326 THE NEAR EAST. 



onism remains. The crescent and star of the ancient 

 Greeks now blaze on the green banners of Islam, and 

 the two-headed eagle of Byzantium is flaunted across 

 Asia on the standards of a northern Power, while a 

 Russian Tsar sits on the throne of his Viking prede- 

 cessors of a thousand years ago. Nevertheless, despite 

 such changes of ownership, there is a curious similarity 

 in the antagonism of the two countries then and now, 

 and when the Grand Duke Nicholas flouted Turkish 

 authority in 1902, and, with a protesting Turkish 

 official on board, steered the battleship Georgi Pobie- 

 donosets derisively up the Golden Horn, he was un- 

 wittingly repeating the insult flung at the city by his 

 ancestor Oleg, ten centuries before, when he hung his 

 shield on the gates of Byzantium in derision of its 

 inhabitants. 



As the power of Eussia has consolidated and in- 

 creased, the vigour of the Turk, as of almost every 

 other Asiatic nation, has proportionately declined, and 

 it is thanks only to the rivalry of Western Powers 

 that "the sick man" still sits on the throne at Yildiz. 

 For since Turkey is one of those states which impinge 

 upon the eastern extremity of the Mediterranean, and 

 is laved by the waters of the Persian Gulf, " the integ- 

 rity of Turkey " has of necessity been the watchword of 

 British policy in this portion of the globe. Twice in 

 the course of the past century has Russia let loose the 

 dogs of war that she might get possession of the keys 

 of the Bosphorus, and twice has Great Britain stepped 

 forth to wrest them from her grasp— once in 1853 by 

 appeal to the arbitrament of war, once again in 1878 

 by aid of the masterful diplomacy of Lord Beaconsfield. 



As a result of this want of success Eussia diverted 

 her energy for the time being into other channels, and 

 a whole crop of political questions in Central Asia 



