Note 23 — Chapter XXIV · STATISTICAL AND POLITICAL

What a long and patient struggle in face of almost overwhelming difficulties has been successfully conducted and inch by inch pursued by these various enterprises! With them are associated the names of Brant in the north and of Chesney and Lynch in the south. The correspondence of Consul Brant with his distinguished chief, Stratford Canning, will, I trust, be some day given to the world.23 It displays on its face a union of ideas with the much rarer capacity of translating them into practice by unwearying attention to the minutest details, which, whether the quality may have been inspired by the ambassador or his able subordinate, reflects lustre upon both names. It serves to remind us that the Russian policy of building walls round their possessions is not a policy of recent date. We may regard with legitimate pride the readiness of our ancestors to take advantage of the throwing open of the Black Sea and of the facilities offered by the introduction of steam power; the old land-routes through Asia Minor were rapidly superseded, and a new commercial avenue between Trebizond and the interior of Persia was gradually opened up by a series of patient efforts which would have done credit to the Genoese.