Two great Personalities came across my path when I commanded the Mediterranean Fleet for three years--the Sultan Abdul Hamid and Pope Leo XIII. They each greatly admired the astuteness of the other. Wily as Abdul was, the Pope was the subtler of the two. I did not have the interviews with the Pope which I might have had. There was no real occasion for it, as was the case with Abdul Hamid; and also, though by the accident of birth I was of the Church of England (nearly everybody’s religion is the accident of his birth), yet by taste and conviction I was a Covenanter, and therefore dead against the Pope. I would have loved to participate in the fight against Claverhouse at the battle of Drumclog. I happen to be looking at the battlefield of Drumclog now, and I hope to be buried in Drumclog Church--that is, if I die here; or in the nearest Church to my death bed. I am particular to say this, as it avoids so much trouble; and I don’t have any more feeling for a cast-off body than for a cast-off suit of clothes. The body, after he’s left it at death, is not the man himself, any more than his cast-off clothes. The only thing I ask for is a white marble tablet made by Mr. Bridgman of Lichfield (if he’s still alive), with the inscription on it to be found in Croxall Church as written of herself by my sainted Godmother, of whom Byron wrote so beautifully: “She walks in beauty like the night.” She deserved his poem. That was a big digression; but being dictated, as it is, this is a conversation book and not a classic. Classics are dry. Conversation, taking no account of grammar or sequence, is more interesting. However, that’s a matter of opinion. To talk is easy, but to write is terrific. Even Job thought so, that patient man. To resume Abdul Hamid and the Pope. Neither rats nor Jews can exist at Malta. The Maltese are too much for either. A Maltese can’t get a living in the Levant. The Levantine is too much for the Maltese. No Levantine has ever been seen in Armenia. His late Majesty, Abdul Hamid, was an Armenian. He massacred more Armenians than had ever been massacred before. I’ve no doubt that can be explained. It is supposed that the Armenian coachman of the previous Sultan was his father. He certainly was not a bit like his presumed father, the Sultan. When I dined several times with the Sultan, his father’s picture hung behind him and he used to ask people if they traced the likeness--there wasn’t even a resemblance.