his neo-Imperialism in which an Asiatic Empire under British rule was an element. About this time, too, the secret convention relating to the lease of Cyprus was signed with the Porte. When, a month later, the Berlin Congress was called together, such was the suspicion with which the plenipotentiaries regarded each other that each ambassador was obliged, before entering the Congress, to affirm that he was not bound by any secret engagement with the Porte. {192} Disraeli and Salisbury both gave the required declaration. "It must be remembered," says Mr. Blunt indulgently, "that both were new to diplomacy." A few weeks later the _Globe_ published the text of the Cyprus Convention, bought by that journal from one Marvin, an Oriental scholar, who had been imprudently employed as translator of the Turkish text. In London the authenticity of the document was denied, but the truth had to come out at Berlin. The discovery almost broke up the Congress. Prince Gortschakoff, the Russian representative, and M. Waddington, the Ambassador of France, both announced that they would withdraw at once from the sittings, and Waddington literally packed his trunks. It needed the cynical good offices of Bismarck to reconcile the English and the French plenipotentiaries.[2] There were two very significant points on which agreement was reached: 1. "That as a compensation to France for England's acquisition of Cyprus, France should be allowed on the first convenient opportunity, and without opposition from England, to occupy Tunis." {193} 2. "That in the financial arrangements being made in Egypt, France should march _pari passu_ with England." This was the source of the Anglo-French condominium in Egypt.