gibbs and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
Dodging under the Land
The following tales have been told to some few men and women by the fireside. The stories themselves only claim to be unvarnished matters of fact; and I may repeat here what I said in a previous volume, that my object has not been to strain after literary effect or style. My too early desertion of home-life to graduate in the harsh and whimsical discipline of sailing-vessels in the days when they had still some years to live and carry on ere steam took the wind out of their sails, precluded such studies as are natural to the embryo man of letters. But the circumstances that told against mere study did not prevent my preserving many memories of my sojourns ashore and voyages in distant seas. I mention this fact, not as an apology, but as an explanation which I hope may commend itself to the amiable reader.
WALTER RUNCIMAN.
3rd December 1907.
Bismarck offered his services as mediator, and suggested that a European Congress should be held at Berlin to discuss the contents of the Treaty of San Stefano. This was agreed to, and Lord Beaconsfield, accompanied by Lord Salisbury, were the British representatives at the Congress. The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary drove a hard and favourable bargain for Turkey and for Britain. Turkey, it is needless to say, got the worst of it; but, considering her crushing defeat, came well out of the settlement. Cyprus was ceded to the British, to be used as a naval station, and subsequent experience has proved the wisdom of this acquisition. Lord Beaconsfield proclaimed to a tumultuous crowd on the occasion of his return to London that he had brought back peace with honour. This was the acme of the great Jew's fame. It looked as though he could have done anything he liked with the British people, so that it is no wonder that the old man lost his balance when such homage was paid him by that section of the public which was smitten with his picturesque and audacious personality.