832 THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



WHEN PROSPERITY RULES 



Everywhere we found the people of 

 Asia Minor wondering why they are 

 poor, and why this new Hberty of which 

 all men talk, but of which no man knows 

 anything, does not make them prosper- 

 ous. 



We, too, had often wondered why this 

 land, where Midas turned all things to 

 gold and where Croesus was richest of 

 mortals, is now so poor, and it was 

 largely to study this problem that we had 

 come back once more to Asia Minor. 



During the past two years Turkey has 

 experienced a wonderful transformation. 

 The new regime has not brought all that 

 the ignorant expected, but it has done 

 much in spite of the complaints heard on 

 every side. Back of the present low es- 

 tate of Turkey, however, there lies a train 

 of centuries of gradual decay, and this it 

 is which renders the task of regenerating 

 the empire so difficult. Since the days 

 when Asia Minor was in her prime, 2,000 

 years ago, something has surely changed. 

 Is it the race of the inhabitants? Is it 

 their religion? Is it the government? 

 Or is it nature herself ? The change can- 

 not be due purely to the coming in of the 

 -T"urkish race, for the majority of the 

 people of Turkey, although Turks in 

 name, are not such by blood. Moreover, 

 although the Turks have many faults, 

 iew thoughtful persons who have lived 

 in their country will deny that under 

 favorable conditions it is hard to find 

 any people more sober, peaceful, and in- 

 dustrious. Nor is the change from the 

 prosperous conditions of the past wholly 

 a matter of religion, for ]\Iohammedan- 

 ism can scarcely be considered worse 

 than paganism. So long as prosperity is 

 the rule, Mohammedans and Christians 

 get along admirably, but trouble arises at 

 once when there is poverty or distress. 

 Nor is the government responsible for all 

 the decay in the civilization of Turkey, 

 for today the worst conditions are found 

 in just those places where the govern- 

 ment has least authority; for instance, 

 among the Arabs and Kurds. Beyond 

 question the country has suffered deplor- 

 ably from racial weaknesses, from relig- 



ious dissensions, and from governmental 

 oppression ; but back of these and ever 

 aggravating them, and sometimes causing 

 them, lies another factor— -a change in 

 nature herself. 



Nomadization, so wise men say, has 

 been the bane of the Turkish empire. 

 V^ast areas which once were prosperous 

 agricultural districts have now been 

 given over to nomads and their flocks, 

 and this has led to disorder and to the 

 breaking down of the ancient high civili- 

 zation of the land. It has often been 

 said that nomadization is a result of the 

 racial character of the Turks, and such 

 is the common statement in histories. 

 The observations which we made during 

 the work of the Yale Expedition of 1909 

 throw much doubt on this assertion, and 

 make us believe that nomadization is 

 largely due to a change of climate. It 

 was the study of this problem which led 

 us out into the dry plain of the Axylon, 

 lying at a height of about 3,000 feet above 

 the sea. It occupies many thousand 

 square miles in the center of Asia Minor 

 within a great ring of peripheral moun- 

 tains which border the coast and keep 

 out the rain. 



HOSPITALITY A TURKISH CHARACTERISTIC 



Our first day's ride came to an end 

 soon after 2 o'clock, at a sad adobe vil- 

 lage of dingy gray set in the midst of a 

 smooth brown plain of fine-grained lacus- 

 trine clay. A parching south wind had 

 raised the temperature to loi degrees 

 Fahrenheit, and the heat was so op- 

 pressive that we all lay down to rest in 

 the mud guest-room. 



After half an hour my drowsy thoughts 

 were interrupted by a plaintive childish 

 voice which seemed to be addressing ; 

 some one who would not answer. After ■ 

 it had spoken two or three times I per- \ 

 ceived a dirty, rosy little youngster 

 standing in the middle of the room and \ 

 timidly inviting the sleepers to drink 

 coffee, while his mother hid her face in ■ 

 her veil and peeked in at the door. I 

 When I had drunk the contents of one of | 

 the little cups down to the half-way line, • 

 where the beverage becomes solid 1 



