220 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



Tobacco is grown in many parts of the empire, but it is a 

 government monopoly, and the taxes levied upon the un- 

 happy cultivators are so burdensome that they are gradually 

 being forced to give up the business. The finest tobacco, 

 distinguished for its mild character and exquisite flavor, 

 comes from the hill-sides of Latakia, a sea-port town of Syria. 

 It is a little singular that smoking, introduced into the East 

 not earlier than the seventeenth century, should have taken 

 such deep root that the Turks and the Persians are now 

 looked upon as the greatest smokers in the world. Men, 

 women and children, with consummate skill, roll up their 

 little cigarettes, — for they are never purchased ready made ; 

 and the yellow stain on the finger tips is as characteristic 

 a mark as the black on the hand of a printer's devil. 



Coming now to' the farm-yard, we find it abundantly pro- 

 vided with animal life. In every part of Turkey domestic 

 fowls are met with, and the traveler always finds eggs and 

 chickens, if nothing more. In European Turkey large flocks 

 of geese and turkeys are raised for the Constantinople mar- 

 ket, and are driven down from the inland farms, a distance 

 even of one hundred and fifty miles. This task is usually 

 performed by gypsies ; and we have often wondered at the 

 unerring precision with which, with their hooked sticks, 

 they would suddenly arrest some lunatic goose in full career 

 of wings and feet. The hens are transported in crates on 

 the backs of horses. 



The Turkish horse is a smaller, hardier animal than ours. 

 It is more tractable, less nervous, has a better disposition, 

 and rarel}^ runs away. It is broken only to be ridden, and 

 not driven ; for, outside of the city of Constantinople, there 

 is not a pleasure carriage to be found in the whole empire. 

 In the cities all loads are carried on the backs of the porters, 

 or, suspended on poles, are carried by two or more of the 

 same class. In the country are to be found only the rudest 

 kinds of carts, drawn by bullocks or bufialoes, — the wheels 

 cut out of a solid piece of wood four or five inches thick ; and, 

 as no grease is used, the terrible squeaking and groaning that 

 is made, as the carts lumber along, remind one, as it has been 

 quaintly said, of " all the pandemonium of hell let loose." 



The horses of the sultan's stables, and of some of the 



