It is approximately a ninety-mile run from Trebizond to the harbor of Batuum, and for this entire distance there is not an anchorage along the coast. From the time one leaves Trebizond the mountains rise sheer up from the sea, their bases studded with reefs and ragged rocks or else rising in cliffs, going straight up for hundreds of feet above the water. At Batuum there is a bit of a bay with a breakwater across the narrowest part of it, which justifies its being called a harbor. Then the coast reaches on in another bleak and barren stretch of forty miles to another nominal port rejoicing in the name of Poti. And for this distance the mountains march grandly along, reaching an altitude which must be at least six or seven thousand feet. The constant storms of winter had left them mantled deep in the glaring white of winter snows, save where here and there some great black elbow of rock had been stripped of its cloak by the whipping winter winds. The sea was running strong and the wind high when we put out that Xmas Eve, but in spite of adverse conditions we figured that daylight would find us off the little town of Batuum. As we did not want to get there before the light should show to us the uncertain channel ’midst the rocks and reefs that led to the harbor, we turned the engines down to a conservative ninety revolutions, which kept her going easily into the seas, which she was riding with the serenity of a strong swimmer disporting himself in the surf. The motion, though a bit too active to permit of continued sleep, was still not vigorous enough to cause any particular anxiety. A large part of the night we spent on the bridge. The moon rose late, and by its intermittent light, as it sailed along behind the ribbon of clouds that spread o’er the heavens, we could see the grim and ghostly line of the mountain range that silvered and darkened as the light of the moon came and went. The first gray light of Christmas day disclosed a bleakness of coast far more dismal than we had left behind. We were running along the rim of the Black Sea basin, so near that we could plainly see the coming and going of the clouds of spray that told of the never ceasing struggle of the waves against the relentless cliffs that for centuries have grimly turned the surging waters into foam and noisy tumult. Aye, and long before the dawn the roar rose and fell on our ears as sea after sea dashed upon the sterile sternness that ever hemmed them in.