dancing with, A PERFECT GEM! if she don’t turn Wilhelm’s head I’ll eat my hat!). My friend was American Ambassador at Constantinople when I was Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet--you know it was a ticklish time then, at the worst of the Boer War and the British Navy kept the Peace! That old Sultan [Abdul Hamid] told me so, and gave me a 500-guinea diamond star, bless him! and he called Lord Salisbury a d--d fool for having left him in the lurch and for having said that “England had put her money on the wrong horse” in backing Turkey. The Turks being the _one_ people in the whole world to be England’s fast (and if put to it) _only_ friend! Well, my dear Friend! Leishman saw this _then_ in 1899, and sees it _now_, and hence we were locked up for hours in a secret room here! It all bears immensely on the present Franco-German Crisis! That “_greater-than-Bismarck_” who is now German Ambassador at Constantinople (Marschall von Bieberstein), and who is the real director of German policy (Waechter is only his factotum! as I will prove to you presently!) sees his rear and flanks quite safe by having the Turks in the palm of his hand (as Leishman describes it!) and so has been led to bluff at Agadir--but those choice words of Lloyd George upset the German apple-cart in a way it was never upset before! (I suppose they were “written out” words and Cabinet words, and they were d--d fine words!) Before I go on with the next bit of my letter I must explain to you that Leishman is a very great friend and admirer of Marschall von Bieberstein and also of Kiderlen-Waechter, the present German Foreign Minister. When Marschall went on his annual 4 months’ leave from Constantinople he always had Waechter to take his place while away, who was then the German Minister at Bucharest! Leishman is also an ardent admirer of the German Emperor, and he is also the most intimate friend possessed by Mr. Philander Knox, the American Secretary of State, who has forced Leishman to Berlin when he was in Paradise at Rome (at all events his family were!) Well! dear Friend, it’s a good thing that Leishman loves England. I couldn’t possibly write to Sir E. Grey what I am writing to you (I shouldn’t write to you except that this letter goes through France only!) and it would be simply fatal to Leishman if it ever leaked out about his conversations with me, but his heart is with us. I knew this when I spent many weeks at Constantinople (and we had no friends then, 1899 and 1900!). He says _our Turkish policy is the laughing stock of Diplomacy_! “Every schoolboy knows” that we have a Mahomedan Existence and the Turks love us, but all we do is to kick their ----! As Leishman truly says, the Germans were in the dust by the deposition of Abdul Hamid and England was “all” to the New Turks, but slowly Marschall has worked his way up again, and the Germans