Approaching Sinope from the north one sees little or nothing of the town until one rounds in behind the peninsula which sticks out from the mainland like the letter T, with the little port nestled in the shoulder of the letter. The books which I have since read say that it is a good harbor, but even after we had gotten around the point and anchored, the swell was enough to force one to walk gingerly along the deck to keep from being spilled across the rail. Personally (this is a true narrative and facts must be allowed) I had never heard of the place until I spied it on the chart when I was poring over that useful adjunct to navigation while we lay in the harbor of Sevastopol awaiting the Russians to give us our clearance papers. It does appear, however, upon investigation, that it has been on the map for a good long time. We even learned (to shame our ignorance) that Mithradates the Great, whose life is no doubt familiar to all our readers, first saw the light of day here as recently as 134 B. C. It was the capital also of Pontus, a name equally well known and distinguished. At lot of interesting people seem to have found this place, at one time or another. It seems that Mohammed Number II came in here in 1470 and created quite a sensation with the population at that time by capturing the place to the confusion of the survivors. A Russian Admiral with an ingenious name fought a naval battle with the Ottoman fleet here in 1853, and said fleet suffered its own loss with four thousand of its crew. This last interesting event decided England and France to interfere and brought on the Crimean war. Besides being famous for all these interesting incidents, Sinope exports fruit, fish, skins, nuts and tobacco. The day I was there all these useful products of its industries were not in evidence, or much of anything else, for that matter. But I take the word of the reference book (the refuge of all writers who travel) that on sunny days the inhabitants do as above mentioned. So it was in this city of these remarkable traditions, linked with ancient history and seemingly with no connection to the modern world, that the _France_, flying the ensign of the Chicago _Daily News_, let go her anchor, to the astonishment of the natives, who, no doubt, knew more of the illustrious Mithradates and his doings than of the city of Chicago, which, in the form of the _France_, had so unexpectedly descended on their legend laden harbor. So much then for the due we owe to the reader who wishes to be instructed. But in the meantime (even before the dawn of this knowledge was upon us) I had ordered Stomati to do his worst, and in fifteen minutes after we anchored we began the first substantial meal we had touched since leaving Sevastopol. CHAPTER X _We Send Our Cable from Sinope and Then Sail for the Caucasus, Where Rumor States Revolution and Anarchy to Be Reigning Unmolested_