FRINGE OF VERDURE AROUND ASIA MINOR 



767 



new dwellings and go on with their old 

 life. 



Some of the facts connected with the 

 massacres illustrate the character of the 

 Turkish people so forcibly that it is 

 worth while to pause in our description 

 of the country and record them. The 

 facts belong to history, but they have a 

 place in geography, because the charac- 

 ter of any race is, in part at least, the 

 product of the geographic environment 

 j under which that race has grown up, 

 I and of the movements of the race under 

 ■ the influence of geographic conditions. 



In the more inaccessible parts of Tur- 

 key, especially among the high moun- 

 tains which border the western plateau 

 of Anatolia and which rise in all parts 

 of the eastern or Armenian plateau, 

 there are large numbers of people who 

 are not Turks either in name or religion, 

 and many others who are nominally 

 Turks but are in reality the descendants 

 of earlier races, such as the Phrygians, 

 Lycaonians, Armenians, Karduchi, and 

 Hittites. They have adopted Moham- 

 medanism merely as a means of avoiding 

 oppression and persecution. 



The more open regions of the semi- 

 arid center of the country are inhabited 

 largely by people who are almost purely 

 Turkish in race. These, as might be 

 expected, form the backbone of Turkish 

 power and the flower of the Turkish 

 army. The character of the true Turk 

 has doubtless been greatly influenced by 

 his present surrounding's, and has cer- 

 tainly been modified by Mohammedan- 

 ism, with all its inheritance of the habits 

 and modes of thought of the desert. 

 Nevertheless it still bears deeply the 

 impress of the physical circumstances 

 which gave rise to the nomadism of his 

 ancestors in Central Asia. 



To turn now to the specific facts 

 which are here to be used as an illustra- 

 tion of Turkish character: On April i6, 

 1909, there occurred in the city of 

 Adana a massacre of Christians by 

 Mohammedans. One cause was the fact 

 that in i895-'96, when extensive massa- 

 cres took place in other parts of Turkey, 

 there was none in Cilicia, and the Turks 



of that region said, "Let us have a 

 massacre also and get rich by robbing 

 the Christians." 



Other causes were the jealousy of 

 many Turks at the superior ability and 

 prosperity of the Armenians, a strong 

 but false impression that the iVrmenians 

 were engaged in revolutionary plots, and 

 the anti-Christian feeling fostered by 

 Sultan Abdul Hamid for the purpose of 

 recovering the power which he lost when 

 he granted constitutional government. 

 Under such conditions it was an easy 

 matter for corrupt officials to carry out 

 the express orders of the Sultan for a 

 massacre of Christians. At the time of 

 the massacre troops were already on the 

 way from Saloniki to dethrone the old 

 Sultan and reinstate the new constitu- 

 tional regime. Part of these troops were 

 promptly deflected to Adana by the con- 

 trolling committee of the Young Turks 

 in order to put a stop to disorders there. 

 The troops were chiefly poor, stupid 

 peasants — young, ignorant, and inexperi- 

 enced—but they were supposed to be full 

 of the spirit of progress and liberty and 

 fraternity, and to be devoted to the new 

 regime. What, then, was the amaze- 

 ment of men of all opinions to hear that 

 these troops reached Adana on the morn- 

 ing of Sunday, April 25, took over the 

 guarding of the city from the old troops 

 who had helped to carry on the preced- 

 ing massacre, and on the same afternoon 

 inaugurated a massacre of their own. 



What happened appears to have been 

 as follows, according to the statement of 

 the most reliable authorities, including' 

 American missionaries, the English con- 

 sul, some prominent Armenians, and 

 some of the more liberal Turks : 



When the Turks disembarked from 

 the railway which had brought them 

 40 miles eastward across the plain from 

 the port of Mersina, many local Turks 

 of Adana. especially the Khojas and 

 Mullahs, or religious leaders, mingled 

 with them and said, "Thank God, you 

 have come. Now at last we shall be 

 safe. For days and days we have been 

 living in terror of our lives. These ter- 

 rible Armenians have been burning our 



