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MEDITERRANEAN SEA 



STILL SHRINKING, YET UNABASHED 



At left, Turkey's boundaries as fixed by the Congress of Berlin (1878). At right, the Balkan 

 states, showing the limits of European Turkey after the Balkan Wars (1913). See, also, map on 

 page 554. 



in its capital city. The people are Turks, Ar- 

 menians, Kurds, Arabs and Jews. The inevi- 

 table Turkish rugs are a leading article of com- 

 merce, and many dates and figs are exported. 



Turkey extended in a long, narrow arm south 

 to the Indian Ocean, with the Red Sea on the 

 west, and the Arabian Desert on the east.. 

 The new Arabia will include this arm in its 

 independent government. It is the holy spot 

 in the region, for it contains Mecca and Me- 

 dina. At the southern tip is Yemen, with 

 nearly 75,000 square miles of territory. Its 

 principal town is Mocha, and from the region 

 round about the world's finest coffee is pro- 

 duced. From the low coast the land rises 

 gradually from a semiarid region to moun- 

 tains fifty miles inland. From the mountains 

 cool winds and a mist, which occurs almost 

 daily, temper the heat of the lowlands. There 

 is no railroad nearer Mocha than Mecca, 500 

 miles to the north. Mocha has steamship con- 

 nections, but to the interior the only means of 

 communication is by camel and caravan routes. 



At the northern end of the long southern pro- 

 jection is Syria, which includes Palestine, Leba- 

 non and Jerusalem, names imperishable in his- 

 tory and in religious annals. It holds the Dead 



Sea, the lowest body of water on the globe, 

 its surface being almost a quarter of a mile 

 below the level of the sea. The River Jordan 

 and the Sea of Galilee, known also as the Sea of 

 Tiberias and Lake of Gennesaret, also belong 

 to this province. The climate is hot in summer, 

 for that season is long and dry. Snow falls to 

 some extent in winter. Olives are the principal 

 source of income, though they are grown only 

 in the north. Through the province from north 

 to south runs the chain of the Lebanon Moun- 

 tains, but of their famous cedars, such as King 

 Hiram sent to Solomon for the building of the 

 Temple at Jerusalem, only a few remain. The 

 southern portion of Syria is arid. 



The Syrian ports are Jaffa and Beirut. In 

 the latter city is a famous American college, 

 whose influence throughout Western Turkey 

 has been very great. The inhabitants are very 

 largely Jews; Turks are few. 



Transportation. Turkey in Europe had 1,050 

 miles of railroad when the War of the Nations 

 began in 1914; Asiatic Turkey had 2,835 miles. 

 Constantinople has direct connection with Paris 

 and Berlin, and had not the war put a stop to 

 development it would soon have had a rail 

 route south through Bagdad to the Indian 



