Chapter I: Preface

When we consider the great number of European and American travellers who annually visit the Levant, it is strange how seldom any of them extends his journey into Northern Syria, or the adjacent provinces of Turkey in Asia.

The hard and fast line of travel seems to be drawn at Beyrout, or a few miles to the northward of it.

Northern Syria is almost a “terra incognita,” the only good general map of it being that of Mr. E. G. Rey, published by the Paris Geographical Society. Indeed, for one traveller who explores this most interesting region, there are thousands who hurry over the well-worn and familiar routes of Palestine.

The adjacent territory of Karamania is almost equally unvisited, and only once perhaps in every thirty years does a European traveller painfully make his way through some portion of the province. The only other Europeans who care to visit it are a few buyers of walnut wood, or leech merchants, chiefly Greeks, whose one aim is to forward their trade interests, and on whom the wonderful antiquities and surpassing beauties of the country naturally make but little impression.

Of course there are good reasons to be given for all this. Until within a few years, so unsettled has been the state of the country, that a European traveller would have incurred no slight personal danger, even though he bore a firman from the Porte, unless he could afford the expense of a numerous and well-armed escort; and even then, many parts of the borderland between Syria and Karamania, and notably the Amanus and Giaour Dagh, would have been inaccessible, being in a state of chronic rebellion against the Government. Moreover, so unhealthy are many parts of the country, and so great the labour and privation an explorer of it must inevitably incur, that it is not strange the price should have been generally deemed too high to pay. Of late years, however, the authority of the Ottoman Government has been considerably strengthened in S.E. Asia Minor; commerce has begun to open up districts hitherto almost unknown, and thus these very interesting regions may perhaps attract, ere long, that attention which their unrivalled natural beauty and their many historical associations deserve.

The following pages contain the record of a journey made in the summer of 1875 through portions of Cilicia, Lycaonia, Cappadocia, and the little known district of Isauria, including a visit to the ruins of ancient Isaura, which had been previously visited only by Hamilton in 1836, and by Texier a little before that period.

At a time when the reputation of the Turks as a nation and a government is sunk to the lowest depth, it may be not uninteresting to see what that people is in a remote province of the empire, almost uninfluenced by the pseudo-civilization of Stamboul.

One cannot help pitying the ill-fortune of a race which is certainly endowed with many noble qualities, and regretting the sad destiny of a country which contains so many elements of material prosperity. And yet further, one cannot help protesting against the injustice, and want of fair play, displayed in 1876 towards the subjects of the Porte. The Ottoman Government is extremely bad, its sins of omission and commission notorious, but the people should not be confounded with the corrupt official and governing class.

I mixed familiarly with them (scarcely coming in contact with the authorities except when it was absolutely necessary for the purposes of my journey), and they made a very favourable impression upon me, combined with a feeling of deep commiseration.

As for any special class oppression of Christian by Muslim in Karamania, nothing of the kind exists, so far as my experience went. Both classes unhappily suffer alike; both are crushed by the same impartial tyranny and misrule!

Waiving, however, considerations as to the respective merits of the parties to the late war, we may at least admit that a people which has so valiantly defended itself under overwhelming odds against the hereditary foe of its name, religion, and race, deserves careful study, and may not be dismissed in the off-hand manner so usual with some of our orators and newspaper writers.

I have endeavoured to give a faithful description of the country and its inhabitants as I found them. If the following pages shall in any degree help to make known what the Osmanli is at home, they will have done some service.

Let us hope that the fiery trial of 1876-7 will be productive of good to the various races under the sceptre of the house of Othman.

But if the conquest of the Osmanlis by Russia be the only means of improvement, the result can only be obtained after an amount of bloodshed and misery so awful that the whole civilized world will stand aghast at it; nor will humanity gain anything by the substitution, for Osmanli misgovernment, of a new tyranny, more grinding, bigoted, and methodically merciless than the old!

I take the opportunity of acknowledging the kind assistance I have received from my friends Mr. M. Ancketill and Dr. Neroutsos Bey of Alexandria.

ALEXANDRIA, _November, 1878_.

_Stanford’s Geogˡ. Estabᵗ._

London: Edward Stanford, 55, Charing Cross.]

CONTENTS.

PAGE

CHAPTER I.

THE COAST OF SYRIA.

Postal Service of the Coast of Syria—Acre, Sidon—A Resident’s
Opinion as to Turkish Administration—Halet Pasha—Essaad
Pasha—Tripoli—The Kadisha—Mosque—Coast Line and Nusairiyeh
Mountains—Alexandretta—Causes of its Unhealthiness—Its
Commercial Advantages—Constant changes of Governors—Want of
means of Communication—Roads and Railroads could be easily
constructed—Murder of a Missionary—Monuments of former British
Residents—Want of Good Harbours—Mersina in 1812—Causes of
its increase—Description of Town—Europeans do not thrive
there—Why—Plain of Mersina—Mounds 1-15