My ideas of the Black Sea prior to my arrival in Constantinople were based on childhood recollections of maps of Asia and Europe in the geography. On these, that all but land-locked bit of water appeared about an inch long and half an inch across, and wholly unworthy of serious consideration. I had always remembered it as a kind of overgrown lake. The day I chartered the _France_ my ideas began to undergo a revolution, which increased in intensity with each succeeding day. I have now totally revised my ideas. To fully appreciate this gentle expanse, it is necessary to survive a fortnight in December spent on a tugboat. If some universal power, bent on manufacturing the world, should ask for a receipt for making a duplicate, I should suggest the following: One hole 900 miles long by 700 in breadth. Make it from 600 to 1000 feet deep, sow the bottom promiscuously with rocks, scatter a few submerged islands in the most unexpected places, and fill this in with the coldest water obtainable. Surround the shores with a coast like that of Maine, and wherever there seems, by any oversight, to be a chance of shelter, insert a line of reefs and ledges of sharp rocks. Add a tide which varies every day in the year. Now import a typhoon from the South seas, mix judiciously with a blizzard from North Dakota and turn it loose. Add a frosting of snow and sleet, garnish with white-caps, and serve the whole from a tugboat, and you have a fair conception of the ordinary December weather in the Black Sea.