Lest some may not recall directly the lines of royal succession, our readers will pardon me if I say that the Grand Duchess of Baden is the only daughter of the old Emperor William and Empress Augusta, the sister of Germany’s “Fritz,” the aunt of the present Emperor, the mother of the Crown Princess of Sweden, and the granddaughter of the beloved Queen Louise, whom she is said to very much resemble.

One day was given to Strasburg—another labor field of the Franco-German war, of longer duration than Armenia—reaching London on the twenty-fourth day of August.

Our passage was engaged on the “Servia,” to sail September 1, when the news of the terrible troubles in Constantinople reached us. We were shocked and distressed beyond words. The streets where we had passed, the people who had served us, the Ottoman Bank where we had transacted business almost daily for nearly a half a year, all in jeopardy if not destroyed. Our men of the interior feared a general uprising there, in which case we might be able to help. Our sense of duty did not permit us to proceed until the facts were better known. We cancelled or rather transferred our passage by the “Servia,” telegraphed to Constantinople and cabled to America, expressing our willingness to return to the field if our services were in any way needed. Kindly advices from both directions, together with a more quiet condition of things, decided us to continue our journey, and engaging passage by the “Umbria” for the fifth, we arrived in New York on the twelfth of September, eight months lacking ten days from the time of our departure on the twenty-second of January.

Distances and Difficulties of Travel, Transportation and Communications.

For the convenience of the closely occupied who have not time to study as they read, I have thought it well to condense the information above referred to in a paragraph, which can be taken in at a glance, in connection with the map.

The one great port of Asia Minor is Constantinople. To reach the centre, known as Anatolia or Armenia, there are two routes from Constantinople. One by way of the Mediterranean Sea to Alexandretta, the southern port or gateway; the other by the Black Sea, to reach the northern ports of Samsoun and Trebizond, lying along the southern coast of the Black Sea. There is no land route, but a “pony post,” like the overland days of California, takes important dispatches for the government, or money. The way is infested by brigands.

There are no regular passenger boats, but Russia, Austria, France and Greece have dispatch—in reality, coasting boats—one of which aims to leave Constantinople each week, although at first we found it at least two weeks between the times of sailing and irregular at that.

The time from Constantinople to Alexandretta is eight to ten days. From Constantinople to Samsoun, two days. From either of these ports the interior must be reached by land.