them. So we would be safe anyway. One comes to realize after a time that it is foolish to worry about dangers all the time. After months of being on needles and pins as to what the future has up its sleeve, one gets so tired that it is simpler to accept the inevitable and be killed outright (if so it is written on the cards) than to lay awake nights and think about it. So leaving the situation on “the lap of the gods,” I went to my cabin and rolled into my bunk without the formality of undressing, and in two seconds was sleeping with that indifference to fate and the morrow that only hardship, exposure and utter exhaustion can make possible. The situation at Sevastopol, according to the rumors that had been circulating in the ports at which I had touched, were all that the most blood-thirsty correspondent could desire. The mutiny of the Black Sea fleet was but a recent history, and as no word had come from the Crimea for some weeks, it was generally supposed that further riot and bloodshed had been added to the long list of upheavals which had marked that year in the Czar’s dominions. So it was with keen interest that we stood on the bridge of the _France_ the following morning and watched the white line of the snow-clad, low lying hills come out of the sea as we approached the barren bleakness of the historic battlefields of ’55. We entered the harbor without molestation and anchored a few hundred yards from half a dozen sullen looking ships of war, which completed the dismal setting of the whole scene. We waited an hour or more, as usual in Russian ports, without our presence being noted in the slightest degree. Finally about nine o’clock a launch with a bevy of hungry waiting-to-be-fed port officials came aboard. Nothing could be done until a hot breakfast was placed before them. Then a few drinks and cigars warmed their hearts sufficiently so that they consented to commence the endless examination into our past, which forms such an important part of Russian procedure. About eleven they took their departure, with the instructions to us that we would not be allowed to land until our case had been carefully considered by those in authority ashore. This was most discouraging to one in a hurry to do business, and who had not the slightest intention of being left over night in the harbor. We watched the launch steam back to shore, and when it had finally disappeared behind some docks, and when, with my glasses, I had observed the portly officials walk off up a near by street, I ordered out my own long boat. Fortunately this hung on the side away from the harbor. Taking four of the best rowers and the faithful Morris, we pulled quietly away from the _France_, and, without further discussion, rowed around behind a bluff that sloped down to the water, in a little frequented part of the town, and without once being hailed, landed, climbed over said bluff, and walked boldly down into the main street of the town, just as though we lived there.