CHAPTER XIX.
THE TURKISH FLEET DURING THE WAR.
To return to the doings of the Turkish fleet in the Black Sea during the war, Sulina was a point from the beginning always aimed at by the Russians.

In fact, according to my humble ideas, Russia went to war to get possession of Bessarabia, the key of the Danube, and Batoum, the key to Asia Minor, and in a great measure to our Indian possessions.

I think the sentimental story of massacres in Bulgaria was merely a blind whereby to catch the sympathetic support of Europe, and more especially the English philanthropists.

I think this, because when the most awful cruelties were committed by the Bulgarians on the Turks _after_ the war, we heard no outcry about massacres.

However, I must not introduce politics into Sketches from a sailor's life; such would be out of place.
Constant attacks were made by land and by sea on Sulina, which was held and defended by Turkish ships and their crews, who manned the small batteries they had planted at the mouth of the river.