From Constantinople for forty miles each way there is a rock-bound coast. The cliffs rise sheer above the sea, that breaks in clouds of angry spray against those bleak and unresisting walls. Eastward from the Bosphorus for a score of miles, government life-saving stations every two thousand meters bespeak the menace of this deadly coast, louder than any description. In January, 1903, on this single strip of shore, eighty ships were broken in a single night, and I know not how many men lay down their lives as they strove in vain to make headway against the turbulence of hurricane and tide that swept them to their doom. Northward lies another belt of coast; bleak and forlorn for forty miles it stands against the sky. At the very corner of the sea, the Bosphorus winds like a serpent through a confusion of rugged fort-clad hills. The entrance is a mere defile. A few thousand yards back it bends sharply to the south, thus from a few miles at sea, there seems to the eye of the mariner searching for a haven of refuge nothing but an unbroken line of cliffs. Two light-houses on outlying islands mark the entrance to the channel. When the weather is clear and his engines still can breast the wind and seas, the captain may enter safely enough between this very Scylla and Charybdis, but woe to him who, while beating towards this refuge, is overtaken by one of those clouds of driving snow and sleet that shut down about the waters of the Black Sea thicker than a London fog. These then are a few of the conditions which have made it a paying investment for three salvage companies to locate their headquarters in the Bosphorus. Yes, three companies, each with a fleet of a dozen or more boats do a booming business while the storms of winter last. The profit from the reaping of these few months is so great that the expenses of these entire fleets are paid for the entire year, and money for dividends besides, yielded from the misfortunes of sailing ships and steamers that end their careers on the inhospitable shores that girt the Euxine, or are swamped and sunk while seeking some port of safety. Some of these things I learned from my crew as I sat on the _France_ that December evening waiting for steam to turn the engines. The boilers had been cleaned and the fires lighted early that afternoon, and the soft humming forward told of the pressure mounting steadily in the gauges. I had a more careful look at my crew.