14 
LAND & WATER 
August 31, 1916 
Some Seaports of Syria 
By Eden Phillpotts 
MEMORY, stimulated by the luminous exposition 
of Mr. Hilaire Bellocin a recent issue of Land 
& Water, has brought back very vividly to 
my mind certain places of paramount interest 
at the moment. I see again the Syrian coastline and the 
little ports that may ere long, awaken and assume in- 
creasing significance in the history of Asia Minor. One 
of them, according to an Admiralty report, has already 
witnessed the destruction of certain enemy petrol stores, 
and, presumably, of a British armed patrol vessel as 
well; all are potential if not actual bases for enemy 
submarine supply. 
A ruby light, perched on a ruined fortress under the 
, silver of the moon, marked the landing place of Latakia, 
as we steamed hither from SjTian Tripoli, and at dawn, 
conspicuous on the wooded shore, stood a^ slant 
European roof that surprised one amid the Eastern 
housetops. It belonged to the American Mission, and 
the exiles, engaged there upon their life's work, presently 
extended a friendly welcome. The Mi.ssion schoolmaster 
was under no delusion. ' * We educate the Moslem children , 
no more." he said. " It suits the parental purpose to 
send the youngsters to us, that they may get education 
and learn to read and write and cast figures. But Christ- 
ianity gains no ground whatever. When they leave us. 
the young people go back to their own traditions, their own 
marriage customs, and their own faith." A little Syrian 
read to us in school and wrote Arabic with his reed pen. 
Dirtiest Town in the East 
The town, half-an-hour's walk from the harbour, was 
the smallest and dirtiest 1 remember even in the East. 
Pipes and cigarettes were out, for the fast of Ramadan 
reigned and the people were snappy and irritable while 
under their self-denial. As for the Turks, their masters, 
they appeared more than usually aggressive and offensive 
in this place. 
One remembers the soap factory, with it? piles of white 
olive-scented merchandise, and the fine Genoese ruins — 
pillars and fragments of a triumphal arch from the far 
past. The bazaar was mean and had little to offer 
of great interest, or worth. There were goldfinches in 
cages and porcupine quills and beetles, fabrics and glass 
jewellery of bracelets and beads. The trade was in 
nutgall, wool, camel hair, sponges, silk, and, of course, 
Abu Riha, " the father of perfume," that celebrated 
tobacco for which the %ilhayet is famous. 
This is Laodicea ad marem of Biblical history, and 
stands somewhat inland from the sea, behind a buttress 
of coastline on the site of the Phfjenician Ramitha, that 
Tancred conquered during the Crusades. It formed a part 
of the Prankish country of Tripolis and fell with Tripoli 
in 128'). Latakia lies only fifty miles from the railway 
that connects Aleppo and Homs, but is separated there- 
from by the chain of the Lebanon. 
More important, however, in Mr. Belloc's judgment is 
Iskanderun, or Alexandretta, on the Gulf of that name. 
The place is dangerous to shipping, for tremendous storms 
roll in upon the land-locked shallows, leaping with amazing 
speed out of the Mediterranean and calling for stout 
cables and anchors if the gales are to be ridden out, and 
for powerful steaming when shipmasters decide upon 
escape to blue water. Even such a storm sprang upon 
us in that land-locked bay, and our captain, trusting to 
his engines, fought out through a mountainous sea and a 
gale of wind that sprang without warning from the north 
at sunset time. Lighters laden with cargo had just come 
alongside, but they fled to land again while they still 
might make it ; slight craft threw out their heavy anchors ; 
we turned nose to the storm and fought out to safety 
with a struggle. There was a green (ireek brigantine, 
past which we crept, so close that one might have thrown 
a hat aboard. The terror of the master and his crew 
was extreme, for every moment they expected us to sink 
them. We ran for twenty miles and anchored under the 
lee of the land presently, hard by those low plains where 
Darius and Alexander fought. 
Returnijie to our moorings upon the day after the storm. 
sunshine and blue waters had taken the place of turbid, 
foam-capped seas, and only one casualty marked the 
event, where a belated lighter had failed of safety on the 
previous night. Her broken ribs and the wreckage of her 
skeleton littered the shore. 
Alexandretta, as the port of Muslimje, Aleppo and 
Antioch, enjoys some note, though itself a mean Syrian 
town, indeed little, more thah a village. A wide and 
marshy plain extends about it, hemmed in by the northern 
flanks of the Lebanon, whose escarpments and ridges 
rise green and jagged to the last of the winter snbws. In 
the lap of the mountain lies the far-spread and pestilence 
breeding marsh without the town. 
A Monument to Jonah 
Northward, under the foothills, there stands a fragment 
of masonry at the edge of the surf, where tradition 
records that the whale parted from Jonah. If this be so, 
then ne\er prophet had a more awkward landing ; but 
Tripoli also claims the site of his adventure. 
The little bazaars of Alexandretta were rich in good 
rugs and carpets ; the garb of the people struck one as 
peculiarlyquaint— a mingled dress of hill folk and sea folk. 
Through a pass in the mountains streamed down a noble 
caravan from Aleppo — one thousand laden camels and 
their company. The beasts were Bactrians — magnilicent 
woolly creatures of great size and majestic mien — -the 
very aristocracy of the camel race. They swung through 
the narrow streets, and passers by fled before them, or 
escaped into the doorways, because a" Bactrian waits for 
nobody. Tlieir drivers wore sheepskins and were as hirsute 
as the camels themselves. 
I'pon the plains some of our party wandered, to catch 
the little tortoises that aboundc;d there ; but they were 
warned to go not far afield and return before sundown 
should liberate the fever spirits -that haunt the place. 
Ibrahim Pasha drained it and improved it, but during 
the summer months Alexandretta continues a den of 
malaria, and one would little like to think of British 
troops beneath these hills, while gladly welcoming the 
thought of a few divisions on top of them. 
Where Alexander Fought 
It was at the head of the Gulf, on the Plain of Issus' 
that Alexander fought, and near the site of existing 
Iskanderun rose the original town of Alexandria ad 
Issum, Little Alexandria. Only one of all the Alex- 
andrias he left behind him is "better known. To-day 
Christian Greeks compose the bulk of the population and 
suffer exceedingly under the heel of the Turk and from 
disease. The Aleppo " button " is a common sight. 
But here remains the finest harbour which Syria possesses, 
and here exists a place of immense ftiture importance in 
connection with the railway above and with the valley of 
the Euphrates beyond. 
At this moment in the world's history the Bay un- 
doubtedly presents problems and possibilities of such a 
nature that the fate of all Turkey in Asia may be 
influenced by action in the district. " The nodal point 
upon which "the enemy army in Mesopotamia turns is the 
junction of Muslimje just north of Aleppo," writes Mr. 
Belloc. Again he says, " A blow delivered from the sea 
against Aleppo would obviously settle the business (of 
the Mcsopotamian campaign) at once. To deliver it upon 
the Gulf of Alexandretta has beeri suggested twenty 
times from as many quarters since Turkey entered the 
war. To deliver it south of the range of mountains 
covering Aleppo and a march upon that district from 
Latakia to Antioch would be decisive. The reasons 
against such an undertaking are not open to debate 
at this moment. But they are not conclusive." 
One remembers Iskanderun as a hamlet beside dim 
green and grey and yellow marshlands of grass and 
tamarisk ringed with huge hills and fronted by treacherous 
seas. Thunder woke on the mountains and rolled over 
their snowy heads by night, and lightning often flickered 
upon their austere foreheads 
