TURKEY 



590S 



TURKEY 



THE EMPIRE IN 1481 



The black boundary lines show the limits of Turkey a few years after the capture of Constanti- 

 nople (1453). 



day of 250,000,000 devout, fanatical religionists. 

 It has 80,000 permanent inhabitants and often 

 holds a hundred thousand pilgrims. Just north 

 of Mecca is Medina, another holy city, half as 

 large as Mecca; these two cities are in Hedjaz, 

 a part of new Arabia. 



Smyrna, 2,500 years old, is on the Aegean 

 coast, a great, cosmopolitan city, largely Greek, 

 and known best for the exportation of the 

 Oriental rugs which bear its name and for the 

 figs which comprise a good part of its com- 

 merce. Scutari, the lovely suburb of Constanti- 

 nople, is the nearest Asiatic city to the main- 

 land of Europe. Trebizond, the capital of the 

 province of the same name, on the southern 

 Black Sea shore, was taken by the Russians- in 

 '1916 in the War of the Nations. South of it, 

 in suffering Armenia, is Erzerum, also taken by 

 Russia. Aleppo, an ancient city, now a com- 

 mercial center of 200,000 people; Damascus, 



with the glamour of Bible stories yet clinging 

 to it, but to-day a bustling city of a quarter of 

 a million thronging its "street called Straight;" 

 Bagdad, a real yet almost a fabled city, center 

 of ancient learning, famous as the scene of the 

 Arabian Nights Entertainment and now of 

 greater importance than ever before because 

 of its railroad connecting Europe with the 

 Persian Gulf all of these are to-day cities of 

 growing importance, but all of them Turkey has 

 forever lost. 



Throughout the country, in many places far 

 from present homes of man, are majestic col- 

 umns yet standing which speak of an old civili- 

 zation in advance of anything Turkey knows 

 to-day. The life of the world had its begin- 

 ning here, if we are to credit the belief that 

 the Garden of Eden was located in the Tigris- 

 Euphrates region. The glories of the past fur- 

 nish no inspiration to the Turk. 



The Land and Its Resources 



The northern part of Turkey in Asia is. the 

 ancient Asia Minor, through whose mountain 

 passes for many centuries caravans laden with 

 Oriental riches reached the island-fringed coast. 



derived from Greek words which mean to rise, 

 and having reference to the table-lands which 

 rise to an average elevation of 3,000 feet. These 

 reach nearly to the sea, but drop suddenly and 



The modern name for the section is Anatolia, form a narrow, fertile belt known as the Levant. 



