From Berlin to Bagdad and Babylon

By J. A. Zahm

The Project Gutenberg eBook of From Berlin to Bagdad and Babylon

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: From Berlin to Bagdad and Babylon

Author: J. A. Zahm

Release date: August 2, 2024 [eBook #74176]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: D. Appleton and company, 1922

Credits: Peter Becker, Karin Spence and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM BERLIN TO BAGDAD AND BABYLON ***

FROM BERLIN TO
BAGDAD AND BABYLON

_BOOKS BY J. A. ZAHM_

(H. J. MOZANS)

FROM BERLIN TO BAGDAD AND BABYLON
THE QUEST OF EL DORADO
THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA’S SOUTHLAND
UP THE ORINOCO AND DOWN THE
MAGDALENA
ALONG THE ANDES AND DOWN THE
AMAZON
WOMAN IN SCIENCE
GREAT INSPIRERS

FROM BERLIN TO
BAGDAD _AND_ BABYLON

BY
THE REV. J. A. ZAHM, C.S.C., PH.D., LL.D.
(H. J. MOZANS)

MEMBER OF THE AUTHORS’ CLUB, LA SOCIÉTÉ FRANÇAISE DE PHYSIQUE, THE
ARCADIA OF ROME, AND OTHER LEARNED SOCIETIES; AUTHOR OF “UP THE
ORINOCO AND DOWN THE MAGDALENA,” “ALONG THE ANDES AND DOWN THE
AMAZON,” “THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA’S SOUTHLAND,” ETC.

[Illustration]

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK :: LONDON :: MCMXXII

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO
THE BEST OF FRIENDS
EVER LOYAL AND INSPIRING

MR. AND MRS. CHARLES M. SCHWAB

IN WHOSE HOSPITABLE HOME EVERY BOOK I
HAVE WRITTEN DURING THE LAST QUARTER
OF A CENTURY HAS HAD EITHER ITS INCEPTION
OR ITS COMPLETION THIS VOLUME

IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

PARAPHRASE OF VERSES FROM SHAIKH SADI

BY EDWIN ARNOLD

_In many lands I have wandered, and_
_wondered, and listened, and seen;_
_And many my friends and companions,_
_and teachers and lovers have been._

_And nowhere a corner was there but I_
_gathered up pleasure and gain;_
_From a hundred gardens the rose-blooms,_
_from a thousand granaries grain;_

_And I said to my soul in secret, “Oh_
_thou, who from journeys art come!_
_It is meet we should bear some token of_
_love to the stayers at home;_

_For where is the traveller brings not from_
_Nile the sweet green reed,_
_Or Kashmiri silk, or musk-bags, or coral,_
_or cardamum seed?”_

_I was loath from all that Pleasaunce of_
_the Sun and his words and ways,_
_To come to my country giftless, and showing_
_no fruit of my days:_

_But, if my hands were empty of honey,_
_and pearls and gold,_
_There were treasures far sweeter than_
_honey, and marvellous things to be told._

_Whiter than pearls and brighter than_
_the cups at a Sultan’s feast,_
_And these I have brought for love-tokens,_
_from the Lords of Truth, in my East._

FOREWORD

The following pages are the result of observations made and impressions
received during a recent journey between one of the greatest capitals
of Europe and the crumbling remains of what was in the long-ago the
greatest capital of Asia. The route I followed was that which has been
rendered famous by the migrations of the nations from the East to the
West and by the march of armies from the days of Asurbanipal, Darius
and Alexander to those of Harun-al-Rashid, Godefroy de Bouillon and
Kolmar von der Goltz.

The journey in question I made not as a tourist but as a student--as
one interested not only in the present condition--social, economic,
religious and intellectual--of the peoples of the countries through
which I passed, and as one who had had an intense and life-long
interest in the history and civilization of the lands which intervene
between the headwaters of the Danube and the lower reaches of the
Tigris and the Euphrates.

The ordinary tourist on pleasure bent would regard most of my journey
as having been made through what is usually spoken of as “the
unchangeable East.” But to the student who is conversant with the long
and eventful past of the Near East the storied belt which connects
the Bosphorus with the Persian Gulf has been the theater of more and
greater changes in humanity’s development than any other portion of
the earth’s surface. It is the _fons et origo_ of the oldest
civilization--a civilization whose traditions carry us back to the
Garden of Eden. It has witnessed the successive civilizations of the
Babylonians and the Assyrians, of the Greeks and the Romans and of the
Saracens under the caliphs. And each of these consecutive civilizations
has left its monuments of imperial splendor--its temples and palaces
and colonnades and its priceless gems of plastic art. Some of these
magnificent vestiges of a glorious past, like those of Palmyra, are
still standing in the heart of the desert and have long since been
abandoned to the roving Bedouin or the rapacious jackal. Others, like
those of Ephesus and Pergamum and Nineveh, were long buried under sand
and clay and have only recently been unearthed by the pick and the
spade of the explorer and the archæologist. But wherever found, whether
on the lonely plains and hillsides of Anatolia, or in the solitudes
of the Syrian and Mesopotamian deserts, they possess for the studious
traveler an attraction that is not offered in the same degree by any
other section of the wide world.

Unlike the mysterious ruins in the steaming jungles of Yucatan or
on the chilly plateau of Bolivia, which speak of an enigmatic race
quite alien to our own, the remains of antiquity everywhere found in
the lands between Stamboul and Babylon are of forms and designs with
which we have been familiar from our youth and which belong to the
same civilization from which our own is derived--the civilization
that had its origin in the city-states of ancient Greece and that
was subsequently introduced into western Asia by the soldiers of
Alexander and Seleucus and firmly maintained there for centuries by the
legionaries of imperial Rome.

To the student traveling through the Near East--especially along the
route which I selected--the experience is, in many respects, like
that of one passing through a vast museum. At every turn he meets
something of rare and enthralling fascination. Now it is a remnant of
a marble capital or architrave in a nomad’s hut; then it is a forlorn
granite column near a squalid Turkish village--all that remains of
some stately temple or sumptuous theater of Greek or Roman greatness.
Again it is the fragment of a tomb which was erected to the memory
of one who played an important rôle in his day, but whose name and
achievements have long since been forgotten. And hovering over these
crumbling monuments of a misty past are legends innumerable, but all
of entrancing human interest--an interest that is accentuated by the
discovery of a Greek or Latin inscription carved in a slab of granite
or marble or by the finding of a terra cotta tablet covered with
cuneiform characters that carry one back to the stirring reigns of
Esarhaddon or Sennacherib.

And then there are the people--especially those of Asia Minor--with
whom the author always loved to mingle and of whose kindness and
hospitality he will ever retain the fondest memories. No people that I
know has been less understood and more misrepresented than the gentle,
industrious, home-loving Osmanlis of Anatolia. But of these I shall
speak at length when relating my experiences in Asia Minor.

Traveling as a student, I have also written as a student and for
students. But I have at the same time endeavored to record my
observations and impressions so as to make them of interest to the
general reader as well. And while I have given prominence to subjects
that specially appealed to myself, these will, I trust, not be devoid
of value to others who may wish to have in popular form an account
of some of the most famous cities and peoples of the Near East when
civilization was in its infancy, or when it was in full bloom under the
beneficent influence of Helenism and Christianity.

As many parts of this volume are controversial in character, I have not
confined myself to giving simply the results of my own observations
and impressions, but I have taken pains to corroborate them by the
conclusions of eminent scholars and investigators who have devoted
to all the more important subjects long and careful study, and
whose opinions, therefore, are entitled to special weight. And that
the reader, if so minded, may be able to control my statements and
deductions I have invariably given references to my authorities.

In the matter of the orthography of Turkish and Arabic proper names
I have had the same experience as Howorth refers to when he writes
in his _History of the Mongols_: “There are hardly two authors
whom I have consulted who spell the names in the same way, and very
often their spelling is so different that it is nearly impossible
to recognize the name under its various aspects.” This arises from
the fact that there is as yet no generally accepted system among
English scholars for the transliteration of Turkish and Arabic
names. Scientific accuracy, therefore, is in this respect difficult,
if not impossible. My sole aim, consequently, has been to make
myself intelligible. I have, accordingly, followed the orthography
adopted by our standard English dictionaries and encyclopedias. In
doing this I have, I am aware, exposed myself to the criticism of
Oriental philologists, but I shall, I trust, have compensation in the
satisfaction of being “understanded of the people.”

IMMERGRÜN, LORRETO, PA.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. ON THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE DANUBE 1

II. THE EUXINE AND THE BOSPHORUS IN STORY, MYTH
AND LEGEND 35

III. ROMA NOVA 51

IV. THE HELLESPONT AND HOMER’S TROY 76

V. THE CRADLE OF THE OSMANLIS 94

VI. HOME LIFE OF THE OSMANLIS IN ANATOLIA 121

VII. THE BAGDAD RAILWAY 151

VIII. IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE CRUSADERS 171

IX. IN HISTORIC CILICIA CAMPESTRIS 193

X. ISLAM PAST AND PRESENT 220

XI. ALONG THE TRADE ROUTES OF THE NEAR EAST 253

XII. FROM THE EUPHRATES TO THE TIGRIS 278

XIII. THE CHURCHES OF THE EAST 303

XIV. NINEVEH AND ITS WONDERS 341

XV. FLOATING DOWN THE TIGRIS IN A KELEK 370

XVI. BAGDAD 402

XVII. MOTORING IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN 437

XVIII. BABYLON 471

INDEX 517

FROM BERLIN TO
BAGDAD AND BABYLON

CHAPTER I

ON THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE DANUBE

_Wenn ich dann zu Nacht alleine_
_Dichtend in die Wellen schau’,_
_Steight beim blanken Mondenscheine_
_Auf die schmucke Wasserfrau_
_Aus der Danau,_
_Aus der schönen, blauen Danau._[1]
BECK

FROM RATISBON TO BUDAPEST

Berlin to Bagdad! How these words, during the past few years, have
stirred the chancelleries of Europe and how they have echoed and
reëchoed throughout the civilized world! How they evoke Macchiavellian
schemes of rival powers for territorial expansion and recall prolonged
diplomatic struggles and countless sanguinary battles for military
and commercial supremacy! How they tell of a welter of intrigue, of
ambitions foiled, of treaties violated, of nations plunged into the
miseries and horrors of the most frightful and most destructive of
wars!

No portion of the world’s surface in the entire history of humanity
has witnessed so many and so great revolutions as has that narrow
strip which connects what was once the palm-embowered capital of
Harun-al-Rashid, near the reputed birthplace of our race, with the
once proud metropolis of the Hohenzollerns in far distant Niflheim.
Across this restricted belt have swept Babylonians and Assyrians,
Persians and Greeks, Saracens and Mongols in their careers of rapine
and conquest. And across it surged the countless hordes of Huns and
Goths, Turks and Tartars, during that protracted migration of nations
from the arid steppes of Asia to the fertile plains of Europe. And
across it, too, at the head of their victorious armies, forced their
way all projectors of world domination from Ashurbanipal and Alexander
to Timur and Napoleon.

As a boy no part of the world possessed a greater fascination for me
than Babylonia and Assyria. This was, probably, because the first
book I ever read contained wonderful stories of the Garden of Eden;
of Babylon and its marvelous hanging gardens; of Nineveh and its
magnificent temples and palaces; of the Tigris and the Euphrates whose
waters were made to irrigate the vast and fecund plain of Mesopotamia,
the cradle of civilization. So profound, indeed, was the impression
made on me by the reading of this volume that one of the great desires
of my life was one day to be able to visit the land whose history
had so fascinated my youthful mind and whose people had played so
conspicuous a rôle in the drama of human progress.

After many years, when the realization of my dreams seemed no longer
possible, events so shaped themselves that I finally found myself,
almost as if by enchantment, in a comfortable hotel on the famous Unter
den Linden in Berlin making final arrangements for my long journey to

_Romantic Bagdad, name to childhood dear,_
_Where the sorcerer gloomed, the genii dwelt,_
_And Love and Worth to good Al Rashid knelt._

Had I been in haste and been disposed to follow the most direct route,
I should have taken the Orient Express which would have delivered
me forty-nine hours later in the famed City of Constantine on the
picturesque Bosphorus. But that would have been too prosaic and would
have prevented me from feasting my eyes on many things which, during
previous visits to Europe had given me special pleasure.

Chief among these was that supreme performance of pictorial art,
Raphael’s Madonna of San Sisto in the Royal Art Gallery of Dresden.
Although I had many times spent hours in silent contemplation of
this masterpiece of the great Umbrian artist, I now felt a greater
desire than ever to behold again this matchless creation of genius
and feel myself again under the spell of its serene beauty and gaze
once more on what has been called “the supernatural put into color and
form”--“Christianity in miniature”--what Goethe sings of as

_Model for mothers--queen of woman--_
_A magic brush has, by enchantment,_
_Fixed her there._

Could one have had before one’s mind during long months in many lands
a more elevating or a more inspiring image than that of her whom
Wordsworth has so truly characterized as

_Our tainted nature’s solitary boast?_

From Dresden I went to Ratisbon which, according to a venerable
tradition, occupies the site of a town founded by the Celts long
centuries before the Christian era and which subsequently became known
as Castra Regina, an outpost of the Roman empire on its long northern
frontier. In few places of Germany is there more to engage the lovers
of historic and legendary lore than this ancient city.

The most conspicuous object is the noble Gothic Cathedral with its
delicate crocketed spires. As in the case of the cathedral of Cologne,
full six centuries elapsed from the laying of the cornerstone to the
completion of the towers of this imposing building. And as in the
marvelous church of the Certosa di Pavia the architectural and artistic
decoration of this magnificent temple passed from father to son. To
these rarely gifted artisans and designers one can apply the words of
Longfellow about the Cathedral of Strassburg:

THE ARCHITECT

_Built his great heart into these sculptured stones,_
_And with him toiled his children, and their lives_
_Were builded with his own into the walls_
_As offerings to God._

The numerous square towers which are visible in certain parts of the
city remind one of similar towers that are so marked a feature in San
Gimignano. They date back to a time when the nobility of Ratisbon,
like the noble families of Florence in Dante’s time, employed them as
defenses against their enemies.

But it is not my intention to describe even briefly the countless
objects which have so long rendered this famous old city a favorite
object to the tourist. To do even partial justice to its multitudinous
attractions and historical associations would require a large volume.

My purpose in coming to Ratisbon was to embark on one of the small
boats that here ply on the Danube, with the view of connecting at
Passau, further down the river, with one of the larger boats of the
Danube Steamship Navigation Company, which would take me to Vienna.
Thence I planned to go by steamers of the same company to Budapest,
Belgrade and the mouth of the Danube, whence I had planned to sail by
the Black Sea and the Bosphorus to Constantinople.

But why, the reader will ask, did I elect the slower and more
roundabout route rather than the direct one by rail? I answer in the
words of Ovid:

_Ignotis errare locis, ignota videre_
_Flumina gaudebant, studio minuente laborem._[2]

I had always loved the water and traveling by river has always had
a peculiar fascination for me. Besides this, I had for years been
specially eager to journey by the Danube from its source to its mouth.
Having had the good fortune to sail the entire navigable length of many
of the world’s largest rivers, I was doubly desirous of sailing down
the historic waterway which connects the noted Black Forest with the
famed Euxine Sea of antiquity.

In one of his charming travel-books, Victor Hugo declares:

The Rhine is unique: it combines the quality of every river.
Like the Rhone, it is rapid; broad, like the Loire; encased like
the Meuse; serpentine like the Seine; limpid and green like
the Somme; mysterious like the Nile; spangled with gold, like
an American river; and, like a river of Asia, abounding with
phantoms and fables.[3]

Hesiod, who first makes mention of the Danube, under the name of
the Ister, gives it the epithet of καλλίρέεδρος--the beautifully
flowing--and calls it the son of Tethys and Oceanus. Ovid was
so impressed with it that he declares in one of his _Paitic
Epistles_, that it is not inferior to the Nile:

_Cedere Danubius se tibi, Nile, negat._[4]

Hugo’s brief but graphic description of some of the world’s famed
rivers applies with even greater truth to the legendary, the historic,
the romantic, the picturesque Danube. No watercourse in the world is
tenanted by a larger number of fantastic and mysterious beings; some,
like the swan-maidens and the water nymph Isa, making their home in
its waters; others, like fairies and pixies and elves, dwelling in the
bays, forests, caverns and old dismantled castles on its banks.

According to Pindar, the region about the source of the Danube was a
land of perpetual sunshine and teeming with the choicest fruits. It was
inhabited by a people who enjoyed undisturbed peace, were immune from
disease and lived a thousand years, which they spent in the worship of
Apollo. It was from this highly favored land, Pindar tells us, that
Hercules brought the olive which, it was averred, grew in profusion
about the sources of the Danube.[5]

And, from its headwaters to its entrance into the Euxine, the Danube
was as rich in myths and legends as were ever the rivers and mountains
and groves of ancient Hellas. According to the great German epic, the
Nibelungenlied, it was at Pforring, a short distance above Ratisbon,
that the legendary heroine, Kriemhild, bride-elect of Etzel, took leave
of her brothers when on her way from the Rhine to far-off Hungary,
where she was to join her new husband, the famous Etzel--Attila--king
of the Huns, and where she was to consummate her plans of wreaking
vengeance upon the murderers of her first husband, Siegfried.

It may here be remarked in passing that the illustrious Albertus
Magnus, probably the greatest scholar of the Middle Ages, reputed to be
a magician as well as an eminent theologian and philosopher, was bishop
of Ratisbon.

About a half hour after leaving Ratisbon, in a cosy little steamer, we
find ourselves near the foot of a wooded hill on whose brow

_The Walhalla rises, purely white,_
_Temple of fame for all Germania’s great._

Seen at a distance it appears to be almost a reproduction of the
Parthenon, both in dimensions and style of architecture. It is due to
the munificence of Ludwig I, of Bavaria, who erected it as a Temple
of Fame for those who had in any way signally honored the Fatherland.
Some even, whose names are unknown, are duly commemorated in this
magnificent edifice. Among them are the architect of the Cologne
Cathedral and the author of the great German epic, the Nibelungenlied.

When this temple was solemnly dedicated in October, 1842, Ludwig I, in
the course of a stirring address, said, “May the Walhalla contribute
to extend and consolidate the feelings of German nationality. May all
Germans of every race henceforth feel they have a common country of
which they may be proud, and let each individual labor according to his
faculties to promote its glory.” It is the use of the word “German” in
its broad historic and ethnological sense that explains the existence,
in this Teutonic Hall of Fame, of tablets in honor of Hengist and
Horsa, Venerable Bede and Alfred the Great.

From Walhalla to Passau, near the Austrian frontier, we had a splendid
opportunity, as our little steamer glided along the sinuous Danube, to
observe the attractions of the celebrated Dunkelboden, so called from
its dark, fertile soil. Much of the country through which we passed was
a broad, unbroken plain, dotted with small farmhouses, pretty villages
adorned with chaletlike homes, and white churches surmounted by quaint,
salmon-colored steeples.

Arrived at Passau I embarked for Vienna on one of the trim and
commodious steamers of the Danube Steamship Navigation Company. The
appointments and service of these boats are all that could be desired
and are fully equal to the best of the excursion steamers on the Hudson
or the St. Lawrence. Indeed, for one who desires perfect rest, combined
with comfort, while sailing on the most romantic and picturesque
waterway in Europe, I know of nothing I can more cordially recommend
than a few weeks’ excursion on the Danube.

From time immemorial travelers have sounded the glories of the Rhine.
I should be the last to depreciate the many and great attractions of
this noble river on which I spent so many happy days, but truth compels
me to declare that the Danube, not only in scenic beauty and grandeur,
but also in historic and legendary association, far surpasses what the
Romans were wont to call _Rhenus Superbus_.

On the way from Passau to Vienna I spent all my time on deck, as I did
not wish to miss any of the countless objects of interest which here
make the course of the Danube so famous. What with historic towns and
villages, crenelated and machicolated castles--some still inhabited,
others long since in ruins--there was much to engage one’s attention.

If the massive walls and somber towers of these moss-covered old
castles could speak, what tales could they not tell of love and
romance, hate and revenge? What stories could they not tell of wars and
sieges when the crossbow, halberd and the broadsword were the chief
weapons of offense and defense? And how much would they not have to
relate of the lawlessness and cruelty of the robber-barons who sallied
forth from these almost inaccessible strongholds to confiscate passing
vessels or to pillage the surrounding country. Manzoni, in his vivid
pictures of the _prepotenti_, as portrayed in his masterly _I
Promessi Sposi_, gives one some idea of the insatiable rapacity of
the titled brigands of the period which we are now considering. Good
old Froissart was right when he denounced them as “people worse than
Saracens or Paynims”; as men whose “excessive covetousness quencheth
the knowledge of honor.”

Everywhere along the Danube one hears stories about the activities of
the Devil in days gone by and of his determined efforts to thwart the
works and projects of those whom he regarded as his natural enemies.
In Ratisbon is shown a bridge which he is said to have built in
exchange for the soul of his employer. Owing, however, to the superior
shrewdness of his employer, he lost the remuneration he so greatly
coveted.

Further down the river, near Deggendorf, is a great mass of granite
which the Devil is said to have brought all the way from Italy in
order to destroy the town, because its people were too religious to
please his Satanic Majesty. But just as he was about to drop his
massive load on the unsuspecting inhabitants, the Ave Maria bell was
sounded in the adjacent monastery when the Evil One was forced to let
fall his burden before he could compass his purpose. At another point
is shown a rock known as the Devil’s Tower, and at still another is
a curious mass of rock which, from its peculiar formation, is called
Teufelsmauer--Devil’s Wall.

* * * * *

According to a time-honored ballad

_There came an old Crusader_
_With fifty harnessed men_
_And he embarked at Ratisbon_
_To fight the Saracen._

These Crusaders and others that followed them down the Danube on their
way to the Holy Land so exasperated the Demon that “he plucked up rocks
from the neighboring cliffs and pitched them right into the channel
of the river, thereby hoping to arrest their progress. But in this he
was completely deceived; for after the first rock came plunging down
amongst them, every man made the sign of the cross, and uniting their
voices in a holy anthem, the fiend was instantly paralyzed, and slunk
away without further resistance. So huge, however, was the first stone
he threw that for ages it caused a swirl and a swell in this part of
the river which nothing but the skill and perseverance of the Bavarian
engineers could remove.”[6]

As the Danube moves majestically between ever recurring islets, green
with willow and birch, and wooded heights crowned with ruins of castles
and monasteries telling of times long past, the veil of romance, with
which legend invests everything, seems to become heavier and more
variegated. Here are elf-haunted glens and primeval forests which were
once declared to be the home of the Erl-King. There is the dark cavern
where the lindwurm, like the one slain by Siegfried, lay in wait for
his prey, and at still another spot is the lakelet where Hagen met
the swan-maidens on his return with the Nibelungs to the lands of the
Huns. Further down the stream are the Strudel and Wirbel, the Scylla
and Charybdis of the Danube, for ages the reputed trysting-place of all
kinds of phantoms and monsters.

But here in

_Imperial Danube’s rich domain_

sober history has far more to recount than saga and legend, for every
spot we pass has its story of ambition, intrigue and revenge; of wars
involving the loss of thrones and far-reaching changes in the map of
the then known world.

At Dürrenstein, further down the river, are the ruins of a great feudal
stronghold in which is still shown the dungeon in which tradition
says Richard Coeur de Lion, on his return from the Third Crusade,
was imprisoned by his inexorable enemy, Duke Leopold of Austria. The
legend, telling how the English King’s liberation was finally effected
through his devoted minstrel, Blondel, has long been a favorite theme
of poets and artists.[7]

It was not far from Dürrenstein that Julian the Apostate engaged a
flotilla for his famous voyage down the Danube--the beginning of that
long campaign which was to end so disastrously for him and his army on
the sun-parched banks of the far distant Tigris.

At a subsequent period Charlemagne and his Paladins descended the
Danube on his campaign against the Avars. Later on he was followed by
numerous contingents of Crusaders, among them heroic Barbarossa and his
valiant band, on their way to Constantinople and the Holy Land.

It is safe to say that no waterway in Europe has more frequently
witnessed the march of vast armies or heard more frequently the echoed
roll of battle than has the broadly sweeping Danube. In its wide and
fertile valley have met in deadly conflict the well-trained legions
of a Prince Eugene of Savoy, a Gustavus Adolphus, a Marlborough, a
Bonaparte, and on the issue of the battles in which they were engaged
were decided the fate of nations and the course of civilization.

Augustus, it was, who made the Danube the northern boundary of the
Roman Empire. It extended like a broad and impassable moat from the
Schwartzwald to the Euxine, and, like the Rhine on the East of Gaul,
served to keep the barbarians of the north confined within their
primeval forests. All along the Danube from its source to its delta
are still found countless traces of what were once important military
outposts, flourishing towns and centers of advancing civilization and
culture.

After passing through the picturesque gorge of Wachau, famed for
its wild scenery, its haunted castles, its oak-covered heights, its
precipitous crags once crowned by massive strongholds which were
tenanted by robber knights who were long the terror of the surrounding
country, we enter an extensive plain which the branching Danube cuts
into a number of willow and birch-covered islands. Soon, on the right,
we reach the mouth of the river Traisen, near whose confluence with
the Danube stands Traisenmauer, noted in the Nibelungenlied as being
the home of Helka, Etzel’s first queen, and the last stopping place of
Kriemhild before her arrival at Tulna, where the King of the Huns was
awaiting her.

The progress of the brilliant cavalcade, with all its glittering pomp
and pageantry, composed of

_Good knights of many a region and many a foreign tongue_,

from Tulna to Vienna and thence to the capital of the Huns, is best
told in the simple words of the Nibelungenlied:

_From Tulna to Vienna their journey then they made._
_There found they many a lady adorned in all her pride_
_To welcome with due honor King Etzel’s noble bride._

* * * * *

_Held was the marriage festal on Whitsuntide_
_’Twas then that royal Etzel embraced his high-born bride_
_In the city of Vienna; I ween she ne’er had found_
_When first she wed, such myriads all to her service bound_.

* * * * *

_So court and country flourish’d with such high honors crown’d_
_And all at every season fresh joy and pastime found._
_Every heart was merry, smiles on each face were seen;_
_So kind the King was ever, so liberal the Queen._[8]

Having been frequently in Vienna before, I tarried this time hardly
long enough to refresh my memory regarding certain things and places
that always had a peculiar attraction for me. Among these were its
admirable museums and art galleries, its delightful drives and
sumptuous palaces. But above all I was particularly eager to revisit
the imposing Cathedral of St. Stephen, for it is not only one of the
noblest specimens of Gothic architecture in Europe, but is also one of
the most beautiful temples of Christian worship in existence. Although
erected in the twelfth century, it has survived all the sieges to
which Vienna has been subject and is still, after seven centuries, the
most conspicuous of the many grandiose structures of Austria’s superb
capital. As I examined the exquisite carvings of portal and window and
delicate crocketed spire of this stupendous fane I realized as never
before how the builders of the Ages of Faith wrought the parts unseen
by men with the same care as those which were exposed to the gaze of
all. For they labored for God, and God sees everything and everywhere.

And then, too, I desired to spend an hour or two at the Glorietta
of Schönbrunn, of which, from a previous visit, I had retained such
pleasant memories. From this enchanting spot one has a magnificent
panorama of the city and the surrounding country--the theater of many
sieges and battles in which, during the heyday of Ottoman power, the
fate of Europe seemed to tremble in the balance.

In the memorable siege of 1863, the walls of Vienna had already
been breached by the thundering guns of the Moslems, whose tents in
countless thousands covered the surrounding plain, and only a miracle,
it seemed, could save the city from its impending doom. Famine and
death and wan despair stalk through the beleaguered capital. One by
one the soldiers of the Cross fall from the fast crumbling ramparts.
Everywhere are heard the groans of the dying and the wild laments of
its dismayed and enfeebled inhabitants, who are no longer able to stem
the resistless onrush of the barbaric host. Mothers press their infants
to their bosoms and trembling virgins, sobbing as if their hearts would
break, are overwhelmed with dread of a fate worse than death itself.

But, behold! The advancing columns of the infidel horde falter, then
halt suddenly as if confronted by some horror-inspiring apparition, or,
paralyzed by a colossal Medusa. What appalls proud Mustapha’s haughty
warriors? What panic has seized his swarthy Janizaries?

The standards of John Sobieski, the scourge and terror of the
Moslems, are seen floating from the crest of Kahlenberg. Presently
the hero-king, at the head of his resistless cuirassiers, dashes like
a thunderbolt against the enemy and the luckless troops of the grand
vizier melt like a mist before the morning sun.

_Now joy was in proud Vienna’s town;_
_Brave Starenberg had won renown:_
_The sweet Cathedral bells were rung_
_As for a May-day festival,_
_And Sobieski’s fame was sung_
_Throughout the lordly capital._

The Cross had again triumphed over the Crescent and Christian Europe
had blasted all Moslem hopes of further progress up the Danube. On
Vienna’s ramparts might well be inscribed in letters of gold:

_Warring against the Christian Jove in vain,_
_Here was the Ottoman Typhœus slain._

Some twenty odd miles east of Vienna, near Hamburg, are extensive ruins
supposed to be remains of the ancient Roman town of Carnuntum. The
place is interesting from the fact that Marcus Aurelius spent three
years here during his wars with the Quadi and the Marcomanni. Here also
he wrote a part of his “Meditations,” which have contributed more to
perpetuate his name than all his achievements as Roman Emperor. Here
Septimus Severus was proclaimed Emperor by his soldiers and here, too,
Rome had a station for a part of its Danube flotilla. And the empire
had need of many flotillas and many frontier garrisons along the
extended Danube to keep in check the barbarians on its northern banks,
when the prolific North poured them forth

_From her frozen loins to pass_
_Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons_
_Came like a deluge on the south and spread_
_Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands._

Augustus and his immediate successors had hoped that this broad
waterway would serve as an impassable barrier, but subsequent events
showed that they were mistaken. Neither the Danube, nor the Rhine,
nor the _Limes Romanus_--a high stone wall connecting these two
rivers--which had been constructed by the Emperor Probus, nor other
defenses of the empire, which had been developed by his successors,
were adequate to prevent the ever increasing incursions of the
barbarians into Roman territory. Among them, besides the Marcomanni and
the Quadi, whose warlike activities engaged the attention of Marcus
Aurelius during his stay in Carnuntum and Vindobona--Vienna--were the
Suevi, the Gepidæ, the Alemanni, the Vindelici, the Heruli, and other
peoples of Celtic and Germanic stock. These were followed by Slavs, by
the Avars, the Goths, the Huns, the Alani, the Vandals, the Langobardi,
who in ever increasing numbers crossed the Danube and laid waste to
lands far distant from their original homes, until eventually their
impetuous hosts had swept the vast region from the Baltic Sea to the
desert of Sahara, from the Caucasus to the Pillars of Hercules, and
until Alaric “secretly aspired to plant the Gothic standard on the
walls of Rome and to enrich his army with the accumulated spoils of a
hundred triumphs.”

Gliding down the tortuous Danube past picturesque towns and villages
and through delightful woodlands and sun-kissed vineyards our steamer
soon carries us over the short distance which intervenes between
Carnuntum and loyal old Pozsony--the capital of Hungary before it was
transferred to Budapest. In this cosmopolitan city of historic and
traditional lore an incident is recalled which puts in strong relief
the bravery and chivalrous character of the Hungarians and shows how
quick they are to act when a strong appeal is made to their loyalty and
patriotism.

Queen Maria Theresa, finding herself threatened by enemies on all
sides, convened the estates of the realm in the throne room of the
castle of Pozsony. Here the fair young sovereign, with the crown of St.
Stephen on her head and an infant son in her arms, delivered in Latin
this brief but stirring address:

The disastrous situation of our affairs has moved us to lay before our
dear and faithful States of Hungary the recent invasion of Austria,
the danger now impending over this Kingdom and a proposal for the
consideration of a remedy. The very existence of the Kingdom of
Hungary, of our own person, of our children and our crown is now at
stake. Forsaken by all, we place our sole resource in the fidelity,
arms and long-tried valor of the Hungarians; exhorting you, the States
and Orders, to deliberate without delay in this extreme danger, on the
most effectual measures for the security of our person, of our children
and of our crown, and to carry them into immediate execution. In regard
to ourself, the faithful States and Orders of Hungary shall experience
our hearty coöperation in all things which may promote the pristine
happiness of this Kingdom and the honor of the people.[9]

The effect of this indirect and impassioned appeal was electrical. The
assembled multitude, the _élite_ of Hungary’s nobility, instantly
drew their swords and shouted, “_Vitam et sanguinem. Moriamur pro
rege nostro Maria Theresa_”[10]--“Our blood and our life. Let us die
for our King Maria Theresa.” From this moment the entire nation rallied
to the support of their sovereign and her eventual triumph was assured.

This dramatic episode is commemorated by an imposing equestrian statue
of Maria Theresa in the Coronation Hill Platz which bears the simple
but eloquent inscription--_Vitam et sanguinem_.

The fact that Maria Theresa and her audience spoke Latin, instead of
Hungarian or German, on the memorable occasion referred to is easily
explained. For centuries Latin had been in Hungary the language of
diplomacy. Lectures in the University were given in Latin and the
language of Cicero and Virgil was spoken by the deputies in Parliament.
Indeed, until a few decades ago, every man of liberal education was
supposed to be able to write and speak Latin with ease and fluency.

“When I was a girl,” a Hungarian countess told me, “the language at
table in my father’s house was always Latin. All of us, boys and girls,
spoke it as well as our mother tongue.”

I met many Hungarian priests who spoke Latin in preference to their
native Magyar. One of them was an orator of exceptional eloquence and
could give an extemporaneous address in Latin without hesitating for a
word and always in the purest Latinity.

An Englishman who made a journey up the Danube near the middle of
the last century tells us that he heard on the steamer a “party of
Hungarian priests and a large assemblage of second-class passengers
conversing in Latin with as much facility as if it were their native
tongue.”[11]

The German traveler, J. G. Kohl, who wrote about the same time as the
writer just quoted, gives a part of the conversation he had with a
Benedictine monk at the abbey of Tihany during a game of billiards.
Those of my readers who understand Latin will be interested in some of
the peculiar words and expressions used:

“_Ubi globus Dominationis?_”--“Where is your Lordship’s ball?”

“_Ibi. Incipiamus._”--“Here. Let us begin.”

“_Dignetur procedere._”--“Please begin.”

“_Dolendum est. Si cærulous huc venisset._”--“What a pity! If the
blue had but come this way.”

“_Fallit, fallit._”--“It misses, it misses.”

“_Nunc flavus recte ad manum mihi est._”--“Now the yellow ball is
right to my hand.”

“_Bene! Bene! Nunc Hannibal ad portam._”--“Good! Good! Now, look
out.”

“_Dignetur duble._”--“Please double.”

“_Fallit._”--“A miss.”

“_O si homo nunquam falleret, esset invincibilis._”--“If one never
missed, one would be invincible.”

“_Reverende Pater! Nunc tota positio difficilis est._”--“Reverend
Father, the position is now very difficult.”

“_Nihil video, nisi cæruleum et rubrum percutere velles._”--“I see
nothing except a carom on the blue and red.”

“Ah! Ah! _Subtiliter volui et nihil habeo._”--“Ah me! I wished to
make an extra good play and I have nothing.”

“_Bene! Bene! Fecisti. Finis ludi._”--“Good! Good! You have made
it. The game is ended.”[12]

After reading the foregoing who will say that Latin is a dead language
in Hungary!

FROM BUDAPEST TO THE BLACK SEA

_Again the scene has changed and dim descried_
_A silver crescent marks the Danube’s tide;_
_Where broad sails glancing o’er the regal stream,_
_Spread their white bosoms to the morning beam,_
_With towers that skirt and towns that seem to lave_
_Their tattled walls in that majestic wave._

From Pozsony to Budapest we passed many places of great scenic beauty
and historic interest. Among them was Esztergom, which possesses
the most beautiful cathedral in Hungary. It is the birthplace of
St. Stephen, patron saint of the country and the see of Hungary’s
ecclesiastical primate.

No city in Europe offers a more superb approach than does Budapest to
the traveler who enters it on the deck of one of the beautiful steamers
of the Danube Navigation Company. As we glide downstream towards the
twin city, an immense mass of palatial structures suddenly bursts on
our view. Among them is the imposing Royal Palace, which crowns an
eminence on the right bank of the many-spired House of Parliament,
which stands on the left. Soon we get a glimpse of the beautiful
boulevards along the river, which, at the hour of our arrival, are
crowded with animated, happy multitudes, who are enjoying their daily
promenade and watching the arrival and departure of the numerous
steamers and smaller craft which contribute so much to the life of the
city.

Hungarians declare that theirs is the most beautiful of all European
capitals, and, judging by one’s impression of the city as seen from
an arriving steamer, most visitors, I think, will agree with them.
Certain it is that neither Paris nor London nor Petrograd can claim
such an enchanting river view as that in which Budapest so justly
glories.

And they are as proud of their country as of their capital.
According to an old Hungarian proverb, “_Extra Hungarian non est
vita_”--“Life is not life outside of Hungary.”[13] “Have we not,”
the people here ask, “all that is necessary for our welfare? Our
blessed soil provides for all our wants.” And Sandor Petöfi, Hungary’s
greatest lyric poet, does not hesitate to declare:

_If the earth be God’s crown,_
_Our country is its fairest jewel._

But it is the people of this fair capital that make the strongest
appeal to the traveler. It matters not if he be a stranger. Their
proverbial hospitality immediately makes him feel at home. Like the
Viennese they have a _savoir vivre_ that is truly admirable. Their
courtesy and cordiality are boundless and make one desire to prolong
one’s sojourn among them. And one no sooner comes in contact with them
than he is conscious of a certain indefinable charm that is found only
among people of rare culture and refinement. In leaving them--old
friends and new--I experienced in a peculiarly keen manner the sincere
regret that I have so often felt in other parts of the world when the
hour came for departure from people whom I had learned to admire and
love for their exceptional goodness and worth.

From Budapest to Belgrade our course for the greater part of the
distance was almost due south. For twenty-four hours we journeyed
through the Alfold--the great central plain of Hungary--about which so
much has been written during the last few years. In many respects it
reminds one of the broad maize lands of eastern Kansas and Nebraska. It
is also equally productive and has for centuries constituted one of
the most important granaries of Central Europe.

Although to the traveler the Alfold--the Hungarian word for
lowland--offers little of scenic interest, the Magyar bard finds in
it as much to awaken his muse as does the Arabian poet in the broad
expanse of his much-loved desert; and each would recognize as his own
the sentiment of Sandor Petöfi, when he sings:

_I love the plains. It is only there I feel free._
_My eyes can wander as they please, quite unconstrained._
_One is not confined by barriers._

Throughout the region which we are now traversing legend still lingers,
but it is history that has now most to tell. And how much could it not
relate regarding the struggle between the barbarians and the Romans in
these parts--of the long contests between Christians and Ottomans. It
was at Mohacs that the Turks, under Solyman the Magnificent, achieved,
in 1526, the decisive victory which enabled them to hold Hungary in a
state of vassalage for a hundred and fifty years. It was at the same
place that the Ottoman forces, after being defeated by Sobieski in
Vienna, made their final stand before they were forced to relinquish
the land which they had so long held in subjection.

Further down the river is Illock, which was for a time the home, as
it is the burial place, of St. John Capistran. It was this celebrated
Franciscan friar who led an army of Crusaders, which he had collected
by his preaching, to the assistance of Hunyady Janos when this renowned
warrior compelled the Turks under Mohammed II to raise the siege of
Belgrade.

Still further down stream is the little town of Petervarad with its
strong fortress, long known as the Gibraltar of the Danube. It is so
named because Peter the Hermit here marshaled in 1096 the hosts which
he had assembled from far and wide for the First Crusade.

As the tones of the vesper bell of a village chapel are wafted over
the peaceful waters, the famed “White City” of Serbia appears in the
distance. Situated at the confluence of the Danube and the Save,
Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, has for more than two thousand
years been a strategic point of prime importance. Occupied by Celts,
generations before the Christian era, it became, under the name
Singidunum, a stronghold of the Romans, who held it for four centuries.
It subsequently belonged to the Byzantine Empire and, later on, was
occupied at various times by Avars, Huns, Gepids, Goths, Sarmatians,
Turks, Hungarians, Austrians, until in the beginning of the nineteenth
century the Serbians made it their capital. The Turks, however, did not
relinquish possession of its citadel until 1867.

Few places have passed through more sieges or experienced more
frequently the horrors of war than Belgrade. Aside from its historical
associations, I found little of interest in the city. The inhabitants
had none of the gayety and animation of the people of Vienna and
Budapest. Their cheerless faces were like those of a race that has
witnessed many tragedies and is living in constant fear of impending
disaster.

And what country, indeed, has passed through more and greater disasters
than Serbia? For it is not too much to say that during the past
twenty-five centuries of its history it has been almost continually in
a condition of social unrest and political chaos. Times without number
the tides of invasion and devastation have swept over this unfortunate
land. The general poverty and intellectual stagnation of the people
were aggravated by the follies of their rulers and by dynastic
scandals that shocked the civilized world. For generations at a time
the administration of the country was little better than organized
brigandage. Unscrupulous officials, living in Oriental indolence,
prospered on the life-blood of the down-trodden peasantry, for whom
justice was but a myth. Blood feuds, political murders and internecine
strife were long endemic, and guaranties for life and property were,
consequently, impossible.

And this was true not only for Serbia but also for the whole of the
Balkan peninsula--for Bulgaria, for Macedonia, for Roumania and for
the half-barbarous principalities along the Adriatic. So completely
separated were they from the rest of the world that little was known
of them in western Europe until less than a century ago, when they
began to give stronger evidence of national consciousness than they
had previously exhibited, and to manifest a united purpose to liberate
themselves from the Ottoman yoke, under which they had suffered for so
many centuries.

But it would be contrary to the teaching of history to assert that all
the disorders endured and all the cruelties suffered by the inhabitants
of the Balkans during the long period when they were deprived of their
independence were due to the Turks. Nothing is farther from the truth.
The fact is that the various Balkan races--the Greeks and Bulgars for
instance--hated one another far more than they--either individually or
collectively--hated the Turks.

* * * * *

From the point of view of humanitarianism [as has been well said]
it is beyond a doubt that much less blood was spilt in the Balkan
Peninsula during the five hundred years of Turkish rule than during
the five hundred years of Christian rule which preceded them; indeed
it would have been difficult to spill more. It is also a pure illusion
to think of the Turks as exceptionally brutal or cruel; they are just
as good-natured and as good-humored as anybody else; it is only when
their military and religious passions are aroused that they become more
reckless and ferocious than other people. It was not the Turks who
taught cruelty to the Christians of the Balkan Peninsula; the latter
had nothing to learn in this respect.[14]

* * * * *

But, notwithstanding the long and trying ordeal through which the
peoples of the Balkans have passed, a new era seems to be dawning for
them at last. Education is receiving more attention and law and order
are gradually assuring to the masses the blessings of civilized life.
When, however, we think or speak of the Balkans and their inhabitants
there are, as the distinguished British writer D. G. Hogarth reminds
us, certain salutary things to bear in mind, among which is that “less
than two hundred years ago England had its highwaymen on all roads and
its smuggler dens and caravans, Scotland its caterans and Ireland its
moonlighters.”[15]

As I viewed from the citadel the magnificent panorama that unfolded
itself before me in the broad valleys of the Save and the Danube, I
recalled certain alliterative verses which I was wont to recite in my
youth, beginning with

_An Austrian army awfully arrayed,_
_Boldly by battery besieged Belgrade,_
_Cossack, commander, cannonading come,_
_Deal devastation; dire destructive doom._[16]

While gazing at the sun-bathed vineyards, ruin-crowned heights and
broad, verdant plains which followed one another in rapid succession
as our steamer bore us seawards, I was especially impressed by the
multiplicity of languages I heard spoken by the passengers. For among
my fellow travelers were Germans, French, Turks, Serbs, Croats,
Russians, Bulgarians, Roumanians, Greeks, Albanians, Italians, Poles,
Slovaks, English, and Americans, and probably several others whom I
did not recognize. There was, indeed, a Babel of tongues such as one
would scarcely find elsewhere. How the famous polyglot, Mezzofanti,
would have reveled in such a gathering where he could have held
converse with all of them, as he was wont to do with the students of
the Propaganda, in Rome, who came from all parts of the world and
with the languages of all whom the illustrious Cardinal was perfectly
familiar.[17]

And variety of garb of this motley crowd was almost as manifold as was
that of their languages and dialects. From the sedate Englishman in
tweed to the animated Roumanian in his Phrygian cap of liberty, the
tarbooshed Ottoman dreamily fingering his tespis (string of beads), the
sad-faced Serb with his conical Astrakan cap, and the voluble Albanian
in a snow-white fustanella, there was every conceivable variety of
wearing apparel. And the styles and colors of the dresses worn by the
women exhibited even greater diversity. They could be compared only
with those of the infinitude of shades and adornments of the feathered
songsters of a large aviary or of the multitudinous flowers of a
botanical garden.

From Belgrade eastwards Oriental color becomes rapidly more pronounced.
This results from the long occupation by the Ottomans of the country
through which we are now passing and constant communication between
Turkey and the Balkans.

The first objects of note to arrest our attention below Belgrade are
the great ruined fortress of Sendria and, further downstream, the
ruins of the two castles of Galambocz and Laszlovar. These massive
strongholds, located on opposite sides of the river, guarded what was
long known as “The Key of the Danube.” They, like the scores of ruins
which we have passed on our way from Ratisbon, are rich in historic and
legendary associations of the most interesting character.

Near Galambocz is shown a great cavern, in which, legend has it, St.
George slew the dragon. When we reflect that practically nothing is
known of the patron of chivalry and the champion of Christendom, except
that he suffered martyrdom at or near Lydda in Palestine before the
time of the Emperor Constantine, it becomes difficult to account for
the existence of this dragon-slaying tradition in this spot. Its origin
may be due to pilgrims or Crusaders, who brought it from the Holy Land
in the same way as they popularized the _cultus_ of the Saint in
England as early as the days of Arculph and Richard Coeur de Lion.

But after all, it is no more difficult to account for the contest
between St. George and the dragon here than at “a stagne or a pond like
a sea,” near Silena in Libya, as we read of it in Caxton’s version
of the _Legenda Aurea_, or, to explain the associations of the
martyr-knight with the Order of the Garter, the Union Jack or the white
ensign of the British Navy.

Immediately below Galambocz we enter the wildest and grandest scenery
along the Danube. The foaming rapids and the towering cliffs of the
gorge of Kazan recall the famed cañons of Colorado or Montana, although
in magnitude and grandeur it is far inferior to the stupendous gorges
of the Arkansas or the Yellowstone.

But far more interesting to me than the gorge itself was an inscription
at the lower end which is cut in the solid rock and commemorates the
completion of the marvelous roadway which the Romans constructed along
the western face of this formidable defile. To me it seemed one of the
most extraordinary of all the countless achievements of imperial Rome
in the entire length of the Danube valley. The inscription reads:

IMP. CÆS. D. NERVÆ. FILIUS. NERVA. TRAJANUS.
AUG. GERM. PONT. MAX....

But even more noteworthy than the wild Kazan ravine and the wonderful
Roman thoroughfare is the celebrated Iron Gate at the confines of
Serbia, Hungary and Roumania. This narrow defile long constituted
an almost impassable barrier to intercourse between the peoples of
the upper and lower Danube. During low water, navigation, except for
the smallest craft, was impossible, until the completion, in 1896,
of a channel which was blasted out of the living rock on the Serbian
side of the seething cataract. This canal guarantees a sufficient
depth of water the entire year for steamers of considerable draft and
contributes enormously to the importance of the Danube as a highway of
international commerce.

Shortly below the Iron Gate we were shown remains of the mammoth stone
bridge which was built by Trajan across the Danube. This was even a
more astonishing achievement than the construction of the roadway
through the gorge of Kazan. I had often admired the wonderful, lifelike
reliefs of Trajan’s column in Rome, which represent, among other
things, the celebrated campaign of the emperor in Dacia, and I was
delighted to have the opportunity to contemplate the remains of the
road and the bridge he built during this memorable period of his reign.
Dacia, which embraced modern Roumania, is noted as being the only
province that the Romans ever possessed north of the Danube. And “the
last province to be won, it was,” as Freeman puts it, “the first to be
given up; for Aurelian withdrew from it and transferred its name to the
Mœsian land, immediately south of the Danube.”[18]

But the remarkable thing about Roumania, as the same eminent historian
observes, is that although it has been cut off “for so many ages
from all Roman influences, forming, as it has done, one of the great
highways of barbarian migration, a large part of Dacia, namely, the
modern Roumanian principality, still keeps its Roman language no less
than Spain and Gaul. In one way the land is to this day more Roman
than Spain or Gaul, as its people still call themselves by the Roman
name.”[19]

The Roumanians are not only proud of their Roman origin but take
special pleasure in recalling the fact, especially when conversing with
foreigners. “We are,” they will tell you, “neither Slavs, nor Germans,
nor Turks; we are Roumanians.”

Roumania, they will insist, is a Latin islet in the midst of a Slavic
and Finnish ocean which surrounds it. This island when known as Dacia
was in reality a new Italy and its inhabitants were the Italians of the
Danube and the Carpathians. In a recent speech delivered in Rome, the
distinguished Roumanian historian, V. A. Urechia, proudly claimed the
capital of the Cæsars as the mother of his country--“_Nous sommes ici
pour dire à tout le monde que Rome est noire mère._”

A short distance below the ruins of Trajan’s bridge we pass, at the
embouchure of the Timok River, the frontier of Serbia and Bulgaria.
Thenceforward, until we reach the Black Sea, we have Bulgaria on our
right and Roumania on our left. But there is little on either side to
arrest our attention, for the history of this part of the world is
little more than a chronicle of the horrors of warfare and marauding
armies from the time of Alexander the Great. No part of Europe, not
even Belgium or northern Italy, can point to so many battlefields in
the same limited area, and none of the many peoples inhabiting the vast
Danube basin have suffered more than Roumania from the calamities of
war--of the long and bloody struggle between the Cross and the Crescent
for the mastery of this part of Europe.

As I surveyed the broad plains of Bulgaria, I vividly recalled the
thrill of horror that stirred the civilized world when my old friend
and schoolmate, Januarius A. McGahan, of Perry County, Ohio, there
penned his famous letters to the London _Daily News_ on the
Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria.[20]

He told the Ottoman authorities that their depredations and carnage
would have to cease forthwith or he would have the Russian army across
the Danube in six months. They laughed him to scorn. But he was as
good as his word. In a brief space of time the Russians, accompanied
by their brave Roumanian allies, were in Bulgaria, and at Plevna and
Shipka Pass the fate of Turkey in this part of Europe was sealed and
the greater portion of the Balkan peoples was at length liberated
from the Turkish yoke. The Russians, under their gallant commander,
Skobeleff, pushed on to San Stefano, within sight of the domes and
minarets of Constantinople. Then, by orders from St. Petersburg,
the conquering general was halted in his course just when Russia’s
long-coveted goal, the capital on the Golden Horn, was within his grasp.

The chivalrous McGahan, whom his distinguished associate, Archibald
Forbes, declared to be the most brilliant war correspondent[21] that
ever lived, was stricken with typhus and after a very brief illness
died in Constantinople, June 10, 1878, in the early bloom of a glorious
manhood. His chief mourner was his bosom friend, the noble Skobeleff,
who, with unfeigned emotion, declared at the grave of his illustrious
friend, whom he loved as a brother, that his heart was interred with
his beloved Januarius and that he had nothing more to live for.

The grateful Bulgarians erected a splendid monument to the memory of
McGahan, whom they recognized as their deliverer from the age-long
domination of the hated Turks. On this monument were inscribed the
words, Januario Aloysio McGahan, Patri Patriæ. Some years later his
remains were transferred to his home town, New Lexington, Ohio, and in
its modest little cemetery is seen above his last resting-place a plain
block of granite which bears beneath the deathless hero’s name the
simple but well-earned tribute--_Liberator of Bulgaria_.

On the left bank of the Danube, slightly northeast of Plevna, is the
little town of Giurgevo, which was founded centuries ago by that
wonderful commercial metropolis, Genoa. Like its great rival, Venice,
it was long celebrated for its commercial and military activities in
the Levant and in the Crimea. But that its merchant princes should have
extended their trade to the lower Danube in that early period when the
navigation of this great river was so difficult and dangerous is indeed
remarkable.

From Giurgevo I made a hasty trip to Bukharest. I did not wish to
pass “The City of Delight,” as the attractive capital of Roumania is
named, without calling on some friends there whom I had not seen in
several years. But neither the capital nor the country was what it had
been but a few years before. A note of sadness, in consequence of the
ravages of the recent war, seemed to dominate the joyful greetings of
an erstwhile happy and pleasure-loving people. It will, I fear, be a
long time before one can again apply to Roumania the epithet--_Dacia
Feli_--Happy Dacia--which it bore in the days of long ago, when it
was one of the most flourishing colonies of the Roman Empire.[22] But
the self-reliant people of Roumania are not depressed or discouraged
by the present condition of their war-tried country. These descendants
of the Dacians, whom the Romans called “the most warlike of men,” have
abiding confidence in their recuperative power and their ability to
make good their claim to an honorable position among the nations of the
civilized world. Their native proverb--_Romanul non père_--The
Roumanian never dies--shows in three words what manner of men they are
and what may be expected of them when they shall have rallied from
the havoc of war and shall again be free to devote themselves to the
stimulating arts of peace.

Among the many things that especially impressed me in Roumania was the
large number of gypsies. In no part of the world, it is said, are they
so numerous in proportion to the population as among the descendants of
the ancient Dacians. The chief reason for this is that these strange,
dark-eyed, music-loving nomads from India have met a kinder reception
here than in other countries, where they have been regarded as pariahs
and often treated with harshness bordering on cruelty.

From Giurgevo to the Black Sea the broad, multi-islanded Danube sweeps
majestically through the ever-expanding, reed-covered lowlands--the
home of many kinds of water-fowl--and the far extending acres devoted
to pasturage and agriculture, which contribute so much to the commerce
and wealth of the Balkan Peninsula. Near the village of Rassova, on
the right bank of the river, we see what remains of Trajan’s wall,
which extends from the Danube to Constanza on the Black Sea. This
earthen rampart was constructed during the Roman occupation of the
country to prevent barbarian incursions into the colonial possessions
of the empire. But, like the wall of Probus, connecting the Danube with
the Rhine, it withstood but a short while the ever-increasing onrush of
the savage hordes from the north.

Not far from this relic of Roman dominion in this part of the world is
the colossal steel railway bridge across the Danube, completed in 1895,
and justly regarded as one of the greatest engineering achievements of
modern times.

At Braila and Galatz--Roumanians great ports of entry--we were greatly
impressed by the activity and enterprise of these flourishing entrepôts
of commerce. But I must confess I was here more impressed by what
tradition declares to be the spot where Darius Hystaspes built a bridge
across the Danube at the time of his famous campaign against the
Scythians, more than five centuries B. C.[23]

And what a war-theater this ill-fated land has been since that far-off
time! Philip of Macedon, Alexander the Great, Trajan, and countless
leaders of barbarian and Turkish hordes have been here or in the
vicinity during the twenty-five centuries that have intervened between
the advent of Darius and his resistless legions. Certain spots of the
earth seem to be perennial battle centers and the land bordering this
part of the Danube, as history shows, is one of the most notable of
them.

It is in this part of the Danube that one begins to have an adequate
idea of the size of this historic waterway and of its transcendent
importance in the mercantile life of Europe. It is surpassed by no
other European river except the Volga. From its source in the lovely
park of Prince Fürstenberg, at Donaueschingen, to where it delivers its
mighty tribute to the Black Sea, the length of the Danube is nearly
eighteen hundred miles--more than two-thirds of that of our famed
Mississippi.

But in the amount and character of the traffic it bears and the number
of people it serves, the Danube is incomparably superior to the
Volga and even to our great “Father of Waters.” The Volga, like the
Mississippi, is only a national river, while the Danube majestically
sweeps through many principalities and kingdoms and empires of Europe
and assures easy relations between regions widely separated. And, as
the Danube in the past has served as the great natural route for the
migrations of nations and the warring hordes of Asia and Europe, so it
is now, more than ever before, one of the world’s great highways of
commerce and industry, and from present indications the day is not far
distant when, economically, it will be the greatest.

The reason for this seemingly paradoxical assertion is not far to
seek. The importance of rivers is not due to their length and volume
of water, but rather to the density of the population on their banks
and to the industrial productivity of the peoples who dwell in their
vicinity. Thus, the Danube not only passes through some of the most
fertile lands in the world, where intensive agriculture is carried to
the highest degree of efficiency, but also facilitates the exchange of
commodities of all kinds between distant nations and delivers supplies
and the necessary raw material to the countless industrial centers of
middle Europe.

Of the affluents of the Danube that are navigable, or large enough to
float rafts, there are more than sixty, while the number of inhabitants
along the course of the Danube alone is more than fifty millions. Add
to this the myriads of people who dwell along its numerous tributaries
and this immense number will be greatly augmented. It will not only far
exceed the number of people who live along the Volga and are benefited
by its traffic, but will also far surpass that of the Mississippi
basin, if it does not indeed equal that of the entire United States.
It was for this reason that Napoleon considered the Danube the king of
rivers and Talleyrand declared that “the center of gravity is not Paris
nor Berlin but the Mouths of the Danube.”[24]

If these two eminent personages were now living they would have much
stronger reasons for entertaining such views than existed a century
ago. For, thanks to the genius of modern engineers, the value of the
Danube as a great commercial highway has been immensely enhanced. By
dredging the canal at the Iron Gate, by jettying the Sulina branch of
the delta and by making innumerable other improvements along the course
of the river, the European Danube Commission, which has had charge for
more than half a century of the betterment of this great international
waterway, has eliminated the dangers to navigation which previously
existed and has made the river navigable for much larger craft than
was before possible. Since the establishment of this International
Commission by the Treaty of Paris in 1856, the amount of traffic
passing through the mouth of the Danube has increased enormously.
According to a recent official report of the Commission, “Sailing Ships
of two hundred tons register have given way to steamers up to four
thousand tons register, carrying a dead weight of nearly eight thousand
tons and good order has succeeded chaos.”[25]

But this is not all. The far-reaching utility of the Danube has been
greatly augmented by the construction of such canals as the one which
connects it with the Tisza, and still more by the famous Ludwig Kanal
which links it with the Rhine. It was a matter of particular pleasure
to the late King Charles of Roumania when the Roumanian flotilla of
gunboats was able, thanks to the Ludwig Kanal, to steam directly from
London to the Black Sea by way of the Rhine and the Danube.

And yet more. When the projected Danube-Salonica Canal, the Danube-Elbe
and the Danube-Oder Canals, both under construction, shall be
completed, the Danube will tap the greatest industrial centers of
middle Europe and will reduce by one-half the trade water route between
the Suez Canal and the ports of the North and Baltic Seas as compared
with the present water route by way of Gibraltar.[26]

Recalling the days when the Danube was controlled by the robber barons
who tenanted the massive castles along its banks, and trade was all
but paralyzed; when Genoese and Venetian merchants sailed their small
craft down its treacherous waters to collect grain from the fertile
fields of Wallachia and hides and furs from the vast plains and
forests of Russia; when it was but a Turkish River as the Black Sea
was but a Turkish Lake, we can better appreciate its various phases of
development during the past and more fully realize the vast expansion
of trade which it has witnessed since its navigation was, in 1856,
declared to be free to all nations. And looking forward to the time
when all the numerous artificial waterways, now projected or nearing
completion, shall extend the arms of the Danube to all the commercial
and industrial metropolises of Central Europe, we can well believe that
historic river will then, from the standpoint of international trade,
be not only the most important river in Europe, but also the most
important in the world. Then, indeed, will this highway of commerce be,
in the words of Napoleon, the king of rivers, and then, too, will be
verified the statement of Tallyrand, if it was not justified when he
made it a century ago, “_Le centre de gravité de l’Europe n’est pas à
Paris, ni à Berlin, mais aux Bouches du Danube_.”[27]

CHAPTER II

THE EUXINE AND THE BOSPHORUS IN STORY, MYTH AND LEGEND

_The Pontic Sea,_
_Whose icy current and compulsive course_
_Ne’er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due course_
_To the Propontis and the Hellespont._
SHAKESPEARE “Othello.”

Our entrance into the Black Sea was through the well-jettied Sulina
Canal--a canal which, for a great part of its length, passes through a
reed-covered lowland which is so near sea-level that, when the Danube
is in flood, vast stretches of it are completely under water. The delta
of the Danube, which has an area of about one thousand square miles,
has been built up by the immense accumulation of mud and sand which
has been brought down by the great river and its numerous affluents
from the rain-drenched Balkans and Carpathians and from the far-off
snow fields of the Carnic and Rhætian Alps. The rate at which the delta
is encroaching on the sea may be judged from the carefully conducted
investigations that have been made, which show that the amount of earth
discharged at the mouths of the Danube totals several thousand cubic
feet a minute. For many leagues out from land the earth-colored water
of the Danube is easily distinguished from that of the Euxine. This
alone enables one to realize the extent of the erosion going on in the
Danube basin and the immensity of the deposit that is daily laid on
this part of the bed of the Black Sea.

As myth and legend hover over the Danube from its source to its delta,
so do they also linger along the western shore of the historic Euxine.
Even before we have left the earth-colored flood which pours into it,
we descry in the distance the little island of Fido-Nisi--Serpent
Island--so called from the great number of snakes which are said to
infest its sea-lashed cliffs and about which, from time immemorial,
Russian and Turkish sailors have told the most fantastic stories.

_In antiquity it was known as Leuce--_
_“Leuce, the white, where the souls of heroes rest.”_

According to Homer, the ashes of Achilles, the hero of the
_Iliad_, were placed in a golden urn and deposited in a tumulus on
the promontory of Sigeum in the Troad. This elevated headland, visible
far out on the Ægean, served as a landmark for passing mariners. Later
poets, however, inform us that the body of Achilles was snatched from
the burning pyre by Thetis, his goddess-mother, and transferred to
the Island of Leuce where, with his bosom friend, Patroclus and other
heroes,[28] it was speedily worshipped by the Greeks who here erected a
temple in the hero’s honor. For this reason Leuce was long known as the
Island of Achilles.

The Greek historian Arrian in his _Periplus of the Euxine Sea_,
written in the form of a report to the Emperor Hadrian, says:

Some call this the Island of Achilles, others call it the
chariot of Achilles, and others Leuce, from its color. Thetis is
said to have given up this island to her son Achilles, by whom
it was inhabited. There are now existing a temple and a wooden
statue of Achilles of ancient workmanship. It is destitute of
inhabitants and pastured only by a few goats which those who
touch here are said to offer to the memory of Achilles. Many
offerings are suspended in this temple, as cups, rings and more
valuable gems. All these are offerings to Achilles. Inscriptions
are also suspended written in the Greek and Latin languages.
Some are in praise of Patroclus, whom those who are disposed to
honor Achilles treat with equal respect. Many birds inhabit
this island, as sea gulls, divers, and coots innumerable. These
birds frequent the temple of Achilles. Every day in the morning
they take their flight and, having moistened their wings, fly
back again to the temple and sprinkle it with the moisture,
which having performed they brush and clean the pavement with
their wings.... It is said that Achilles has appeared in time
of sleep both to those who have approached the coast of this
island and also to such as have been sailing a short distance
from it and instructed them where the island was most safely
accessible and where the ships might best lie at anchor. They
also say further that Achilles has appeared to them not in time
of sleep, or a dream, but in a visible form on the mast, or at
the extremity of the yards, in the same manner as the Dioscuri
have appeared. This distinction, however, must be made between
the appearance of Achilles and that of the Dioscuri, that the
latter appear evidently and clearly to persons who navigate the
sea at large, and, when so seen, foretell a prosperous voyage,
whereas the figure of Achilles is seen only by such as approach
this island.[29]

A short sail southwestwardly from the island of Achilles brings us in
view, on our starboard, of the important seaport of Constanza. It is
located at the eastern extremity of Trajan’s wall and had a special
interest for me because its site is near that of Tomi to which the poet
Ovid was banished by the Emperor Augustus. The privations which he had
to endure on this distant boundary of the Roman Empire and the miseries
of his life among the barbarians on the shore of the Euxine are
graphically described by the poet in his _Tristia_ and _Letters
from Pontus_.

The climate of this inhospitable place was trying indeed to the
disconsolate exile who had just come from the palace of the Cæsars and
who had so long enjoyed all the delights of the Roman capital. For
here, to his eyes, the fields were without verdure, the spring without
flowers, and snow and ice were eternal. The long hair and beards
which concealed the visage of the rude Sarmatians, among whom he was
compelled to live, clicked with icicles. Wine froze and had to be cut
with a sword. According to Ovid’s account the cold was more severe in
his time than it was during the memorable arctic winter many centuries
later when the temperature fell so low that the Euxine was frozen over
for weeks and the ice on the Bosphorus was so thick that people were
able to pass on foot from the Asiatic to the European shore.

It was in this cheerless and frigid region, far from home and friends,
that one of Rome’s greatest poets spent the last eight years of his
life and here it was that he died. Before his death he had expressed
a wish that his ashes, enclosed in a modest urn, should be taken to
Rome in order that he might not be an exile after death, as he had been
during so many years of his life, but his request was not granted.[30]
A tradition exists that a tomb was erected to his memory in Tomi, but
there is among scholars as much doubt respecting the existence, or
location of such a tomb, as there always has been regarding the reason
of the poet’s banishment by one who had showered on him so many and so
great favors.

According to a legend that Ovid recalls in one of his elegies, Tomi
was a place of ill omen, for it was here that Medea murdered her
brother and strewed the sea with his carved limbs. And it was from this
atrocious fratricide, according to the poet, that the town of Tomi took
its name:

_Inde Thomis dictus locus hic, quia fertur in illo_
_Membra soror fratris consecuisse sui._[31]

From the most remote antiquity the Euxine has been noted for the fury
of its tempests and for the reputed terrors of its navigation, as well
as for the savage character of the inhabitants on its coast. For this
reason the ancients called it _Pontus Axenus_--the inhospitable
sea. Subsequently, as if to placate its fury, by an euphemism, it was
called the _Euxine_--the hospitable sea--a name which it has since
borne.

But the first name given to this extended body of water was simply
_Pontos_--the Greek word for sea--as if it were the sea _par
excellence_. The noted traveler, Giovanni da Piano Carpini, a
Franciscan friar, and Ricoldo da Monte di Croce, a Dominican missionary
in the Orient, called it _Mare Magnum_--the great sea. In the
_Itinerarium_, however, of Blessed Oderic of Pordenone it bears
the name _Mare Majus_--the greater sea--as it does also in _I
Viaggi_ of Marco Polo who calls it _Mare Maggiore_. But this
is not all. Friar Jordanus speaks of it as the Black Sea--_Mare
Nigrum_, as likewise does Sir John Mandeville who gives it the name
_Mare Maurum_--_Mauros_, in Byzantine, as in Modern Greek,
signifying black. But there was, probably, no better reason for calling
this sea black than there was for giving to certain other well-known
seas the epithets of red, white, and yellow. From all this it appears
that what we now know as the Euxine or Black Sea has been rich in names
as well as in myths and legends.[32]

The Euxine, however, is famed not only for legendary associations but
for having been for centuries a section of the great highway between
the Occident and the Orient. It was by this route that Fra Oderic of
Pordenone, that celebrated missionary of the fourteenth century, made
his wonderful journey from Venice to China and other parts of the
Far East. It was by the same route that Marco Polo--the most famous
traveler of the Middle Ages--returned from his long peregrinations in
eastern Asia to his home in the Queen City of the Adriatic. And it was
by way of the Euxine that Marco Polo’s father and uncle had preceded
him to far-off Cathay where they were most cordially received by the
famous Kublai Khan.

It was also for ages an important link in one of the world’s great
commercial highways. From time immemorial there were three great trade
routes which connected India and China with Europe. One was the Persian
Gulf route which ran from the mouth of the Indus to the Euphrates and
along this latter river to Zeugma, or Thapsacus, whence it proceeded
to Antioch and other ports of the eastern Mediterranean. The second
was the sea route which went from India along the Persian and Arabian
coasts to Aden, thence by the Red Sea to Alexandria and Tyre and Sidon.
The third was the great overland route which started from Bactra--long,
like Babylon, a market-place for the races of the world and a great
emporium for Indian and Chinese commerce--and reached the West by two
roads. One was the caravan route which crossed Parthia and Mesopotamia
and ended in Antioch. The other passed down the river Oxus to the
Caspian Sea and thence to the Euxine. This is the trade route that has
the greatest interest for us at present--a route that served as one of
the world’s chief commercial highways for more than two thousand years.

Long before Alexander made Bactra his base for the invasion of India,
long before the Greek Skylax of Karyanda made his famous voyage from
the mouth of the Indus to Arsinoe on the Red Sea, and many centuries
before Hippalus made his epoch-making discovery of the existence of
the moonstones of the Indian Ocean, which immensely augmented the
ocean-bound traffic between India and Egypt, a very large volume of the
luxuries of the Far East found their way to the Occident by the great
Oxus-Caspian-Euxine trade route. And while the ships of Tarshish and

_Quinquiremes of Nineveh from distant Ophir,_
_Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,_
_With cargoes of ivory and apes and peacocks,_
_Sandalwood, cedarwood and sweet, white wine,_

were bringing to Syria and the Land of the Pharaohs treasures from the
coast of Malabar and

_The spicy shore_
_Of Araby the blest_,

interminable caravans and countless merchantmen were always busy along
the Oxus-Caspian-Euxine route bearing to Byzantium and Athens and Rome
silks from China and Bengal; muslin and other stuffs from Benares and
Kotumbara; tortoise-shell from the Golden Chersonese; indigo from
Sind; drugs, spices, cosmetics, perfumes, pearls, beryls, and precious
stones from other parts; costus from Cashmere; pepper from Malabar;
gums, spikenard, lycium, and malabathrum from the forests of the
Himalayas; and sapphires, rubies, and aquamarines from Burma, Siam, and
Vaniyambadi.

What was the volume of this trade between the Orient and the Occident,
especially after the establishment of the _Pax Romana_ under
Augustus, may be gauged by the fact that the unprecedented demand by
the fashionable world of Rome for all kinds of eastern luxuries for a
while seriously imperiled the imperial finances. In the single item of
aromatics for funerals, the extravagance indulged in seems incredible.
At the obsequies of Sulla, before the time of Augustus, more than
twelve thousand pounds of precious spices were consumed, while Nero
had more expensive aromatics burnt on the funeral pyre of Poppœa than
Arabia produced in a year.

When, after the destruction of Bagdad by Hulaku Khan, Tabriz in Persia
became the great political and commercial city of Asia, it was by the
Euxine that the merchant princes of Venice and Genoa conducted their
commerce with the Middle and Far East. Passing through the Hellespont
and the Bosphorus, their galleys proceeded to Kaffa in the Crimea
which was their chief _entrepôt_ on the Euxine. From this point
the enterprising traders continued their course by way of the Sea of
Azov, the Don, and the Volga to a port on the Caspian Sea. Thence
their caravans started on their long overland journey over lofty
mountains and through vast deserts and hostile nations to far distant
Cathay in quest of the highly-prized commodities of Chinese kilns and
looms. Other traders went directly by sea from Kaffa to Trebizond
whence they journeyed over broad, arid plains to Tabriz. Here their
numerous caravans were laden with the rich fabrics of Persia and the
rare products of India and the Isles of Spicery. From these centers
of Asiatic traffic, long lines of patient camels transported their
precious burdens to ports on the Euxine where a fleet of Genoese and
Venetian galleys was waiting to receive the merchandise collected at so
much risk and at the cost of so much labor and which was subsequently
distributed among the expectant marts of southern Europe.[33]

Before embarking at Sulina for Constantinople, I almost dreaded the
voyage to the Bosphorus. From the time of the Argonauts the tempestuous
Euxine has been a byword among mariners and the dread of travelers
who have to trust themselves to its storm-lashed waves. In the words
of Ovid its fury was inferior only to the turbulence of the fierce
barbarians among whom he was exiled. I had prepared myself to endure
for a day all the horrors which characterize a rough passage across the
English channel. Nor were my fears entirely groundless. The sea was
heavy,--the weather was squally. Many of the passengers, unwilling to
trust themselves on deck, sought the seclusion of their staterooms. As
for myself, I did not feel reassured until we had finally entered the
more protected waters of the Bosphorus. Even at the entrance of this
famous channel the voyager may, at times, experience great discomfort.
Byron states the reason in the well-known stanza of Don Juan:

_The wind swept down the Euxine, and the wave_
_Broke foaming o’er the blue Symplegades;_
_’Tis a grand sight from off “The Giant’s grave”_
_To watch the progress of those rolling seas_
_Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave_
_Europe and Asia, you being quite at ease;_
_There’s not a sea ..._
_Turns up more dangerous breakers than the Euxine._[34]

_Inter utrumque fremunt immani turbine venti._
_Nescit cui domino pareat, unda maria._
_Nam modo purpureo vires capit Eurus ab ortu;_
_Nunc Zephyrus, sero vespere missus, adest;_
_Nunc gelidus sicca Boreas bacchatur ab Arcto;_
_Nunc Notus adversa praelia fronte gerit._
_Tristia_, lib. L, Elegia II.

The “blue Symplegades,”--at least what is left of them--to which Byron
here refers, are famous for their connection with one of the oldest and
most interesting of Greek legends--that of the Argonauts. According
to the story which Apollonius of Rhodes has so well developed in his
_Argonautica_, the Symplegades were two floating and ever-clashing
rocks, at the junction of the Euxine and the Bosphorus, which were
fabled to close upon and crush all ships that attempted to pass between
them. When Jason with his fifty-oared ship, the _Argos_, and his
fifty heroes set out for Colchis to fetch back the golden fleece he was
obliged to pass between these great colliding rocks. Thanks, however,
to the instructions he had received from the seer, Phineus, who had
been delivered from the tormenting Harpies by two of the Argonauts,
he was able to effect this hitherto impossible passage and to proceed
without interruption to his destination.

After this event the eyotlike rocks became fixed in the positions they
now occupy. The one, however, on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus has,
owing to the action of the elements, long since disappeared beneath the
waves. The other, on the European side, is also rapidly disintegrating,
and soon will litter the floor of the sea. But the story of the
Argonauts and the Golden Fleece will endure as long as men shall retain
a love for the fascinating in myth and legend and the beautiful in art
and literature.

Although the Cyanean Islands--as the Symplegades are now called--and
the shores of the Euxine are exceptionally rich in places and things
of great historic and mythological interest, they are in this respect
surpassed by the Bosphorus. Nowhere in the world do myth and legend,
traditional associations and historic souvenirs cluster in such numbers
and varieties as they do about every rock and bay and promontory of
this famous waterway that connects the Euxine with the Sea of Marmora.

Even the names bestowed upon this channel have been manifold. To the
ancients it was variously known as the Mouth, the Throat, the Door, and
the Key of the Euxine. To-day it is frequently called the Narrows, or
the Strait or the Canal of Constantinople. But the appellation which is
still the most popular and that by which it is usually designated is
that which has its origin in one of the earliest of Greek legends. As
expressed in English, the name, which signifies Cow-Ford, or Ox-Ford,
seems very prosaic, but the legend on which it is based has always
been a favorite with poets and artists.

Io, the beautiful priestess of Hera at Argos, was loved by Zeus and
was, in consequence of the jealousy of the goddess, metamorphosed
into a heifer. Arriving at the eastern side of the strait, so the
fable runs, she plunged into its swiftly-flowing waters and swam to
the European shore. And from that time to the present, this famed
watercourse has been known the world over as the Bosphorus.

On the promontory of Anadoli Kavak on the Asiatic side of the
Bosphorus, we get a view of the site of Hieron which was long regarded
as one of the most sacred places in the pagan world. Covered then
with gorgeous temples dedicated to the twelve greater gods it ranked
as a place of pilgrimage with Delphi and Olympia. The most imposing
and sumptuous of these temples was said to have been founded by Jason
and consecrated to Zeus Urius, in thanksgiving for the safe return of
himself and his fellow Argonauts from their successful expedition to
Colchis. Within it stood a priceless statue of Zeus made of ivory and
gold, at the base of which was a slab, now preserved in the British
Museum, on which were inscribed the words:

The sailor who invokes Zeus Urius that he may enjoy a prosperous
voyage either toward the Cyanean Rocks, or on the Ægean sea,
itself unsteady and filled with innumerable dangerous shoals
scattered here and there, can have a prosperous voyage if first
he sacrifices to the god whose statue Philo Antipater has set
up, both because of gratitude and to insure favorable augury to
sailors.

But unlike Delphi and Olympia where there is still, thanks to the
labors of French and German archæologists, very much to remind one of
the past grandeur of these historic places, “not a stone upon a stone”
remains on the site of Hieron to attest to its former splendor and
majesty. As in so many other parts of the world, the temples of Hieron
served as quarries for peoples of a later age who knew not the gods of
Olympus, or who had a special interest in consigning them to oblivion.
And where, in days of yore, the clouds of incense and the smoke of
sacrifice, in the most superb of temples stimulated the fervor of vast
multitudes from far distant lands, the traveler to-day finds nothing
of the pristine glory of Hieron except what nature gave it--its superb
site and its enchanting vistas of the Bosphorus and the Euxine.

After the fall of paganism, Hieron had many vicissitudes. Having been
converted into one of the strongest fortresses on the Bosphorus, it was
time and again singled out for attack by the enemies of the Byzantine
Empire. Among the most celebrated of them was Harun-al-Rashid who led
an army the whole way from Bagdad with a view of effecting the conquest
of Constantinople and with it of the Byzantine Empire. At a later date
Hieron and the stronghold on the opposite side of the Strait fell into
the hands of the Genoese. Not long afterwards it was captured by the
Sultan Bayazid I, “the Thunderbolt,” and since then it has been in the
possession of the Turks.

A short distance to the southwest, on the European shore, is a
beautiful valley where the Crusaders are said to have encamped on their
way to the Holy Land. A colossal plane tree is here seen which bears
the name of “Plane tree of Godfrey of Bouillon,” from a tradition that
it was planted by this famous hero of the Christian host.

At Roumeli Hissar, we reach the narrowest point of the Bosphorus
and one which is most rich in historical associations. According to
tradition, it was here that Xenophon and his immortal Ten Thousand
crossed over into Europe after their famous retreat from the heart
of Babylonia--a retreat which, revealing, as it did, the military
weakness of the Persian Colossus, paved the way for the victories of
the Granicus, the Issus, and Arbela and for the conquest of Asia by
Alexander the Great.

Here, too, it was that Mandrocles of Samos constructed the bridge of
boats that enabled the vast Persian army under Darius to cross into
Europe at the time of that monarch’s disastrous campaign against the
Scythians. Mandrocles was so elated by his achievement that he had it
commemorated in the temple of Hera, in his native Samos, by a picture
with the inscription:

_The fish-fraught Bosphorus bridged, to Juno’s fane_
_Did Mandrocles this proud memorial bring;_
_When for himself a crown he’d skill to gain,_
_For Samos praise, contenting the Great King._

But a large volume would be required to give even a brief notice of
the countless myths, legends, traditions, and historical souvenirs
which cluster about the shores of the Bosphorus from the Euxine to
the Golden Horn. They have been the scenes of tragedies and romances
and intrigues without number. From the dawn of history the Bosphorus
has been constantly a bone of contention among rival and conflicting
interests and an important factor in many of the great wars that have
convulsed Asia and Europe. And until a plan shall be elaborated for
eliminating international jealousies and harmonizing the antagonistic
policies and aspirations of many peoples of divers races and creeds, it
is not probable that the future history of this unique waterway will be
materially different from that of the past. Altruism among nations has
so far been confined to words and, from present indications, the day is
far distant when it will be revealed in deeds.

It is not, however, through its legendary and storied past that the
Bosphorus makes its strongest appeal to the ordinary traveler. It is
rather through its scenic beauty--the enchanting vistas it everywhere
offers on both the Asiatic and the European shore. These have for ages
been celebrated in song and story and few who have been privileged
to gaze on them will say that their praises have been exaggerated.
From whatever point the Strait is viewed it is picturesque in the
highest degree and exhibits all along its course countless objects of
exhaustless interest.

Almost the entire distance from the Euxine to the Golden Horn one sees
bordering the Bosphorus an almost continuous succession of kiosks,
palaces, chalets, bungalows, mosques, and minarets. There are the
imposing homes of ambassadors accredited to the Sublime Porte, the
luxurious residences of the wealthy pashas and merchant princes of
Stamboul, the superb marble palaces of sultans and sultanas, all
surrounded by inviting groves and artistically laid-out parks rich in
flowers and trees from many climes. Here and there in shaded glens and
verdant dales are picturesque villages and hamlets whose quaint wooden
houses form a striking contrast to the magnificent structures which are
in their immediate vicinity.

Of the many beautiful valleys that debouch into the Bosphorus is that
of the Great Geuk Su--Sweet Water--on the Asiatic side which appealed
to me most strongly. Its clumps of balmy pines, somber cypresses, and
graceful mimosas and its romantic groves of wide-spreading planes,
sycamores, magnolias, and beech trees whose pendent branches dip
into the crystal stream present rarest pictures of sylvan charm and
loveliness. They forcibly reminded me of similar spots of scenic
beauty which, years before, had so fascinated me in the far-famed
Vale of Tempe in northern Thessaly. Emptying into the same bay as the
Great Sweet Water is the Little Sweet Water and the valleys of these
two enchanting streams together with their common bay constitute the
so-called “Sweet Waters of Asia.”[35] Their attractive groves and
greenswards have long been a favorite pleasance for Ottomans and Greeks
as well as for foreign residents of Constantinople.

But what most interested me in this heart-gladdening spot was the
countless groups of merry and beautiful children who had been brought
here by their mothers and nurses for an outing. They seemed to be
everywhere. Running and leaping, laughing and shouting, singing and
dancing, vanishing among the bushes and suddenly reappearing in the
broad greensward, their little forms were perfect pictures of restless
energy and unalloyed happiness. Many of the boys and girls were dressed
like children one sees in the Bois de Boulogne and their features were
just as fair. Nowhere in the East did I see a more animated or a more
charming scene except, perhaps, on the embowered banks of the Sweet
Waters of Europe on the upper reaches of the Golden Horn.

And the mothers seemed to enjoy themselves fully as much as their
children. Some sat quietly conversing under the umbrageous trees while
others were enjoying a pleasant row in their light and gaily decked
caiques. Most of them were garbed in the _tcharchaff_, a cloak and veil
of somber color, but a few still retained the graceful _feridgi_ and
_yashmak_ which were formerly in almost universal use among the Ottoman
women of the well-to-do classes.

To eastern poets the Sweet Waters of Asia are quite as dear as was the
Vale of Tempe to the ancient Greeks. For to the poets of the East this
spot is a veritable paradise on earth and far surpasses the vaunted
attractions of the celebrated groves of Damascus and the sun-kissed
meadows of Shaab Beram in Southern Persia. It supplies, in fullest
measure, three of the Moslem’s chiefest delights--umbrageous trees,
flowing water, and sweet repose.

The poet must have had some such an enchanting spot in mind when he
sang:

_The land of the cedar and the vine,_
_Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine;_
_Where citron and olive are fairest of fruit,_
_And the voice of the nightingale never is mute;_
_Where the tints of the earth and the hues of the sky,_
_In color though varied in beauty may vie._

Space precludes more than a passing reference to the sumptuous palaces
which adorn the bay-indented shores of the Bosphorus. Of these
magnificent edifices Yildiz Kiosk--Palace of the Star--is noted as
having been the favorite place of residence of the Sultan Abdul-Hamid
II. It is a large structure of white marble and from its commanding
site on a grove-clad hill it affords one of the most gorgeous panoramas
to be seen anywhere along the matchless Bosphorus.

At the foot of the hill on which stands the palace of Yildiz Kiosk
is seen what is undoubtedly one of the most grandiose palaces in the
world. It is known as the Serai of Dolma Baghtcheh and was built by
the Sultan Abdul-Medjid. His Armenian architect, Balian, was given
_carte blanche_ in the matter of expenditure and style of
architecture. Only one condition was imposed on him by the Sultan and
that was that the completed structure should surpass in magnificence
every other imperial palace in the world. Architecturally it is a
strange combination of Greek, Roman, Moorish, Turkish, Persian, and
Renaissance styles and exhibits both interiorly and exteriorly what
is most admirable in the noted palaces of the Louvre, Versailles, the
Schönbrunn in Vienna, the Winter Palace in Petrograd, and the imperial
palace of the Kremlin in Moscow. With the Ionian-blue Bosphorus as
a foreground and the Imperial Park clad in perennial green as a
background the snow-white palace of Dolma Baghtcheh, with its delicate
lace-like carvings, is, indeed, in the words of an enthusiastic
writer, “a pearl placed between a turquoise and an emerald, each jewel
multiplied in size and loveliness many million-fold.”[36]

CHAPTER III

ROMA NOVA

_The City of the Constantines,_
_The rising city of the billow-side,_
_The City of the Cross--great ocean’s bride,_
_Crowned with her birth she sprung long ages past,_
_And still she looked in glory o’er the tide_
_Which at her feet barbaric riches cast,_
_Pour’d by the burning East, all joyously and fast._

Our journey through the park and palace-fringed Bosphorus had duly
prepared us for the culmination of these beauties and wonders, when, as
we neared Seraglio Point, the Imperial Capital of the Byzantine Cæsars
burst upon our view in all its glory and magnificence.

From the time of Tournefort travelers have vied with one another in
their attempts to convey in words their impressions on their first view
of the superb capital of the Ottoman Empire. Poets and artists have
essayed to depict the splendors of what they regarded as the queen city
of the world. There are pen-pictures of innumerable writers who came
under the spell of this city of the Cæsars and who were unable to find
language which would adequately express their sensations of ecstatic
trance and rapturous delight. Lamartine, Chateaubriand, Edmondo De
Amicis, Gautier, Gerard de Nerval, Edmond About, the Countess de
Gasparm, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Robert Hichens, and Pierre Loti
all are overcome with wonder at the marvelous spectacle and despair of
finding language to express their surprise and emotion in the presence
of such an enchanting spot.

It is at Constantinople [writes Lamartine], that God and man,
nature and art have created and placed the most marvelous point
of view which the human eye can contemplate on earth.[37]

Chateaubriand expresses almost the same sentiment when he declares
“_On n’ exagère point quand on dit que Constantinople offre le plus
beau point de vue de 1’univers._”[38] But notwithstanding this
almost extravagant statement, the distinguished _littérateur_
does not hesitate to add in a footnote, “I, however, prefer the bay of
Naples.”

Like Lamartine and Chauteaubriand, I, too, was greatly impressed by my
first view of Constantinople when seen from the deck of our steamer as
it glided towards the mast-thronged harbor of the Golden Horn, but, as
I have stated elsewhere,[39] the prize, for the World’s City Beautiful,
must, _me judice_, be awarded to Rio de Janeiro, the incomparable
capital of Brazil.

It is not within the scope of this chapter to give even a brief
description of Constantinople. That is rendered quite unnecessary
by the scores of valuable books which have been written on this
fascinating subject. This, however, does not mean that I was not
intensely interested in its countless attractions or that they
did not make deep impressions on me and give rise to serious
reflections. Far from it. I spent every available hour in visiting its
churches, mosques, schools, museums and in contemplating its hoary,
lichen-covered ruins, its battlemented walls and ivy-festooned towers
which, for long ages, cast their trembling shadows on the glimmering
waters of the Sea of Marmora and served, for more than eleven hundred
years, as effective bulwarks against the fierce assaults of Avars and
Goths, Arabs and Persians, Slavonians and Bulgarians and Mongols.
And, as I threaded my way through its narrow and devious streets and
inspected the picturesque and tumble-down houses, I found special
pleasure in scrutinizing the letters and inscriptions and epitaphs
engraved on slabs of marble or on blocks of granite, some of which
were in their original position while others had been used in the
construction of some now crumbling wall or building. If they could
speak, what stories could not these disconnected letters and incomplete
inscriptions tell of the shadowy past--stories of dark and strange
events connected with sieges and conquests--stories of intrigue and
deeds of violence and tyranny in which ambitious eunuchs, heartless
pashas, and bloodthirsty sultans were the chief actors--stories, too,
of exalted virtue and heroism displayed by noble men and women that
time the fanatic followers of Mohammed boastfully announced their
intention to plant the Crescent over the Cross and to remove from the
devoted city of Constantine the last vestiges of Christian art and
culture.

The first object to claim my attention after arriving in Constantinople
was the majestic and solemn church, now a mosque, of Santa Sophia. To
the Greeks it is known as the church of Hagia Sophia--Divine Wisdom.
More frequently, however, it is called ’Η Μεγάλη Εκκλησία--“The Great
Church--the church _par excellence_.”

Exteriorly this masterpiece of Byzantine basilicas has the aspect of
a massive, irregular time-worn fortress. Surrounded by all kinds of
low, unsymmetrical buildings--shops, storehouses, baths, schools,
turbehs--one can have no idea of its original design or external
appearance as it came from the hands of its architects, Anthemius of
Tralles and Isidore of Miletus.

The beauty of Santa Sophia, like that of so many of the famous churches
of the Old World, is within. But even within, the first impression
of the ordinary visitor is one of disappointment. But its surpassing
beauty and grandeur quickly reveal themselves and then one stands in
awe and amazement. Its marvelous harmony of design, its wealth of
ornamentation, its lavish display of the finest marbles, porphyries,
jaspers, serpentines, granites, alabasters, gold mosaics are
bewildering in their effect and one can easily realize what must have
been the splendor and magnificence of this august temple when, on the
day of consecration, the emperor Justinian exultantly exclaimed: Glory
be to God, who has deemed me worthy to accomplish such an undertaking.
Σολομὼν, νενíκησá σε--Solomon, I have conquered thee!

And his exclamation of triumph was justified. For never before had the
spoils of paganism’s great sanctuaries contributed so much towards the
erection and embellishment of any single Christian edifice. Among the
massive columns which support the great arches of the basilica are
eight of verdantique which were brought from the celebrated Temple of
Diana at Ephesus. There are eight of porphyry which belonged to the
Temple of the Sun in Baalbek. These were the gifts of the noble Roman
lady, Marcia, who, with characteristic piety, offered them, as she
expressed it--Υφὲρ τῆς ψυχíκῆς μον σωτηρíας--for the salvation of my
soul.

In addition to these splendid monoliths there are columns from the
Temple of the Sun, at Palmyra; from the Temple of Jupiter at Cyzicus;
from temples in Greece and Italy, Egypt, and the Cyclades. Its floor,
walls, piers, arcades are overlaid with precious marbles of every
hue--snow-white marble from Paros and Pentelicus, azure marble from
Lybia, green marble from Laconia, flecked, rose, yellow, and golden
marbles from Marmora, Synnada, Phrygia, and Mauritania. On all sides
is a magnificent display of wonderful shafts, capitals, cornices,
lintels, and panels of colors as variegated as their provenience is
manifold. In them we see grayish marbles from sea-girt Proconnesus,
verdantique from Thessaly, cipollino from Eubœa, Pavonazzetto from
Synnada, lumachelle from Chios, Brocatel from Spain, Fior di Persico
from Dalmatia, Bardiglio from the Apennines, giallo antico from distant
Numidia and bianco and nero-antico from the far-off Pyrenees, while
from the still-worked quarries of Egypt are marbles of emerald green
and imperial purple.

Nor is this all. Besides marbles of every hue and from every clime
there are borders of green serpentine, columns and panels of jasper
of every shade, bands of oriental alabaster of clear honey color from
the land of the Nile, exedras of porphyry from the Thebes of the
Pharaohs--all arranged so as to produce the most perfect harmony of
color and the most impressive effect on the beholders.[40]

When, even in its present defaced and despoiled condition, Santa Sophia
is still one of the greatest, if not the greatest, triumphs of Church
architecture, what must it not have been when “its domes and vaultings
resplendent with gold mosaic interspersed with solemn figures” made it,
what is in many respects the most magnificent temple of worship that
the world has yet known.

The Grand Opera House of Paris boasts of the beauty of its interior
which is adorned with thirty-three varieties of marble and other
ornamental stones. It is indeed beautiful, but it cannot compare
with the matchless interior of the Church of Holy Wisdom which is
embellished by the spoil of the most superb temples of antiquity and
the treasures of the richest quarries of the civilized world.

No other monarch has ever had at his disposition such rare and
precious building materials as had Justinian for the construction
of Santa Sophia and it is safe to say that no one will ever again
have materials of such uniqueness and value. When one, therefore,
considers all their richness and the admirable manner in which they
have been utilized, we can easily understand how the legend soon arose
which declares that while the Church of Holy Wisdom was building, the
workmen were specially instructed by an angel from heaven. Nor need
we go far for the origin of the story according to which Justinian
set up a statue “representing Solomon as looking at the Great Church
and gnashing his teeth with envy.” And one is not surprised at the
rapturous expressions of Corippus, a poet-bishop of the sixth century,
when he declares, “Praise of the temple of Solomon is now silenced and
the Wonders of the World have to yield the preëminence. Two shrines
founded by the wisdom of God have rivaled Heaven, one the Sacred
Temple, the other the splendid fane of Santa Sophia, the vestibule of
the Divine Presence.”[41]

But the most striking feature of this magnificent structure is its
dome. As viewed from below, it seems, as Madame de Staël says of the
dome of St. Peter’s, “like an abyss suspended over one’s head,” or as
the Byzantian historian, Nicetas Acominatus, declares “an image of the
firmament created by the Almighty.”

The eminent architectural authority, Fergusson, speaking of Justinian’s
masterpiece, avers, “Internally, at least, the verdict seems inevitable
that Santa Sophia is the most perfect and most beautiful church which
has yet been erected by any Christian people. When its furniture
was complete the verdict would have been still more strongly in its
favor.”[42]

But the Ottomans, in taking possession of this unique sanctuary,
removed or destroyed its priceless furniture and decorations and
concealed its matchless mosaic pictures--pictures which Ghirlandajo
declares are “the only paintings for eternity”--with a layer of
white-wash! And although in its present condition, it is still,
despite Moslem desecration, the delight of the artists and architects
of the world, its interior is as far from exhibiting the glories of
its pristine state as is the exterior of the Parthenon, since its
mutilation by Lord Elgin--an act of vandalism denounced by Byron as “a
triple sacrilege”--from displaying the peerless beauty of the sublime
creation of Ictinus and Phidias.

Is it then any wonder that Saint Sophia was, from its completion,
regarded as the very heart of the Byzantine Empire--that it has ever
held the same place in the affections of the Greeks as St. Peter’s, the
Cathedral of Rheims, and Westminster Abbey occupy in the hearts of the
peoples of Italy, France, and England? And is it a matter of surprise
that,

_Though turbans now pollute Sophia’s shrine_

the Greeks of to-day still cherish the hope that it will, in the
designs of Providence, eventually be returned to them and that
Christian worship, with all the pomp of the Grecian liturgy, will again
be restored under Santa Sophia’s wondrous dome?

It is related that when Mohammed II, the conqueror of Constantinople,
took possession of Santa Sophia, he observed an Ottoman soldier
destroying the mosaics of the church with his mace. “Let those things
be,” Mohammed cried, and with a single blow he stretched the fanatical
vandal at his feet. And then, in a lower tone, he added, so the
historian avers, “Who knows but in another age they may serve another
religion than that of Islam?” God grant it!

Nor have the Greeks ever abandoned the hope of one day regaining
possession of the City of Constantinople. They claim it as their
heritage, which was lost to them by the fortunes of war, and they
patiently await the turn in fortune’s wheel when

_The city won for Allah from the Giaour,_
_The Giaour from Othman’s race again may wrest._[43]

After leaving Santa Sophia, I spent some time in the extensive grounds
of the Seraglio,[44] which, since the young Turks have come into power,
have been used as a public park. About the buildings and the occupants
of the Seraglio much has been written--the greater part of it based on
imagination rather than on fact. But I have no desire to dwell on

_That spacious seat_
_Of Wealth and Wantonness_,

which, for three centuries, was “the heart of Ottoman history” and
which for ten generations was the home of palled votaries of pleasure,
but too often, alas! the hated prison of innocent victims who were
condemned to pander to the basest passions of heartless minotaurs of
lust and crime.

To the south of Santa Sophia is all that remains of the Hippodrome
which, in its heyday of splendor, was regarded as one of the wonders
of the world. Modeled after the Circus Maximus of Rome, it served as
a forum, as a race course, and a museum in which were collected the
choicest sculptures of Egypt, Asia Minor, and Greece. Here were statues
of Phidias and Praxiteles and other master sculptors of the ancient
world. Among them were an exquisite statue of Helen of Troy, “whose
beauty of form and feature drove brave men distraught,” and the famed
bronze horses of Lysippus--which were carried off by Dandolo to Venice,
where they now adorn the cathedral of San Marco--and countless other
masterpieces of scarcely less value and beauty.

Besides serving as a race course the Hippodrome, which had, it is
estimated, a seating capacity of a hundred and twenty thousand people,
was used for every purpose that could attract a large multitude of
people. The _Spina_--a low wall dividing the Hippodrome into two
sections--was, in common parlance, “the axis around which the Byzantine
world revolved.” It was the favorite place for athletic sports and
for the exhibition of wild animals. It was here that distinguished
emperors and generals, like Heraclius and Nicephorus and Belisarius,
celebrated their victories over the enemies of the empire. It was here
that were witnessed not only the pride, the power, and the glories of
New Rome, but also its tragedies, its massacres, its decadence, and
ruin. In the acme of its magnificence this historic circus, with its
forty tiers of marble seats and its superb promenade which surmounted
all, was resplendent with the most beautiful works of Greek and Roman
art--spoils from Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, Mauritania.

Of this marvelous Hippodrome only a part of the site is now visible,
while of its ornaments but three are still extant. These are a bare
column of masonry once covered with bronze plates which caused it “to
gleam like a column of light”; an Egyptian obelisk that antedates the
time of Moses, and one of the most ancient relics of Greece. This is
the Serpent column from Delphi which, with the bronze Wolf of the
Capitol in Rome, “may count as the most precious metal relic which
remains from the ancient world.” It bears witness to the final defeat
of Xerxes at Platæa, the first great triumph of the West over the East.
For eight centuries it served as a pedestal for the golden tripod of
the priestess of the god, and during long centuries it was for the
Greeks an object of pilgrimage. When, nearly two thousand years later,
the East, under Mohammed the Conqueror, was victorious over the West,
this secular monument was permitted to remain on the base which has
supported it for sixteen centuries that it might continue “to bear
witness to the link of New Rome with Old Greece” and endure as a
vivid reminder of the pomp of Byzantine rule and of the continuity of
civilization.

Scarcely less interesting to me than the age-old remnants of the
Hippodrome were the massive and crumbling walls that for a thousand
years were the city’s palladium against the barbarian hordes of Asia
and Europe. What visions crowd upon the memory as one stands upon
this hoary rampart and surveys the scene around one! It was thanks to
the impregnable walls of Constantinople no less than to the unique
strategic position of the city that Roma Nova was able so long to hold
her place as the home of art and letters, history and philosophy; that,
in spite of desolating wars which everywhere raged in the rest of the
world, and which at times carried their ravaging effects to her very
gates, she continued to be the world’s one sure refuge of law, justice,
and freedom; that, notwithstanding internecine strife, and changes of
dynasties, her government was the one that for centuries afforded the
greatest security for life and property; the one under which commerce
and civilization were most fostered and most flourishing.

If the walls of Constantinople could speak, what thrilling stories
could they not relate of the score of sieges to which they were
exposed! For vivid color and breathless interest they surpass the siege
of Tyre by Alexander, the siege of Carthage by Scipio, the siege of
Jerusalem by Godfrey de Bouillon as described in the glowing epic of
Tasso. Unlike the last-named sieges, those directed against the city
on the Bosphorus “stand out on the canvas of history by the magnitude
of the issues involved to religion, to nations, to civilization.”
This is particularly true of the sieges by Saracens, Turks, and
Mongols, for, if these barbarians and sworn enemies of the Christian
name had succeeded in piercing the walls of this greatest bulwark
of civilization before the dawn of the reconstructive work of the
fifteenth century, the results to learning, art, Christendom would have
been disastrous beyond conception, while progress and social order
would have been retarded for untold centuries.

Never, probably, in the history of our race has the possession of any
city led to more devastating and longer continued wars, to greater
international rivalries and contentions than has the fair capital on
the Golden Horn. It was in 673--but little more than a generation after
Mohammed’s death--when the Moslems under the Saracen Moawiah laid
siege to Constantinople, which was then the greatest and the richest
city of the known world. They were defeated but not crushed. Knowing
the incalculable treasures the city contained and realizing fully its
supreme importance as the center of a world empire, they determined
never to desist from their purpose until Constantinople was the capital
and sovereign seat of Islam. Not until 1453, after eight centuries of
deferred hopes, were their aspirations realized.

For a much longer period has Russia had her longing eyes on what she
was wont to call “The Sacred City”--the city which had so long been
the goal of the nations of Asia and Europe. From the days of Rurik,
the reputed founder of the Russian monarchy, the Muscovites have
never ceased to look forward to the time when the peerless city of
Constantine would be in the possession of Holy Russia, and when the
strategic channel which links the Euxine with the Mediterranean would
be under her absolute control.

For a thousand years the forces of Russia continued irresistibly to
move toward the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. When Catherine II, “The
Semiramis of the North,” in 1787, made her magnificent progress through
Southern Russia she entered the city of Kherson under a triumphal arch
which bore the inscription “The Way to Byzantium.” As still further
expressive of her faith in Russia’s ultimate destiny there was a gate
in Moscow named “The Way to Constantinople.”

But this was not all. With the Austrian Emperor, Joseph II, she worked
out a scheme for a restored Greek Empire, with Constantinople as its
capital, the throne of which was to be given to her second grandson.
And so sure was she of effectuating her plan that “the boy with
sagacious prescience had been christened Constantine; he was always
dressed in the Greek mode, surrounded by Greek nurses and instructed
in the tongue of his future subjects. That no detail might be lacking
which foresight could devise, a medal had already been struck, on one
side of which was a representation of the young prince’s head and on
the other an allegorical device indicating the coming triumph of the
Cross over the Crescent.”[45]

At the famous conference on the raft anchored in the river Nieman,
when Napoleon and Alexander I discussed plans for the division of the
world’s sovereignty, the Russian monarch demanded, as his share of
the partition, the City of Constantinople together with the Bosphorus
and the Dardanelles. For this he was willing to concede to the French
Emperor the most valuable regions on the Mediterranean littoral and
to aid him with money and men in his projected conquest of India. But
this the ambitious dictator of Europe would not grant. Placing his
finger on the map where Constantinople was indicated, he exclaimed
with passionate emphasis, “Constantinople! Constantinople! Never. That
would mean the empire of the world!” At St. Helena he again gave clear
expression to his estimate of the value of Constantinople when he
declared “_Constantinople est placée pour être le centre et le siege
de la dominion universelle._”[46]

Almost exactly a thousand years after the death of Rurik, Russia’s
victorious army was at San Stephano within sight of the domes and
minarets of the City of Constantine. “At last,” shouted the jubilant
soldiers, “we have reached our goal and Czargrad”--their name for
Constantinople--“is ours!” Only a few hours more, they fondly believed,
and they would see the Greek cross supplanting the Crescent at the dome
of Santa Sophia and the dreams of ten centuries finally realized.

But it was not to be. Russia had indeed advanced nearer the goal on
which her eyes had been fixed for a thousand years, but the coveted
prize, though seemingly so near, was yet far from her grasp. The Treaty
of San Stephano had, it is true, established a dominant Slav state in
the Balkans which it was intended should be but a simple dependency
of Russia and a stepping stone to Constantinople, but the treaty
was scarcely signed before England and others of the Great Powers
insisted on its revision. This was done at the Congress of Berlin. Here
Beaconsfield, in order “to check Russian influence in the Balkans” and
to safeguard “the vital requirements of Britain’s Eastern policy,”
insisted on the restoration of “the position of Turkey as a European
state”--a position which had been practically lost by the treaty of San
Stephano.[47]

The Turk is still in Constantinople and is there notwithstanding the
loud and reiterated declarations of statesmen from Gladstone to Lloyd
George that he was to be cast “bag and baggage” out of Europe for
evermore, but, when one remembers that, since the days of Solyman the
Magnificent, the imminent downfall of Turkey as a European power has
been confidently predicted scores of times; that, since the Osmanlis
reached the Bosphorus nearly six centuries ago, no fewer than a hundred
plans have been made for the partition of their territory[48] and
that recently the English premier, Lloyd George, made the evacuation
of Constantinople by Turkey an essential condition of peace--at
least until he could have time to change his opportunist mind--one
asks oneself how much longer the Sultan will successfully pursue his
time-honored policy of _divide et impera_ and how much longer
diplomats will continue to insist that the maintenance of the City
of Constantine as the capital of the Ottoman Empire is a political
necessity, and when, if ever, Russia’s persistent ambition of a
thousand years will at last be realized.[49] From present indications
there is little likelihood that the jealousies of the more powerful
nations of Europe respecting the matchless capital of the Golden Horn
will abate or that the traditional ability of Turkey’s astute rulers to
play off the Great Powers one against the other will be less marked in
the future than in the past.

If, however, there is to be a transfer of Constantinople to some other
power than that of the Ottoman Empire, poetic justice seems to require
that the aspirations of Greece should receive first consideration.
Greek in language and nationality from the days of Byzas until it
was lost by the fortunes of war to the followers of Mohammed, this
city is claimed by the people that counts among its own a Belisarius,
a Pulcheria, a Tribonian, an Anthemius, a Chrysostom, a Gregory
Nazienzus--men and women who in eminence and achievement were surpassed
by none of their contemporaries west of the Adriatic and who were the
glories of the greatest home of art and literature and culture when
Russia was yet a land of wild nomads and ignorant barbarians. And this
same people claims Constantinople as theirs “by origin and by long
possession, a possession which has in some sort gone on both under
Frankish and under Turkish rule.”[50]

One of the most interesting and picturesque sights in Constantinople,
but of a far different character from those of which I have been
speaking, is to be seen on the lower bridge over the Golden Horn.
Connecting Galata, the part of the city which is chiefly inhabited by
non-Mussulmans, with Stamboul, which is occupied almost entirely by
Turks and Moslems of various nationalities, this bridge is frequently
crowded with people of every color and from every clime. But what a
noisy, jostling, struggling, wrangling, cosmopolitan throng one here
encounters! Here one sees representatives from all parts of Europe,
Asia, and Africa--bright-turbaned Turks, supple and chattering Greeks,
jauntily attired dragomans, gorgeously uniformed kavasses, heavily
burdened hamals, round-browed Montenegrins, white-kirtled Albanians,
bronzed and sun-dried Bedouins from Arabia, shuffling and high-voiced
eunuchs from Nubia and Abyssinia, and high-capped Tartars from the
steppes of Russia and Central Asia--all vociferating in a score of
languages and dialects, all utterly regardless of those who are round
about them.

And such a variety of garbs and partial garbs! And yet they attract
no attention in this motley crowd who here, as elsewhere in the
East, are accustomed to seeing people appareled in garments of every
conceivable style and color. “A man,” as has been observed by one who
knows the Orient well, “may go about in public veiled up to the eyes,
or clad, if he please, only in a girdle; he is merely obeying his own
law”[51]--following a custom which has prevailed among his ancestors
through countless generations.

After a tiresome climb I once found myself on the highest platform
of the lofty Galata tower. From this point one has probably the best
obtainable view of Constantinople and its environment. The panorama
which is disclosed is certainly beautiful, superb; but I am not
prepared to agree with the enthusiastic writer who declares that
“nothing on this globe can surpass it--that it is incomparable in its
panoramic variety and sublimity!”[52] I still contend that the palm for
enchanting scenic beauty and for magnificent natural panoramas belongs
to Rio de Janeiro.

I readily grant, however, that in wealth of legend, romance, and
historic associations of every kind New Rome far surpasses the
fascinating capital of Brazil. And I am inclined to think that most
of those who descant so enthusiastically on the marvelous beauty of
Constantinople unconsciously allow their judgments of the city’s
present beauties to be colored by the magic and the glamour of the
historic past.

Considering the Byzantine capital as the theater of thrilling deeds
and notable achievements, it is probably unsurpassed in human interest
except by Rome, Athens, and Jerusalem. And the views one may have
from the height of Galata’s tower are, historically considered,
inferior only to those that so impress the spectator who stands on
the ruin-crowned summit of the Palatine, the majestic portico of the
Parthenon, and the sanctified heights of the Mount of Olives.

As I stood on the dizzy balcony which surmounts the lofty tower and
beheld the magnificent vistas that opened up before me on every side, I
realized as never before what a unique site was occupied by the City of
Constantine. On the north are the cypress and palace-crowned hills of
the winding Bosphorus and the delightful Sweet Waters of Europe, which
are even more attractive than the rival Sweet Waters of Asia. On the
south gleams the silver expanse of the Marmora, in which are mirrored
the picturesque Islands of the Princes, over which hover so many morbid
and voluptuous memories of the past. On the east across the Strait
stand out in bold relief the Maiden’s Tower and the Golden City of
Scutari, both wrapped in an atmosphere of heavy and exotic passion and
“holding their secrets of the Orient closely hidden from the eyes of
Europe.” On the hills laved by the glimmering waters of the Golden Horn
and the Sea of Marmora, and bounded on the west by the historic plain
of Thrace, proudly sits, half veiled by a tremulous amethystine haze,
the peerless Queen of the East in all her majesty and shedding on the
fascinated beholder a strange sense of mystery--seeming not a living,
palpable thing, but rather a brilliant phantasm, or a rainbow dream of
mystic remoteness.

Almost within a stone’s throw of where I stood was the Golden Horn
sprinkled with hundreds of delicate, pointed caiques and bearing on
its sapphire bosom ships of all sizes and flying the flags of all
nations. It was up this famous stream that Byzas, the reputed son of
Neptune, steered his frail craft nearly seven centuries before our
era. And it was on the southern bank of this sheltered haven that the
daring navigator, with his doughty Megarans, laid the foundation of
Byzantium--named after himself--which was to play such a remarkable
rôle in the world’s great drama.

A thousand years later--almost to a day--Constantine the Great abandons
the city of Romulus and selects that of Byzas as the capital of the
great Roman empire. On foot, with a lance in hand, the Emperor leads
a solemn procession, and, under divine command--_jubente Deo_,
as he phrased it--traces the boundary of the future metropolis. His
assistants, astonished at the over-growing circumference of the
destined capital, ventured to observe that the contemplated area of a
great city had already been exceeded. “I shall continue to advance,”
replied the Emperor, “until the Invisible Guide who precedes me bids me
halt.”

It was across the Golden Horn that “blind old Dandolo”--that
marvelous doge of ninety-seven years--led the Venetian forces against
Constantinople and awakened the degenerate Greeks from “a dream of nine
centuries--from the vain presumption that the capital of the Roman
Empire was impregnable to foreign arms.” The marble mausoleum of this
remarkable man--whose physical and mental powers were vigorous to the
last--occupied a place in Santa Sophia until it was transformed into a
mosque, and, even to-day, one may see in one of the galleries of the
venerable fane a marble slab bearing in almost illegible characters the
name of Henricus Dandolo.

And it was across the Golden Horn that Mohammed II passed when he
entered the breached walls through New Rome as conqueror. But he was
not able to effect an entrance into the ill-fated city without passing
over the lifeless body of its noble defender, the valiant Constantine
Paleologus, the last of the Byzantine Cæsars.[53]

For six centuries Constantinople had been an impregnable bulwark
against the forces of Islam. For nearly twice that space of time she
had successfully resisted the menaces and attacks of the barbarians of
the north--Goths, Huns, Avars, Russians, Bulgarians, Chazars--and had
proudly defied the power of Chosroes, Timur, Bayazid, Harun-al-Rashid,
and other leaders of savage hordes from Persia, Arabia, and Central
Asia. Unlike Old Rome, which frequently opened her gates to invaders
from the north of the Danube, New Rome never once yielded to her
Teutonic and Slavonian foes. Although besieged more than a score of
times between the fourth and the thirteenth century[54] she was able
to withstand every assault however furious or long continued. And this
she did after the vast empire which once extended from the Tigris to
the Guadilquivir had been so reduced that little was left of it but the
capital itself, which, at the time of its capture by the Turks under
Mohammed II, was scarcely more than a besieged fortress.

How the occupation of Constantinople by Mohammed the Conqueror, has
complicated the political, military, and economic conditions of Europe
for nearly five centuries is a matter of gloomy history. Owing to
its matchless position it was long the natural center of the world’s
commerce, the clearing house between Europe and Asia. Destined by
nature itself to be the seat of two worlds, Constantinople must, as
Freeman well observes, “remain the seat of imperial rule as long as
Europe and Asia, as long as land and sea keep their places.”[55]

The transfer of the capital of the Roman Empire from the
Tiber to the Golden Horn, the foundation of Constantinople in
330 A. D., was one of the master-strokes in the history of
civilization--indeed from the material and strategic point
of view, I hold it to be the greatest. Rome, Paris, London,
Vienna, Moscow, Madrid, Berlin, Washington, became capital
cities by the gradual acts of the rulers in the course of
years. But in ten years Constantinople remade the center of the
civilized world. Nothing so stupendous in civic origins has ever
been accomplished before or since, for its effects have been
maintained with rare and partial breaks for eleven, nay, for
fifteen centuries. The foundation of Alexandria by Alexander,
of Antioch by Seleucus have some parallels. Mecca, Jerusalem,
Cairo, Delhi have had fluctuating histories. Peter’s creation
of Petrograd was a splendid mistake, which has ended in hideous
failure. But the creation of Constantinople marks Constantine
as one of the truly great, beside Julius, Trajan, Charles and
Washington.[56]

But more remarkable than anything that has yet been said of the Queen
City of the Bosphorus is her marvelous continuity of imperial rule.
From the time when Constantine transferred the capital of the empire
from the Tiber to the Golden Horn, when, in the works of Dante,

_Per cedere al Pastor si fece Greco,_[57]

New Rome--notwithstanding all its wars and vicissitudes, all its
changes of race and religion, all its changes of laws and customs
and institutions--has been the continuous seat of empire for sixteen
centuries. This is something that is without parallel in the history of
our race.

Rome was the local center of empire for barely four
centuries.... The royal cities that once flourished in the
valleys of the Ganges, the Euphrates or the Nile were all
abandoned after some centuries of splendor, and have long
lost their imperial rank. Memphis, Babylon, Tyre, Carthage,
Alexandria, Syracuse, Athens, had periods of glory but no great
continuity of empire. London and Paris have been great capitals
for at most a few centuries; and Madrid, Berlin, Vienna, and St.
Petersburg are things of yesterday in the long roll of human
civilization.[58]

This exceptional continuity in Constantinople may, it has been
asserted, “be ultimately traced to its incomparable physical and
geographical capabilities.”

But while I contemplated the capital of Constantine as it lay bathed
in the tremulous and ethereal atmosphere of an autumn afternoon and
recalled its past history, enveloped in the mist of years--a history
which then seemed more like a confused and troubled dream than a
veritable record of stirring and vivid actualities--I presently lost
sight of the wars and sieges and conquests of which this Castle of the
Cæsars has so frequently been the theater and thought of its rather as
the erstwhile home of art and literature, as the renowned center of
religion and culture.

Among its ecclesiastical rulers were some of the brightest luminaries
of the Eastern Church. There was the scholarly St. John Chrysostom,
“the greatest preacher ever heard in a Christian pulpit.”[59] There was
the illustrious St. Gregory Nazienzus, whom Villeman calls the greatest
Oriental poet of Christendom. There was Photius, “whose learning and
width of culture was astonishing and whose library-catalogue is the
envy of modern scholars.” And there were those two learned women, the
Empress Eudocia and the Princess Anna Comnena, who, as Gibbon phrases
it, “cultivated in the purple, the arts of rhetoric and philosophy.”[60]

It was in Constantinople that, at the command of Justinian, was
framed the famous Code that bears his name--the most important of
all monuments of jurisprudence and which, notwithstanding subsequent
modifications, is still the basis of all legislation throughout the
civilized world.

It was here that Byzantine art took its highest flights. Santa Sophia
was but one of the churches of New Rome from which western artists and
architects drew their inspiration. We see this in the paintings of
Cimabue and Giotto and in the countless Italian edifices which exhibit
the evidence of Byzantine influence.

And it was here, in the libraries and monasteries, that was preserved
that precious heritage of Greek thought and Greek genius, which, at a
later age, was to be transferred to Western Europe, and which, through
the activity of Byzantine scholars, was to be the foundation of the
Renaissance. During the period immediately preceding the Conquest
of Constantinople there was, declares Gibbon, “more books and more
knowledge within the walls of Constantinople than could be dispersed
over the extensive countries of the West.”[61]

“When the arms of the Turks pressed the flight of the Muses” from
the Queen City of the East, Greek learning sought an asylum on the
banks of the Arno and the Tiber. Among the first of Greek scholars to
find a congenial home in the land of Dante and Petrarch were Janon
Lascaris and Manuel Chrysoloras. They were received with open arms in
the universities of the Peninsula and lectured with signal success
to vast numbers of eager and enthusiastic students of every age and
condition. But nowhere were they and others of their countrymen of a
later date[62] accorded a more cordial welcome than in the palaces
of the Medici and at the courts of Leo X and Nicholas V. Under such
illustrious patrons, Greek letters flourished amazingly and quickly
prepared the way for the great humanistic movement that culminated in
the literary triumphs of Politian, Reuchlin, and Erasmus.

But the fall of Constantinople was epoch-making not only in its
relation to the Humanistic Renaissance but also in its effect on
the economic and commercial development of Europe. Before the
Ottomans achieved the conquest of the Græco-Roman Empire of the East,
this region constituted what has happily been designated as “the
nerve-center of the world’s commerce.” But no sooner had it passed
into the hands of the Ottomans than the great trade routes between
the Orient and Europe were completely blocked “by a power inimical to
commerce and still more inimical to those Christian nations for whose
benefit intercourse between the East and West was mainly carried on.”

It was then imperative for Europe, unless it was prepared to forego its
trade with the East, to discover a new route to the Orient, which would
be beyond the interference of Ottoman power. This much desired result
was accomplished by two of the most decisive events in the world’s
history--“the rounding by Vasco da Gama of the Cape of Good Hope and
the discovery of the New World.” By these far-reaching achievements
“the center of gravity, commercial, political and intellectual, rapidly
shifted from the south-east of Europe to the northwest; from the cities
of the Mediterranean littoral to those of the Atlantic. Constantinople,
Alexandria, Venice, Genoa, Marseilles were deprived at one fell swoop
of the economic and political preëminence which had for centuries
belonged to them” ... and the Mediterranean, which for ages had “been
the greatest of commercial highways, was reduced almost to the position
of a backwater.”[63]

Among the many names given to the Ottoman capital by the peoples of the
East is that bestowed upon it by the Arabs, namely, El Farruch--the
Earth-Divider. In view of what has been said in the preceding pages no
epithet could be more expressive of the truth. For, since the fall of
the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, together with its two appanages,
the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, has constituted the chief line of
demarcation between the East and the West, between the Cross and the
Crescent.

One of the most difficult and delicate problems which diplomacy has
yet to solve--war has been impotent to bring about a solution--is the
future status of the historic city of the Bosphorus and the relations
between the powers of Islam and the Christian nations of Europe.

As the solution of the problem cannot, apparently, be effected by
conquest or by a sordid exploitation of the lands of the East, it seems
that the time has now arrived when more unselfish and more Christian
methods should be applied than those based on force and international
rivalries.

We owe much, very much, to the East. From her, through Greece and Rome,
have come our civilization and culture, our art and literature. From
her has come the religion that molds the mind and purifies the heart of
Christendom. To her, therefore, we owe an immense debt of gratitude,
a debt that can be paid only by helping her in her present lethargic
state and by aiding her to return to her former condition of vigor and
progress. We should, consequently, endeavor to understand the needs of
the East in order that we may the more intelligently contribute towards
her resuscitation--moral and intellectual, as well as material--and
that we may more rationally coöperate with her in regaining, at least
in a measure, that position of preëminence which she occupied when she
was acclaimed the cradle of civilization and the mother of culture;
when Bagdad and Damascus were famed centers of learning; when Saracen
scholars made known to the nations of the West the treasures of Greek
science and philosophy; when it was said, “In all other parts of the
world light descends upon earth, from Holy Bokhara it ascends.”

Is this an impossible task? It is certainly not unworthy of being
essayed by the lovers of humanity, who are beholden to the East for
the greatest blessings they now enjoy. The welfare of our race and
the peace of the world demand the removal of the impassable barriers
which have so long separated the Orient from the Occident. Of all the
plans now engaging the minds of men for securing permanent peace in the
Near East and achieving, at the same time, its spiritual and social
regeneration, this seems to be the only one that is likely to have
a successful issue--the only one which has a real basis in genuine
altruism and Christian righteousness.

CHAPTER IV

THE HELLESPONT AND HOMER’S TROY

_Now let_
_Us fly to Asia’s cities of renown!_
_Already through each nerve a flutter runs_
_Of eager hope, that longs to be away;_
_Already ’neath the light of other suns_
_My feet, new-winged for travel, yearn to stray._
CATULLUS, XLVI.

After awaking from a protracted reverie on the summit of Galata’s
lofty tower I found, to my surprise, that I had spent much more
time there than I had originally intended. Twilight, delicate and
ethereal, was beginning to fall and to veil the mosques and minarets
and cypress-crowned heights of solemn, crafty, mysterious Stamboul.
An animated pageant was slowly wending its way through the Grand Rue
de Pera--part of it on its way to popular resorts of amusement and
relaxation; part returning from the cares of office and counting-room
to the repose of homes on the tranquil banks of the palace-fringed
Bosphorus.

But I could linger no longer in the contemplation of such fascinating
scenes. The previous day I had made arrangements with a friend to take
the steamer that very evening for Chanak Kalesi, on the Dardanelles.
One of my long unrealized dreams had been to visit the site of ancient
Troy. Several times I had been near it, but pressing engagements had
always prevented me from gazing on the spot

_Where stood old Troy, a venerable name,_
_Forever consecrated to deathless fame._

A few moments after our steamer left her moorings in the Golden Horn,
she began to round Seraglio Point. Galata and Pera twinkle in the
gathering gloom. The domes and minarets of Stamboul rise like dark,
shadowy monsters above the somber groups of low, wooden houses by which
they are surrounded. Broken stars quiver in the swift-flowing waters
of the Bosphorus and, while we are still gazing at the venerable,
ivy-mantled walls and towers that so long guarded the City of
Constantine, we enter the Sea of Marmora--known to the ancients as the
Propontis--the sea before the Pontus or the Euxine of which Herodotus
says “there is not in the world any other sea so wonderful.”

Early the following morning we were in the storied channel of the
Thracian Hellespont--now more familiarly known as the Dardanelles.
Like the Bosphorus, the Hellespont is replete with human and historic
interest, and, as I contemplated its rugged cliffs, I recalled Lucan’s
words that here

_Each rock and every tree recording tales adorn._

This is particularly true of that section of the channel at Fort
Nagara, formerly known as the Strait of Abydos. For it was

_Here young Leander perished in the flood,_
_And here the tower of mournful Hero stood._

It was here that the venture-loving Byron swam across the Hellespont.
And it was here that Xerxes spanned the Straits with the famous double
bridge that enabled his vast army to cross over to the Thracian shore
on his way to Greece, where “the barbarian despot sought to repress in
the deadly bonds of Persian thralldom the intellect and the freedom
of the world.” But the epoch-making victory of Salamis frustrated all
his plans of conquest. Accompanied by his counted myriads the Persian
invader, sure of his prey, entered Greece with all the wantonness and
deadly hostility of barbaric pride; after his defeat by Themistocles,
when army, fleet, and treasure were gone, he was forced to flee like
the meanest fugitive. The Italian poet, Luigi Alemanni, tells in a
single line the fate of the proud organizer of this widely heralded
campaign when he writes:

_More than a god he came, less than a man he fled._

A century and a half after the flight of Xerxes, Alexander’s army,
under Parmenio, crossed the Hellespont at the place where it had been
bridged by the ambitious and vainglorious Persian despot. It was at,
or near, this spot that Frederick Barbarossa crossed at the head of
the Third Crusade. And it was at this same spot that Solyman Pasha,
the warlike son of Orkhan, passed from Asia to Europe, where, in 1354,
he planted the Osmanli standard and where it has ever since flown as a
sign of Moslem faith and of Moslem victory over the hated Giaour.

We disembarked at the town of Chanak Kalesi, which Europeans usually
call the Dardanelles. It is noted as being at the narrowest point
of the Hellespont--the channel here is about fourteen hundred yards
in width--and was until recently the headquarters of the general in
command of the Turkish troops in the many forts which defended the
Strait.

In the long-discussed plans of Napoleon and Alexander I of Russia,
for joint dominion of the world, the Russian monarch always insisted
on securing possession not only of the Bosphorus and Constantinople
but also of the Strait of the Dardanelles. But the French emperor
just as persistently refused to acquiesce in the Czar’s demands. For
a while Napoleon seemed disposed to yield the Bosphorus and even
Constantinople, but nothing could induce him to consider for a moment
the granting to his ally of control of the Dardanelles--the key to the
Mediterranean.

Alexander insisted that, owing to its geographical position, the
Dardanelles should belong to Russia; that, having Constantinople, he
should also hold the key to the Ægean. But Napoleon retorted that, if
Russia possessed this important waterway, she would at once become
mistress not only of the commerce of the Levant and of India, but
she would also be a constant menace to Toulon, to Corfu, and to the
commerce of the world.

But the Czar and his advisers would not take a refusal. They realized
that they would never again have so good an opportunity of gaining
possession of the long-coveted capital on the Bosphorus and of the
channel connecting the Euxine with the Mediterranean as when Napoleon
was counting on their coöperation with him in his great schemes of
conquest in Asia. Negotiations continued without interruption from the
conference of Tilsit to that of Erfurt, and nothing stood in the way of
their successful issue except the possession by Russia of the narrow
strait between the Marmora and the Ægean. In return for this Alexander
was prepared to accede to Napoleon’s every wish.

In a letter of Caulaincourt, the French Ambassador at St. Petersburg,
written to Napoleon in 1808, the envoy declares that Russia, “once
mistress of Constantinople and its geographical dependencies, will go
with us not only to India, but to Syria, to Egypt, wherever we may
judge it useful to employ her fleets and draw her armies. Besides
this, she will leave the French Emperor free to organize the south and
the middle of Europe as he may elect. Reserving for herself only the
affairs of the north, she will abandon to him the direction of all the
others, will not interfere with his gigantic operations, will renounce
all jealousy and will consent that the partition of the Orient shall in
fact become the partition of the world.”

Concluding his letter to Napoleon, Caulaincourt writes:

Let your majesty reunite Italy, perhaps even Spain to France;
change dynasties, found kingdoms; demand the coöperation
of the Black Sea fleet and a land army for the conquest of
Egypt; demand any guarantees whatsoever; make with Austria
any exchanges that may be expedient; in one word, let the
world change place, if Russia obtains Constantinople and the
Dardanelles, we shall, I believe, be able to have her consider
everything without uneasiness.[64]

Could anything evince more clearly than this remarkable statement the
supreme value which Alexander placed on the Dardanelles as a Russian
outlet to the Mediterranean? And could a more tempting offer have
been made to Napoleon, who was then the arbiter of Europe and seemed
on the point of becoming the dictator of the world, than that which
was dangled before his eyes by his ambitious ally? But the compact
that Russia so eagerly desired was not to be made. For when both
the Czar and the Emperor appeared to be near an agreement on their
long-discussed plans of world domination, Spanish valor and patriotism
and Austrian diplomacy were concerting to check the Corsican’s vaulting
ambition and to prepare for his ultimate downfall at Waterloo.

In a preceding page reference has been made to the Arab name--_El
Farruch_--Earth-Divider--of Constantinople. The same can with equal
reason be applied to the Dardanelles. For during long centuries it,
with the Bosphorus, has been an effective barrier between the East and
the West and has constantly held in check Russia’s aspirations towards
the Mediterranean. How much longer will _El Farruch_ continue
to keep apart the nations of the earth, and how long will it prove
to be the paramount _crux_ of the Near Eastern Question and the
occasion of long and sanguinary wars? This is a question that only the
future--and, apparently, the very distant future--can answer.

After inspecting the fortifications of Chanak Kalesi and Kilid Bahr
and making a visit to the site of ancient Abydos, whence Xerxes is
supposed to have surveyed his vast army as it crossed the Hellespont,
and whence one has a splendid view of the narrowest part of the Strait,
we prepared to continue our journey to the site of ancient Troy.

Our first objective was Eren Keui, a flourishing Greek village, where
we purposed stopping over night. This short trip of about three hours
we made on horseback. Our road lay along the edge of the Strait over
wooded hills, well-cultivated valleys, and picturesque villages
surrounded by numerous vineyards and olive groves. From the hills we
had splendid views of the Dardanelles, the Thracian Chersonese, the
distant Ægean, and “many-fountained Ida” beyond the Trojan plain.

On our way we passed the site of Dardanus--a town also known as
Teucris--from which the Dardanelles takes its name. The epithet
Hellespont, Sea of Helle--which has also been given to the Strait--is
derived from the mythical Helle, who is said to have been drowned near
the southern entrance of the channel that bears her name.

From an eminence near Eren Keui, which we reached under an overclouded
sky, we were captivated by the fascinating prospect that burst upon our
view. For some miles ahead of us, lying in a tremulous azure haze,

_We saw the dark outline of the Trojan plain,_
_Misty and dim, as things at distance seem_
_Through the fast waning light of summer eve._

We lost no time in reaching the spot which, for me at least, had been
one of peculiar and ever-growing interest since, as a youth, I had
fallen under the magic spell of the immortal author of the _Iliad_
and _Odyssey_. And I was not long on the plain of Troy when I
realized the full force of Byron’s words when he declares:

It is one thing to read the _Iliad_ at Sigeum and on the
tumuli, or by the springs with Mount Ida above and the plain
and the rivers of the Archipelago around you, and another
thing to trim your taper over it in a snug library--_this I
know_.[65]

But there is nothing in this historic region that will appeal to the
ordinary tourist. It is a circumscribed plain about eight miles long
by four broad, on which he will see little beyond a few bare hillocks
and tumuli and occasional hunts or villages of the poor people who here
have their home,[66] and hear little as he treads his way through the
scattered brakes that cover much of the ground except the voice of a
solitary bird which at intervals bursts into song and then is still.

Nor is there anything here to attract those self-satisfied iconoclasts
who not only deny that Homer wrote the _Iliad_ but also deny his very
existence. Neither is there anything here to impress the followers of
Wolf and other so-called atomists who insist that the _Iliad_ is but a
collection of ballads composed by a number of rhapsodists.[67] Still
less is there here aught to interest those who not only maintain that
Homer and his authorship of the _Iliad_ are myths but who also contend
that there is no evidence whatever for believing that there was such a
place as Troy or for supposing that the traditional Troy was located in
this place, or that there ever was such a conflict as the Trojan War,
which is so graphically described in the _Iliad_.

No. To be thrilled by a visit to the well-fought field of Ilium, one
must share the sentiments which animated Byron when he contemplated
what Catullus so well denominated:

_Troia (nefas) commune sepulchrum Asiæ Europæque,_
_Troia virum et virtutum omnium acerba cinis._[68]

He must share the sentiments of thousands of others---poets, artists,
historians, kings, statesmen, commanders of vast armies---who, during
the past twenty-five centuries, have found on the site of Ilium, once
the

_City of unconquered men_

an inspiration in their work and an incentive to high achievement which
they could not find in the same degree in any other place in the wide
world.

When Xerxes, with his army, was on the way from Sardis to Greece he
stopped at Troy, and “when he had seen everything and inquired into all
particulars, he made an offering of ten thousand oxen to the Trojan
Minerva, while the Magians poured libations to the heroes who were
slain at Troy.”[69]

And the first thing Alexander the Great did on arriving in Asia,
previously to beginning his stupendous campaign against the Persians,
was to make a pilgrimage to what was once the city of Priam. The famous
Macedonian was a credit to his master, Aristotle, both as a scholar
and as a philosopher. He was, moreover, a great admirer of Homer and
slept with a copy of the _Iliad_ under his pillow. Ascending the
acropolis of New Ilium, he, like Xerxes, sacrificed to Minerva and also
to the shade of Priam, which he wished to propitiate before starting on
his expedition into the heart of Asia. And, as an assumed descendant,
through his mother, of Achilles, he offered an oblation on the tumulus
of Achilles, beneath which, it was believed, the ashes of the hero,
together with those of his friend Patroclus, were preserved in a golden
urn. After this he made a careful topographical survey of the Trojan
plain. And so convinced was he of all that tradition claimed for it
that he promised to enrich and fortify the New Ilium,[70] but was
prevented by premature death from carrying his project into execution.

Similarly Julius Cæsar, of the _gens Julia_, which traced its
origin to Iulus, son of Æneas, and was proud of its legendary descent
from Trojan stock, lavished honors on Troy,[71] as did also the Consul
Livius, who offered sacrifice on the acropolis of Ilium, in the
name of Rome, and not only exempted it from tribute but also gave it
jurisdiction over that part of the surrounding country known as the
Troad.

If then, one would come under the spell of Troy, if one would
experience the magic influence of its _spiritus loci_, one must visit
it as did Byron and Cæsar and Alexander--free from the withering doubts
raised by modern atomistic criticism and with a reasonable belief not
only in the existence of Priam’s city but also in the personality of
Homer and in his authorship of the marvelous epic on the Trojan war.
And we must remember that for nearly three thousand years there was no
question regarding the identity of that Greek whom Dante calls _poeta
sovrano_, the one, he tells us, who was

_Of mortals the most cherished by the nine_.[72]

We must recall the estimation in which he was held by the ancients, who
never wavered respecting the identity of

_The blind old man who dwelt on Scio’s rocky isle_.

So paramount, indeed, were the reputation and influence of the immortal
poet “whose genius had breathed inspiration into the national life
of Greece” that it was said, when tradition respecting his sublime
achievements was still fresh,

_Seven cities now contend for Homer dead_
_Through which the living Homer begged his bread._

The genius of Homer [declares a recent writer] was worshiped
as god-like and temples were erected to his honor at Chios,
Alexandria, Smyrna, and elsewhere; games were also instituted in
his memory; Apollo and Homer were actually worshiped together at
Argos, the one as the god of song, the other of minstrelsy.[73]

Filled with these thoughts and with a life-long love of the poet’s
masterpieces, I visited every nook and corner of the Trojan plain and
with unrestrained rapture contemplated the places which had so haunted
my youthful imagination when I first became acquainted with the sublime
pages of the _Iliad_. For the time being I forgot all about
Wolf, Lachman, Hermann, and other advocates of the atomistic theory
respecting Homer’s matchless epic and, like a child reading a fairy
tale, I loved to picture before my eyes the wonderful events which
Homer so vividly describes and which seemed to me almost as real as
they were to the actual spectators three thousand years ago.

_Still in our ears Andromache complains,_
_And still in sight the fate of Troy remains;_
_Still Ajax fights, still Hector’s dragged along,--_
_Such strange enchantment dwells in Homer’s song._

Fancy was animated as I strolled along the storied Simois, which
“sprouted ambrosia-like pasture” for the horses of Hera and Athena,
and the serpentine Scamander--“fair-flowing with silver eddies”--which
formerly entered a bay upon the shores of which the Greeks hauled up
their ships, and as I stood before the reputed tumuli of Achilles and
Patroclus, Ajax and Antilochus. But it was more vivacious far when I
ascended the hill of Hissarlik, which Schliemann has identified as
the site of Homer’s Troy. From the highest point of this elevation
one has a view that is truly entrancing. On the north is the
Hellespont--the road, as the ancients conceived, to the Cimmerians
and the Hyperboreans--with all its myth and legend. To the west are
the murmurous waters of the island-studded Ægean. Near the coast line
is vine-clad Tenedos, whither the Greek fleet withdrew while the
wooden horse was being taken into Troy. Further beyond is Lemnos,
where Hephæstus is said to have fallen when he was hurled from
Olympus. To the northwest is rock-ribbed Imbros, and further afield
is Samothrace, from the towering peak of which Poseidon looked down
upon Troy during its investment by the Greeks. To the northeast is
the eminence of Callicolone, whence Apollo and Mars, the protectors
of Ilium, watched the operations of the contending Greek and Trojan
armies. To the eastward is snow-crested Ida--whence Zeus observed the
combatants--whose lofty pines and valonas

_Wave aloft_
_Their tuneful, scented, dove-embowering shade,_
_And ’neath twilight broods as gray and soft_
_As when of yore the shepherd Paris strayed_
_With glad Œnone; while their bleating flocks_
_Grazed the wild thyme bright with ambrosial dew;_
_And lovers piping ’neath the o’ershadowing rocks_
_Laded with love the breezes as they flew._

It was on such panoramas that Helen was wont to fix her wistful
gaze--fair Helen, who

_Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars_

* * * * *

_... launched a thousand ships_
_And burnt the topless towers of Ilium._

Yes, I dreamed as I had previously dreamed in Sparta, the famed
abode of Menelaus and his faithless Helen; as I had dreamed in
“gold-abounding” Mycenæ, the home of Agamemnon, “King of men”; as I had
dreamed when contemplating desolate Delphi, Corinth, and Olympia, their
glory gone and their temples in ruins; as I had dreamed on the summit
of cloud-capped Parnassus, haunt of the Muses, and on the banks of the
rippling Cephisus, where Plato taught and where

_Girls and boys, women and bearded men_
_Crowded to hear and treasure in their hearts_
_Matter to make their lives a happiness._

At all these places, as on the site of Troy’s citadel, I loved to
recall the Greeks’ love of beauty and the marvelous mythopœic faculty
of their poets, and it required no spur to fancy to imagine that I was,
for the moment, in actual communion with the thoughts and feelings of
the world’s masters of beauty in art and literature.

The plain of Troy [it has been said] has been a battlefield not
only of heroes, but of scholars and geographers, and the works
which have been written on the subject form a literature to
themselves.[74]

This is true. But, however much students of the _Iliad_ may have
disagreed about the location of the city of Priam, about the courses
of the Simois and Scamander and certain minor details, all have been
compelled to recognize the accuracy of the poet’s topographical
descriptions and the appropriateness of the epithets which he applies
to the most striking features of the enchanting landscape which he
so graphically depicts. He does not, of course, give the numbers and
distances, as some of his critics would seem to demand, that a civil
engineer would require for a contour-line map. This would violate
entirely the most elementary canons of poetical treatment. But he does
use numbers and distances so far as they are necessary to give reality
to the action of the poem. And though his realities are in the highest
degree idealized, nevertheless, so fully do they meet the general
exigencies of time and place that they prove almost to demonstration
that Homer was thoroughly familiar not only with Troy but also with
all the surrounding region.[75]

The epithets applied by the poet to the mountains, islands, rivers,
and other natural features described in his matchless work show that
he must have been intimately acquainted with them, not by hearsay but
by personal inspection. Thus when he speaks of the “rapid current” of
the Hellespont, of the “broad-flowing” and “eddying” Scamander, of
“the peak of lofty Samothrace appearing over the intervening mass of
Imbros,” thus enabling Poseidon to look down from its summit on the
plain of Troy, we are convinced that the author of the _Iliad_
had carefully examined on the spot the objects he so vividly brings
before our view. And so it is in his graphic delineations of “lofty,”
“many-fountained” Ida, of “many-crested,” “dazzling”

_Olympus, the reputed seat_
_Eternal of the gods, which never storms_
_Disturb, rains drench, or snow invades, but calm._

So graphic and exact indeed are the epithets and descriptions of Homer
that they far surpass those of the later poets of Greece. In this
respect he constantly reminds one of Dante, that consummate master
of epithet and of brief but most exact description, who had the rare
faculty of expressing the import of a whole sentence in a single word.
I was then more than ever before impressed with the truth of Gœthe’s
words:

_Wer den Dichter will verstehen_
_Muss in Dichter’s Lande gehen._[76]

As we wandered along the willow-lined Mendere--the “divine” and
“flower-fringed” Scamander--and threaded our way through clumps of
tamarisk, agnus castus, and odoriferous Artemisia, frequently stopping
in our course to admire a beautiful lotus or asphodel and to gaze on
“spring-abounding” Ida’s heights, whence swift-footed Iris sped to
sacred Ilium at the command of ægis-bearing Jove, the question arose as
to the location of the Olympus, whence the “king of gods and men”

_Surveyed the walls of Troy, the ships of Greece,_
_The flash of arms, the slayers and the slain._[77]

The doubt was raised by the fact there are in Greece the islands of the
Ægean and in Asia Minor nearly a score of peaks and mountain ranges
that bear the name of Olympus, and the further fact that Olympus is
almost a generic name in this part of the world for a lofty mountain or
chain of mountains. On the confines of Mysia and Bithynia and visible
from the summit of Ida, which overlooks the Trojan plain, there is a
high mountain which is called Olympus, which many writers have declared
to be the one on whose summit mythology placed the home of the gods,

_Where Jove convened the senate of the skies._[78]

But a single quotation produced by the Hellenist of our party sufficed
to prove that the Olympus which Homer had in view was that located in
northern Thessaly--the Olympus on which Hesiod placed the battle of the
gods and Titans and on which mythology from the earliest time located
“the residence of the dynasty of the gods of which Zeus was the head.”
The quotation in question refers to the visit of Here to Zeus, who was
then on Mt. Ida observing the belligerents on the Trojan plain, and
reads:

_But Juno down from high Olympus sped;_
_O’er sweet Emathia and Pieria’s range,_
_O’er snowy mountains of horse-breeding Thrace,_
_Their topmost heights she soared, nor touch’d the earth._
_From Athos then she cross’d the swelling sea,_
_Until to Lemnos, God-like Thoas’ seat_
_She came._[79]

From Lemnos and Imbros, veiled in cloud,[80] skimming her airy way she
passes, to “spring-abounding Ida.” Could anything indicate more clearly
than this the relative positions of Olympus and Troy and fix more
definitely the position of the home of the Olympian gods as conceived
by the sovereign poet of Greece?

Although I had always been specially interested in Greek archæology I
felt no inclination, during my short visit to Troy, to indulge my taste
for archæological pursuits. I was satisfied to accept the conclusions
of Schliemann and Dorpfeld and Virchow respecting the location of
Ilium and the bearing of their discoveries on the reality of Homer
and the Trojan war. And, as I roamed the plain on which the Greek
army was encamped, I could not help hoping that further investigation
would prove that the startling discoveries of Schliemann at Mycenæ
would remove the last vestiges of doubt regarding the actual existence
of Agamemnon and Cassandra.[81] This would be a tangible proof of
the reality of at least one of Homer’s heroes. It would, too, be a
most interesting contribution to the Homeric question and would be
specially gratifying to those who, in spite of certain modern critics,
have unfalteringly clung to the views concerning Homer, Troy, and
the _Iliad_ which have universally prevailed since the days of
Aristarchus and the Homeridæ.

The blind bard of Chios then is to-day, as he always has been, as he
always will be so long as men shall love supreme excellence in letters,
a living personality whose wonderful epics have exercised a wider and
a more potent influence on the intellectual progress of our race than
all other epics combined. No books, except perhaps those of the Bible,
have been more frequently quoted nor have any received more attention
from poets, orators, dramatists, and lovers of the noblest models of
literary style.

Another remarkable fact is the gift of immortality which Homer, with
Jovelike power, has conferred upon his heroes. Although but the
creations of the poet’s genius, they stand forth to-day, men of flesh
and blood, in all the vigor and freshness which characterized them
thirty centuries ago. And there never have been among the children of
men any who are better known, or whose names more frequently occur
in song and story than the undying characters of the _Odyssey_
and the _Iliad_. These facts impress every lover of Homer as he
surveys the plain of Troy from the spot on which stood the Pergamus
and recollects the achievements of the blind bard’s heroes during the
ten long years of the Trojan war.

And, like Achilles and Agamemnon, Priam and Hector, the Troy of Homer
also is immortal. Notwithstanding the efforts of a jealous Demetrius
or an ill-informed Le Chevalier to transfer the glory of Troy to some
other locality, its claims, as Schliemann has shown, still stand on as
firm a basis as ever. Yes, of a truth,

_Thou livest, O Troy, forever unto men._

* * * * *

_All to the magic of that world-sung song,_
_That god-breathed legend dost thou owe thy fame;_
_The golden weft the blind man wove so long,_
_Hath linked to immortality thy name._
_His tale to many another’s lyre hath given_
_Its stirring echoes; and in every age_
_What story more than of thy woes hath riven_
_Their hearts who dream upon the poet’s page._
_And though for long thou in the dust hast lain,_
_Still, still the visions of the mighty past,_
_The memory of thy struggle, and thy pain,_
_Thy god-built turrets,--these forever last._

CHAPTER V

THE CRADLE OF THE OSMANLIS

_Have Time’s stern scythe, man’s rage and flood and fire_
_Left naught for curious pilgrims to admire?_
_A few poor footsteps may now cross the shrine,_
_Cell, long arcade, high altar, all supine;_
_Bound with thick ivy broken columns lie,_
_Through low rent circles winds of evening sigh,_
_Rough brambles choke the vaults where gold was stored,_
_And toads spit venom forth where priests adored._
NICOLAS MICHEL.

Our next side trip, after visiting Troy, was a short excursion to Brusa
which--partly by steamer and partly by rail--is easily accessible
from Constantinople. I was especially eager to see this famous place,
for its historic associations are numerous and varied. It was to
Brusa--anciently Prusa--that Hannibal fled after his defeat by the
Romans. There are indeed, some authorities who maintain that the great
Carthaginian general was the founder of Brusa. It was from this city,
which was once large and prosperous, that Pliny the Younger, while
governor of Bithynia, wrote his celebrated letter to Trajan, in which
he asked for instructions concerning the policy to be pursued regarding
“the stubborn sect of Christians” who were then rapidly increasing
in numbers and who, by refusing to offer sacrifices to the gods and
by persistently avoiding all pagan rites and observances, had made
themselves specially obnoxious to Roman officialdom. This letter[82]
is remarkable as being one of the first notices in Roman writers
respecting the members of that incipient Church which was eventually to
become mistress of the capital of Cæsars.

In Ottoman history Brusa is notable for having been the capital of
Orkhan, the second ruler of the Osmanlis and for having long been the
favorite resort of Moslem scholars, artists, poets, and dervishes
who enjoyed a great reputation among their coreligionists for their
reputed sanctity. And even after the transfer of the Ottoman capital
to Adrianople and subsequently to Constantinople, Brusa continued to
be one of the sacred cities of the Mohammedans. For here were buried
the first six Osmanli sovereigns besides more than a score of Ottoman
princes and here “more than five hundred pashas, theologians, teachers,
and poets sleep their last sleep around their first Padishas.” Among
the turbehs which particularly impressed me was that of the Serbian
princess who, although the wife of a Sultan, was able to preserve
untainted the religion of her Christian parents. Here were erected
numerous medresses--colleges--mosques and public buildings whose size
and grandeur were for centuries a favorite theme of Moslem poets and
historians. In beauty of design, richness of material, and exquisite
finish some of the mosques--especially the renowned Green Mosque--are
even to-day regarded as the most perfect specimens of Osmanli
architecture.

Our visit to Brusa was most enjoyable and was an ideal introduction to
our long journey through the Ottoman possessions in Asia. For in this
old capital of the sultans we find more strikingly exhibited than in
noisy, metropolitan Constantinople those dominant characteristics of
most Asiatic cities--apathetic immobility, undisturbed quietude, and
dreamy repose.

But before taking the train at Haidar Pasha we spent a day in wandering
through Scutari and Kadi Keui which are just across the Bosphorus from
Stamboul. Like Brusa both of these places--especially Scutari--are
distinctively Oriental in character and are well worthy of a visit.
Both of them, too, have played prominent roles in the long, historic
past and, although they are now so overshadowed by the great city of
Constantine, they, nevertheless, offer many attractions that are well
worthy of the attention of the student and the historian.

Scutari was formerly known as Chrysopolis--the Golden City. Its special
attractions for tourists are the Howling Dervishes, whose peculiar
devotional exercises take place every Thursday, and the Great Cemetery
which is celebrated as the largest and most beautiful Moslem of burying
places. It is a great forest of cypress trees, more than three miles
in length. Each grave has its tombstone, usually a very modest one.
Some of the epitaphs I observed were very touching, especially those
that terminated with a prayer that a Fatihah--the first chapter of the
Koran--might be said for the soul of the deceased.

This chapter [writes Sale, the learned translator of the Koran] is a
prayer and held in great veneration by the Mohammedans.... They esteem
it as the quintessence of the whole Koran, and often repeat it in their
devotions, both public and private, as the Christians do the Lord’s
Prayer.[83]

It is an integral part of each of the five daily prayers which are
said by every good Mussulman. It is, moreover, recited over the sick,
at the conclusion of an action of importance, but it is, above all,
the favorite prayer for the repose of the soul of the departed taking,
in this respect, the place of the Catholic _requiescat_. As
translated by Rodwell it reads:

_Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds!_
_The compassionate, the merciful!_
_King on the day of reckoning!_
_Thee only do we worship, and to Thee do we cry for help._
_Guide Thou us on the straight path,_
_The path of those to whom Thou has been gracious;--with_
_Whom Thou art not angry, and who go not astray._

As we wandered along the pathways of this last resting place of so
many myriads of Mohammedans--from Constantinople[84] as well as from
Scutari--I was impressed by the number of men and women who were
here absorbed in prayer for their dear departed,[85] or in tending
the flowers which adorned the graves. These quiet mourners, with the
countless turtledoves, which make their home in the branches of the
funereal cypress trees and which seem to keep up continuously their
subdued moan, give to this gloomy necropolis a solemnity and an
impressiveness that are almost lacking in such ostentatious cities of
the dead as Père Lachaise and the Campo Santo of Genoa.

A short drive from the Great Cemetery brings us to the modern town of
Kadi Keui which, like Scutari, is also a part of the municipality of
Constantinople. It was formerly known as Chalcedon and was founded
seventeen years before Byzantium. By the oracle of Delphi it was
designated as “the city of the blind,” because its founders were blind
to the superior position of the tongue of land on the opposite side of
the Bosphorus, on which the City of Constantinople now stands.

Like most other cities in this part of the world it has witnessed many
vicissitudes and has been repeatedly captured and sacked by invading
armies from both Asia and Europe. Famed in antiquity for its temple
of Apollo and for having been the birthplace of Xenocrates, the most
distinguished of Plato’s disciples, its temples and palaces, after its
capture by the Ottomans, served the sultans as a stone quarry when
they required building material for their mosques in Constantinople.

But, although not a vestige of Chalcedon’s former grandeur now remains,
it will always be remembered as the city in which was held in 451 the
fourth œcumenical council of the Church, in which was condemned the
teaching of Eutyches and the Monophysites respecting the human and the
divine nature in Christ. When I recalled the fact that this council,
including the representatives of the absent bishops, was attended by
six hundred and thirty bishops; that more than six hundred of these
belonged to the Eastern Church, and remembered the very small number
of the episcopate that is now found in this part of the world, it was
easy to understand the present backward condition of civilization and
culture in Asia Minor and Syria. What a change, indeed, since the
days of those great doctors of the Oriental Church--the Cyrils, the
Gregories, the Basils, the Ephrems, the Chrysostoms--whose learning and
eloquence have from their time been the admiration and edification of
the whole of Christendom.

A short distance to the north of Kadi Keui is the Haidar Pasha military
hospital which was the scene of Florence Nightingale’s heroic labors
during the Crimean War. The rooms which she occupied while here are
still preserved intact and as I passed through them, I recalled
Longfellow’s beautiful tribute to her in the verses:

_A Lady with a Lamp shall stand
In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic womanhood._

_Nor even shall be wanting here
The palm, the lily and the spear,
The symbols that of yore
Saint Philomena bore._[86]

It is but a few minutes’ walk from Florence Nightingale’s hospital
to the Haidar Pasha railway station. On the way thither we passed
through the well-kept British Cemetery where rest eight thousand
British soldiers who died of wounds and disease during the Crimean
War. The large granite obelisk here by Marochetti is a conspicuous
object and is visible at a great distance. The Haidar Pasha station,
the north-western terminus of the Anatolia[87] Railway was, before
its partial destruction during the war, a most imposing building and
compared favorably with the best of similar structures in Europe.

Shortly after we take a seat in a cozy corridor car our train swings
towards the picturesque shore of the Marmora. From the window of our
compartment we have the most lovely views of the Princes Islands,
and of the quaint little fishing villages which sprinkle the eastern
shore of the Marmora and which are so perfectly mirrored in its placid
waters. For hours, as our train moves alternately along the verge
of lofty cliffs and near the level of the emerald expanse of the
Propontis, we have a succession of panoramas that are scarcely less
fascinating than those seen along the famous driveway between Sorrento
and Amalfi.

The dancing waves of the Marmora, as they gently lap along its curving
shore, are as soothing as a lullaby to a cradled child. And all the
while they are murmuring the same old story that greeted the ears of
the seafaring Megarians as they passed by nearly three thousand years
ago and which reached the crews of the trim Venetian argosies whose
arms proudly floated on their flags and pennants as they conveyed
the treasures of India and China from the ports of the Euxine to the
gem-blue haven of the peerless Queen of the Adriatic. The noonday sun,
playing over the rippling waters, changes them in rapid succession from
the delicate color of the lapis lazuli to the scintillating iridescence
of the opal.

Along the coast line one contemplates with ever-increasing delight
countless views of entrancing beauty and interest--gray moss-covered
rocks which are ever of tender loveliness and reposeful silence;
trembling vines and waving figs and olives and oranges; picturesque
adobe cottages adorned with graceful creepers; romping children who
make the air ring with their joyous shouts; men and women in the most
colorful garbs quietly performing their daily tasks and all the while
completely immune from the feverish haste that so distracts the toiling
millions of Europe and America and converts their life into a long and
troubled nightmare. The secret is that the normal Osmanli peasant is
satisfied with little. Permit him to cultivate his small plot of ground
in peace and to remain undisturbed in the bosom of his family and he is
perfectly happy. Under such conditions he would find nothing to envy
even in the lot of the denizens of the Happy Valley.

On our arrival at Ismid we were reminded that we were traveling over
classic ground. For this small Turkish town was under the Roman Empire
one of the largest cities in Asia Minor. It was here that Diocletian
had his seat of Government; it was here that he began his sanguinary
persecutions against the Christians and it was here that he abdicated
the throne. It was in his imperial villa near here that death claimed
Constantine the Great and it was in a neighboring castle that Hannibal
committed suicide. And Nicomedia was the birthplace of Arrian, the
illustrious disciple of Epictetus, who, from notes of his master’s
lectures, prepared the famed _Discourses of Epictetus_. He also
wrote the scarcely less celebrated _Anabasis of Alexander the
Great_.

Our first stop, however, was at the little town of Lefke where we found
waiting for us an _araba_ which we had ordered the day previously
to take us to Isnik--about four hours’ drive from the railroad--which
is but a small village of mud houses, but which during Roman and
Byzantine times was, under the name of Nicæa, the rival of Nicomedia.
Even while in the possession of the Sultans of Rum it was as a center
of art, poetry, and science scarcely less renowned than Cordova and
Bagdad. And while Constantinople was in the possession of the Latins,
after its capture by the Crusaders, Nicæa served as the temporary
capital of the Byzantine Empire.

There are few places in Anatolia which make a stronger appeal to the
student than the ancient city of Nicæa. Its ivy and fern-covered ruins,
walls, baths, theaters, churches, mosques, towers, gates, aqueducts,
sarcophagi, bas-reliefs, and inscriptions of all kinds are in the
highest degree interesting and offer a mine of most precious material
for the antiquary or the historian.

To us Nicæa was a

_Relic of nobler days and noblest arts_,

and, as we wandered among the ruin-covered streets of the once famous
city, we seemed to hear the monitory words

_Lightly tread, ’tis hallowed ground._

But my object in visiting this famous place was not knowledge so much
as impressions. I was attracted thither by the same magnet that drew
me to Troy and Chalcedon. I wished to get the local color and secure a
local picture of a place which has filled an important page in history
and which for centuries was the goal of contending armies--Asiatics and
Europeans, Moslems and Christians. But the predominant reason for my
visit to this scene of ruins was the fact that it had been a witness of
two of the Church’s most noted œcumenical councils.

The first council which was held here in 325 was likewise the first
General Council of the Church. It is noted for its condemnation
of Arianism and for the formation of the Nicene Creed which, as
subsequently amplified by the Council of Constantinople, has ever since
been the symbol of faith used not only by the Catholic Church but also
by those Eastern Churches which are no longer in communion with Rome
and by many of the Protestant Churches as well.

In the second council of Nicæa, which was the seventh of the Church’s
general councils and which convened in 787, was condemned the doctrine
of the Iconoclasts, which so long agitated the Eastern Church and
which was the cause of so many relentless persecutions throughout
the whole of the Byzantine Empire. Even Moslems, who regard every
kind of representation of the human form as an execrable idol, could
not have been more fanatical and pitiless in their dealings with
anti-Iconoclasts than were Leo the Isaurian, who was suspected of
favoring Islamism, and his son Constantine Copronymus. During their
reigns, not to speak of those of several of their successors, the
churches of the Byzantine Empire were as bare of images and statues as
were the mosques of Medina and Damascus.[88]

By a peculiar combination of events it fell to the lot of two
women--the Empresses Irene and Theodora--to undo the work of the
Iconoclastic emperors and to put a stop to the persecutions which had
caused the exile, the imprisonment, or the death of countless numbers
of the noblest men and women of the empire, whose only offense was
fidelity to the faith of their fathers.

Few things in Anatolia are more competent to awaken memories of the
past glories of Asia Minor than a visit to the spot that on two
momentous occasions witnessed the assemblage of hundreds of bishops
from both the Orient and the Occident. What a contrast between the
present condition of Nicæa and that at the time when the assembled
fathers subscribed to that creed which has ever since been accepted as
the symbol of faith of nearly the whole of Christendom!

In Asia Minor alone there were, in the fifth century, no fewer than
four hundred and fifty episcopal sees. And an imperial law was enacted
that every city should have its own bishop--_unaquœque civitas
proprium episcopum habeto_.[89] But what a change has come over
this once flourishing portion of the Christian Church. The famous
cities--Nicæa, Chalcedon, and Ephesus--in which four general councils
were held and which in Roman times were all capitals of provinces--have
long since been reduced to ruins. So completely, indeed, had Ephesus
disappeared from sight that little was known even about its topography
until the Austrian Archæological Institute began its excavations there
but little more than two decades ago.

And so it is throughout the length and the breadth of Anatolia.[90]
Great and popular cities, which, in the heyday of the Roman Empire
were noted for their splendid temples, baths, gymnasia, colonnades,
Greek theaters, and Roman amphitheaters, which were all graced by
masterpieces of art in marble and bronze--frequently replicas of
matchless Greek originals--are now either entirely deserted or tenanted
by a few nomadic shepherds or poor tillers of the soil whose only homes
are small mud hovels that barely protect them from the elements.

Cicero’s lament over the desolate cities of Greece may everywhere
be reëchoed by the traveler in ruin-covered Anatolia. This is
particularly true of that part of the country once known as Ionia.
In literature, art, history, philosophy, she long vied with Attica
herself. For, among her distinguished sons are Homer Anacreon of
Teos, Mimnermus, Apelles, Parrhasius and Herodotus, the Father of
History. And in her once flourishing capital, Miletus, whose site is
now occupied by the fever-stricken village of Palatia, lived that
galaxy of philosophers--Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. Here
the geographers, Hecatæus and Aristagoras planned the earliest known
charts. Here, too, was the birthplace of the rarely gifted Aspasia
whose home in Athens, after she became the wife of Pericles, is
celebrated in history as the first and most famous salon the world has
ever known.[91]

In Ionia originated that brilliant and highly intellectual society
which a French writer has happily named _le printemps de la Grèce_.

For even in the face of recent discoveries in Sparta [writes a
distinguished Orientalist], it may be said without hesitation
that the Greeks of western Asia Minor produced the first
full-bloom of what we call pure Hellenism, that is a Greek
civilization come to full consciousness of itself and destined
to attain the highest possibilities of the Hellenic genius.
Whatever its claim to absolute priority in culture, however,
the Ionian section of the Hellenic race from the accident
of geographical position served more than any other for a
vital link between East and West, and imposed its individual
name on Oriental terminology as the designation of the whole
Greek people. All who follow the development of free social
institutions must regard with peculiar interest the land where
the city-State of Hellenic type first grew to adolescence.
Students not only of literature, but of all the means of
communication between man and man, know that it was in Ionia
that the alphabet took the final shape in which the Greeks were
to carry it about the civilized world. And who that belongs to,
or cares for, the republic of art would ignore that “_bel elan
de génie duquel est né la statuaire attique_”?[92]

Nor were the islands which fringed Ionia less prolific in famous men
and women than was the mainland. Suffice it to mention Cos, where
Hippocrates, the oracle of physicians and “The Father of Medicine,”
first saw the light of day and Lesbos, the birthplace of Alcæus and
Sappho, the first of whom stands in the forefront of Greek lyric poets,
while the second enjoyed the unique distinction of being called “The
Poetess” as Homer was called “The Poet.”

But where Homer, Sappho, and Alcæus lived and labored and where once
their immortal works were used as textbooks in the schools of Asia
Minor; where Zeuxis and Appelles and Parrhasius were surrounded by
crowds of admiring pupils; where Hippocrates and Galen of Pergamon,
long the supreme authorities in medical science, were born; where
Hipparchus of Nicæa, founder of scientific astronomy, first became
famous; where Aristarchus of Samothrace, the most celebrated critic
and grammarian of antiquity, began his brilliant career, there is now
little more than an intellectual wilderness and but scant knowledge
even of the names of those who were once the glory of Hellas, as well
as of Anatolia. The erstwhile homes of art, science, and literature
in Asia Minor have shared the same fate as Olympia, Carthage, and
Syracuse. Only a few broken columns and mutilated statues remain of
what were once the great cultural centers of the ancient world.

How often does not the explorer in Anatolia unexpectedly come
upon a dead city on a mountain slope or in a hidden hollow, which
was abandoned a thousand years ago, whose streets are choked with
brushwood, whose palaces and theaters are covered with a tangle of
vegetation, whose marble tombs are hidden by brambles, where the
only human being ever seen is a wandering shepherd who is absolutely
indifferent to these marvelous vestiges of a marvelous past?

And what traveler in Anatolia has not frequently seen mutilated columns
and statues built into walls and houses, and beautifully carved friezes
and capitals put to the most ignoble uses? Nor is this all. Everywhere
in this land of countless Pompeis untold treasures of the most
delicately chiseled marbles have been cast into lime kilns--marbles
which in the days of the art-loving Greeks and Romans were above price
and which, for generations, were the pride of the cities which they
embellished and the chief adornment of the superb structures of which
they formed a part.

But, if the ruins of Anatolia awake memories of the former grandeur of
cities which were once renowned centers of art, science, and letters,
they likewise carry us back to the days when the Osmanli chieftains
became the heirs of the Eastern Cæsars and when they gained the
mastery of that portion of the world which from the dawn of history
has transcended all others in human interest; the territory in which
were located the proud cities of Tyre and Sidon, Nineveh, Babylon,
Thebes, and Memphis, Athens, Carthage, and Alexandria; the lands which
witnessed the decisive battles of Greek against Asiatic--_Græcia
barbariæ lento collisa duello_--Salamis, Platæa, Marathon, Arbela;
the regions, in a word, in which was enacted nearly all of what is
embraced in the term “Ancient History.”

The cradle of the Osmanlis was the small village of Sugut about a day’s
ride on horseback to the south of Nicæa and about the same distance to
the east of the Mysian Olympus. For it was here that Osman, the founder
of the Osmanli dynasty, first saw in 1258 the light of day. The first
thirty years of his life was that of a village chieftain of a pastoral
community, who lived in peace among his neighbors and whose fighting
men did not number more than four hundred. He was then fired with the
ambition to extend his boundaries and at the end of ten years he found
himself at the head of four thousand warriors and in direct contact
with the decadent and moribund Byzantine Empire.

When Osman died in 1326 his emirate of Sugut had been extended to the
Marmora and the Euxine and included in the conquered territory the
important cities of Brusa, Nicomedia, and Nicæa. This was the beginning
of one of the greatest empires the world has ever known. The same emir
of Sugut was also the founder of a dynasty whose male succession has
endured uninterruptedly for more than six centuries and the first ruler
of a people in which there is so complete a blending of Asiatic and
European blood that they have been called a distinct race.

* * * * *

No other dynasty can boast such a succession of brilliant sovereigns
as those who conducted the Ottomans to the height of renown in the
fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. First there was Osman,
the originator of a race, next came his son Orkhan, the founder of
a state, and then Osman’s grandson, the creator of an empire. These
founders of an empire were succeeded by Bayazid who, on account of his
rapid movements, was called Ilderim--lightning; Mohammed, who retrieved
the losses inflicted by Timur; Murad II, the antagonist of Hunyady and
Skanderberg; Mohammed II, the conqueror of Constantinople; Selim I, who
annexed Kurdistan, Syria, and Egypt, and Solyman the Magnificent, the
victor on the field of Mohacs and the besieger of Vienna. Never did
eight such sovereigns succeed one another--save for the feeble Bayazid
II--in unbroken succession in any other country; never was an empire
founded and extended during two so splendid centuries by such a series
of great rulers. In the hour of dismay, as well as in the moment of
triumph, the Turkish Sultan was master of the situation.[93]

* * * * *

But not only were the Ottoman Emirs and Sultans of this period eminent
as rulers and empire builders. With few exceptions, they, as well as
many of their successors, possessed, like Napoleon, the rare faculty
of choosing the right men for the right place. This is especially
noteworthy in their choice of generals, admirals, and grand viziers
who were selected for the high positions, which they filled with such
distinction, without regard to their nationality or accidents of birth.
Among them were Jews and eunuchs, Greek and Italian, German and Polish
renegades.[94] There was the Italian Cicala, the victor of Karestes;
the German Mehemet Sli, son of a Magdeburg musician, who commanded the
main army in Bulgaria; Omar who from a Croatian clerk became the leader
of the Turkish army in the Crimea. Chief among the great admirals were
the Italian Ululj Ali, the Greeks Kheyr-ed-din and Urug Barbarossa
from the island of Lesbos; Piali Pasha, from Croatia. It was chiefly
through the aid of the last three that Solyman the Magnificent, was
able to secure control of the Mediterranean and the Arab states of
Northern Africa and to extend his devastating raids not only to the
coasts of Italy, France, and Spain but even beyond the Strait of
Gibraltar, to waylay the argosies which were returning to Cadix laden
with the gold and jewels of the Indians.[95]

But more distinguished than the Sultan’s noted generals and his
corsair admirals was the long series of men who occupied the Grand
Vizierate. The most famous of these were the Abyssinian eunuch Bashir;
the renegade Jew, Kiamil Pasha; the Herzegovinan, Mohammed Sokalovich;
the Albanian, Mohammed, Kiuprili, who, from a kitchen-boy in the
Sultan’s palace, became the most noted grand vizier that ever ruled
the great Ottoman Empire. He was succeeded in the Grand Vizierate by
his son Ahmed who, as a statesman, was scarcely less celebrated than
his father. A short interval after Ahmed’s death, Mustafa Kiuprili, a
second son of Mohammed became grand vizier and his rule was marked by
the same consummate statesmanship that so distinguished the rule of
his father and brother. Their rise is especially interesting for, as
observes Von Hammer, “the history of the empires of the Orient offers
only four instances of members of the same family succeeding one
another in the dignity of the Grand Vizierate.”[96]

In this brief reference to the men who achieved such distinction in
building up and extending the Ottoman Empire, we must not forget the
women who played so important a rôle in the history of Turkish politics
and statecraft. Three of the most notable of these were the Muscovite
Roxalana, who passed from a public slave market to the imperial harem
to become the wife of Solyman the Magnificent, the greatest of the
Ottoman Sultans; the Venetian Safia who at an early age was abducted
from her home on the Grand Canal, taken to Constantinople and sold to
the Sultan Murad III, by whom she had a son who, after his father’s
death, became Sultan Mohammed III; Aimée Dubuc de Rivery, who, like
the Empress Josephine, was born in the little island of Martinique and
who, in her youth, was an intimate of the future consort of Napoleon
Bonaparte, but who eventually fell into the hands of Algerian pirates
by whom she was sold in the slave market of Algiers. Thence she was
conveyed to Constantinople as a present to the Sultan, Abdul Hamid I,
to whom she bore a son who became Mahmud II, the grandfather of the
late Abdul Hamid II.

By their beauty, wit, and fascinating manners these three women gained
an unbounded influence over the Sultans with whom their lives were cast
and, what is more remarkable, they were able, notwithstanding their
numerous antagonists in the harem, to retain their ascendancy in the
affections of their lords long after the season of youth and beauty had
passed. In overweening ambition, diplomatic _finesse_, unfailing
resourcefulness in high resolve, in achieving success in the face of
the greatest obstacles, these three Christian captives were worthy
rivals of their more fortunate sisters of the West--Bianca Capello,
Catherine de’ Medici, and the Marquise de Pompadour.

* * * * *

From the preceding pages, it is clear, as Freeman points out that,[97]

the institution of the tribute children was the very keystone
of the Ottoman dominion. They won the empire for the Turk and
they kept it for him.... During the most brilliant days of
Ottoman greatness the native Turks were well-nigh brought down
to the condition of a subject caste. Manumitted bondmen from
the East, voluntary renegades from the West, Greek and Slavonic
tribute-children directed the councils and commanded the armies
of the Sultans. A Grand Vizier or a Captain Pasha born in the
faith of Islam was indeed noted as a portent. Never did the
craft and subtlety of devil or man devise such a tremendous
engine of tyranny. The chains of the conquered nations were
riveted by their own hands. Their best blood was drawn away to
provide against any degeneracy in the blood of their conquerors.
Their strongest and fairest children, the most vigorous frames
and the most precocious intellects, those whom nature had marked
out as chiefs and liberators of their own race, were carried
off to become the special instruments of their degradation.
This fearful institution, combined with the possession of
Constantinople, and with the marvelous hereditary greatness of
the ruling family, preserved the House of Othman from the common
fate of Oriental dynasties.

According to a long prevalent opinion, the Osmanlis are a Turkish race
who achieved the conquest of Asia Minor before they invaded Europe
and before they became masters of the Byzantine Empire. The fact is
they had subjugated the entire Balkan peninsula before they obtained
possession of more than the northwest corner of Anatolia, and had
maintained Adrianople as the Ottoman capital eighty-seven years before
Mohammed II, after the conquest of Constantinople, transferred it to
its present location on the Bosphorus.

Nor were the Osmanlis, even in their earliest days, composed entirely,
as is so often asserted, of Turkish nomads from the East. Far from it.
They were welded from the heterogeneous elements--Greeks, Carians,
Phrygians, Galatians, the followers of Osman, and other peoples who
then inhabited the north-western part of Asia Minor. And, as early
as the reign of Orkhan, the son and successor of Osman, this complex
blending of peoples became not only a distinct race but a race with a
national consciousness.

So far are the Osmanlis from regarding themselves as heirs of the
Seljukian Turks or as transformed Turkomans that they have always
endeavored to remove this erroneous impression which has so long
prevailed concerning their people. The distinguished historian,
Mouradja d’ Ohsson, declares:

The Osmanlis employ the word “Turk” when referring to a coarse
and brutal man. According to the Osmanlis, the epithet Turk
belongs only to the peoples of Turkestan and to those vagabond
hordes who lead a stagnant life in the deserts of Khorassan. All
the peoples submitted to the Empire are designated under the
collective name of Osmanlis from Osman I, the founder of the
Monarchy, and they do not understand why they are called Turks
by Europeans. As they attach to this word the idea of the most
marked insult, no foreigner in the Empire ever allows himself to
use it in speaking to them.[98]

The Osmanlis, as we have seen, were of mixed blood, even while still
confined to Asia Minor. But after their conquests in Europe and
further expansion in Asia they “became in blood the most cosmopolitan
and vigorous race the world had known since the days of the Greeks
and Romans. Greek, Turkish, Serbian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Armenian,
Wallachian, Hungarian, German, Italian, Russian, Tartar, Mongol,
Circassian, Georgian, Persian, Syrian, Arabian--this was the ancestry
of the Osmanlis, who, under Solyman the Magnificent, made the whole
world tremble. In richness of blood the only parallel to the Osmanlis
in modern times is the present population of the United States and
Canada.”[99] It would, indeed, require an ethnological analyst of
superhuman power to determine the percentage of Osmanli blood in the
present inhabitants of the western part of the Ottoman Empire.[100]

Nor is this all. From the day of Orkhan and Murad I, the Osmanlis have
been classed as raiders like the devastating hordes of Timur and
Genghis Khan. Nothing could be farther from the truth. So far indeed
were they from being a predatory people like the Mongols and Tartars
that they were, from the days of their founder, a race of colonists
and empire builders. This was the secret of their success and the
explanation of the marvelous development of the Empire of the Sultans,
which, as the eminent Austrian historian, Joseph Von Hammer-Purgstall,
has declared “was more rapid in its rise than Rome, more enduring than
that of Alexander.”

The causes which contributed to the rapid development of the Osmanlis
from the four hundred warriors of Osman into the vast armies of his
successors and to the achievement of such extraordinary results in so
short a period of time were, as the historian Finlay points out, “in
some degree similar to those which had enabled small tribes of Goths
and Germans to occupy and subdue the Western Roman Empire.”[101]

But there were other contributory causes which enabled the Osmanlis
so quickly to become masters of the Byzantine Empire and to make
themselves a menace to the whole of Europe. Chief among these were the
conflicting ambitions of numerous aspirants to the Byzantine throne and
the rivalries of the petty chieftains of the Balkan Peninsula and the
commercial jealousies of Venice and Genoa. All these purely secular
aims made anything like joint action against the followers of the
Crescent quite impossible.

It was Cantacuzenos, a traitor to his empress, the widow of Andronicus
II, who introduced the Osmanlis into Europe. After usurping the
Byzantine throne, he gave his daughter, Theodora, in marriage to the
emir Orkhan in exchange for six thousand soldiers to aid him in his
struggle against his legitimate sovereign. By his infamous betrayal of
his empress and country he contributed more than any single factor to
the ultimate downfall of the Byzantine Empire.

It was the despot Theodore Paleologus who invited the Osmanlis into
Greece to support him in his contest with the Greeks and the Franks.
It was the Serbian prince Stephen Bukcovitz who formed an alliance
with the emir Bayazid to whom he gave his sister as wife and for
whom he commanded a contingent in the Ottoman Army--even against his
coreligionists. When the Osmanli forces, after their signal defeat
by Timur at Angora, were faced with annihilation at the hands of the
victorious Tartars, it was the Greeks, Genoese, and Venetians who saved
them from destruction by transporting them across the Dardanelles and
the Bosphorus to Europe where their relentless pursuers were unable to
follow them.

But these are only a few instances of the aid which the Ottoman
conquerors received from the Christian nations of Europe. “In their
conquest of the Balkan peninsula it is remarkable,” declares a recent
writer, “that the Osmanlis never fought a battle without the help of
allies of the faith and blood of those whom they were putting under the
Moslem yoke.”[102] The victories of Bayazid in the region of the Danube
were largely due to the coöperation of his Christian vassals. And in
his invasion of Hungary he was more beholden to the Wallachians than to
his famed corps of Janissaries.[103]

Yet more. For, contrary to a common opinion, he received no assistance
whatever from Saracens or Persians, for the simple reason that these
peoples did not join forces with the Ottomans until a much later date.

The Osmanlis did not cross the Taurus until more than a century after
they had passed the Balkans and did not become “masters of Asia Minor
until long after their inheritance of the Byzantine Empire was regarded
in Europe as a _fait accompli_.”[104]

And it is equally true that “whatever they accomplished in Asia was the
indirect result of their stupendous successes in Europe. From first to
last the extension of Ottoman sovereignty over the Moslems of Asia was
by means of a soldiery gathered and war-hardened in Europe, themselves
Christian or of Christian ancestry, in whose veins ran the blood of
Greek and Roman, of Goth and Hun, of Albanian and Slav.”[105]

Besides the causes just enumerated, there were others of quite a
different nature that made for the phenomenal military achievements of
Osmanlis in Asia Minor and in the Balkans. They were the same causes
which had so greatly favored the ready submission of the peoples
of Syria and northern Africa and which had so potently contributed
towards the rapid diffusion of Islam in all countries which bordered
the eastern and southern Mediterranean. The Byzantine Empire had
long been afflicted by incompetent and decadent rulers. The tyranny
and the vexations of exarchs had become intolerable. The people were
overburdened with taxes and their property was in a large measure
confiscated. Under such conditions the Saracens and the Ottomans came
as liberators to the long-suffering, down-trodden populations. By
embracing Islam, the Christians of the Orient were relieved from the
oppressive taxes of Byzantium and entered again into the possession of
their sequestrated property. Even when they refused to accept the Koran
they recovered their lands by the payment of a moderate capitation
tax and were thus enabled to live under the protection of Moslem law
which took no notice of the religious controversies of rival Christian
sects. This liberal policy of Islam towards its Christian subjects--a
policy which safeguarded their persons and property--following as it
did on the heels of the odious tyranny of the Lower Empire--was an
important factor in the marvelously rapid extension of Islam and in
the easy domination of the conquering Ottomans and Saracens. In Asia
Minor, particularly, Mohammedanism achieved an easy triumph because it
was opposed to Byzantine despotism which was the object of universal
execration.

But nothing, probably, contributed more towards the rapid conquest of
the Osmanlis than their spirit of tolerance in matters of religion.
This will, I know, seem strange to those who, from their youth, have
listened to the story of the atrocities of that mythical personage,
“the Moslem warrior with the sword in one hand and the Koran in the
other.”

But [writes one who has made a special study of the subject],
whether their tolerance was actuated by policy, by genuine
kindly feeling, or by indifference, the fact cannot be gainsaid
that the Osmanlis were the first nation in modern history to
lay down the principle of religious freedom as the cornerstone
in the building up of their nation. During the centuries that
bear the stain of unremitting persecution of the Jew [in western
Europe] the Christian and the Moslem lived together in harmony
under the Osmanlis.[106]

To one who is familiar with the teachings of the Koran and the policy
of Islam since the days of Mohammed there is nothing surprising in this
tolerance and religious freedom which Osmanlis and Moslems have always
accorded their Christian subjects. “Let there be no compulsion in
religion,”[107] declares the Prophet, and again it is written, “Wilt
thou compel men to become believers? No soul can believe but by the
permission of God.”[108]

Nor were these and numerous other declarations of the Koran of similar
import ever ignored by the leaders of Islam in their dealings with
their non-Moslem subjects. There have been, it is true, frequent
outbursts of fanaticism, even of persecution among Mohammedans, which
resulted in much suffering on the part of the Christian population
and in putting in force against them very intolerant measures. But
the persecutions and harsh ordinances were not so much the result of
religious antagonism as of political conditions at the time. Not a
few of them are traceable to a distrust of the loyalty of Christians
towards their Moslem rulers or to the intrigues of Christian nations
like Russia whose secret emissaries have been responsible for so much
of the agitation in Asia Minor for generations past. Others again may
be traced to the bad faith of certain European powers in their dealings
with Moslem rulers, or to the “harsh and insolent behavior of Christian
officials” in the service of Mohammedan sovereigns.[109]

Neglected as the Eastern Christians have been by their Christian
brethren in the West, unarmed for the most part and utterly
defenceless, it would have been easy for any of the powerful
rulers of Islam to have utterly rooted out their Christian
subjects or banished them from their dominions as the Spaniards
did the Moors, or the English the Jews, for nearly four
centuries. It would have been perfectly possible for Selim
I (in 1514) or Ibrahim (in 1646) to have put into execution
the barbarous notion they conceived of exterminating their
Christian subjects, just as the former had massacred forty
thousand Shiahs with the aim of establishing uniformity of
religious belief among his Mohammedan subjects. The muftis who
turned the minds of their masters from such a cruel purpose did
so as the exponents of Muslim law and Muslim tolerance.[110]

“The very survival,” therefore, “of the Christian Churches to the
present day, is,” as the same author pertinently observes, “a strong
proof of the generally tolerant attitude of the Mohammedan governments
towards them.”[111]

Ecclesiastical writers of the epoch of the Mohammedan conquest give
still another explanation of the rapid progress of Moslem armies,
which was quite in accord with the spirit of the time. God wished,
they declared, to chastize the Christians for their infidelity and to
compel them to do penance for their manifold heresies. In their view
it was not the astounding conquests of the Mussulmans that led to the
apostasy of such vast numbers of Christians. It was rather the numerous
and widespread defections of heretical churches which rendered the
conquest of Islam so easy that it surprised the victors as much as the
vanquished. Moslem arms, then, according to these writers were but
an instrument of divine vengeance, or, as one of them expressed it,
_peccatis exigentibus victi sunt Christiani_.[112]

As one traverses the small territory which was the cradle of the
Osmanlis and reflects that the people to whom the insignificant emir
of Sugut gave his name were, from their first appearance in history,
almost within sight of the City of Constantine, one cannot help
admiring their marvelous transformation from retainers of a village
chieftain to heirs of the empire of the Cæsars, to masters of vast
territories in Asia, Africa, and Europe.[113] From the humblest
beginnings they gradually became a people who can boast of the longest
continued dynasty in Europe; and who can point in their early history
to a rare series of brilliant rulers and a line of sovereigns who have
occupied a throne which has been immovable from the days of Mohammed
the Conqueror, nearly five centuries ago, and which, notwithstanding
menaces from many quarters, seems destined to remain immovable for many
long generations to come.

CHAPTER VI

HOME LIFE OF THE OSMANLIS IN ANATOLIA

_Truths can never be confirmed enough,_
_Though doubts did ever sleep._
SHAKESPEARE _“Pericles” V. I._

No part of Asia Minor possesses greater interest for the traveler
of a studious turn than that which borders the Anatolian Railroads.
And this, as the historian well knows, is saying much indeed. For
from time immemorial the peninsula of Asia Minor has been the great
battlefield between the Orient and the Occident. Topographically it is
like a great bridge over which, as has been well said, “the religion,
art and civilization of the East found their way into Greece; and the
civilization of Greece, under the guidance of Alexander the Macedonian,
passed back again across the same bridge to conquer the East and
revolutionize Asia as far as the heart of India. Persians, Arabs,
Mongols, Turks, have all followed the same route in the many attempts
that Asia has made to subdue the West.”[114]

It is the bridge over which passed the famed “Royal Road,” so
graphically described by Herodotus, which extended from Ephesus on
the Ægean Sea to far-off Susa in southern Persia. To make the journey
between these two cities required, according to the same historian, no
less than ninety days. And it was the bridge over which the Christian
pilgrims were wont to pass on their way from Europe to the Holy Land,
and the bridge also which was crossed by the Crusaders under Godefroy
de Bouillon, Louis VII of France, and Frederic Barbarossa when they
sought to recover Jerusalem from the Mohammedans.

The course of the Anatolian Railroad is, for the most part, the same
as that of a great military highway in Roman and Byzantine times from
Nicæa to Dorylæum. And the scenery along it, especially between Ismid
and Eski-Shehr, is often of rare beauty and grandeur. In places it is
much like that of southern Colorado and northern California. There
is the same succession of smiling landscapes--emerald valleys dotted
with modest homesteads, broad stretches of meadow land sprinkled with
sleek herds and happy flocks, noble forests of oak and pine, walnut
and sycamore. In some localities the vegetation is almost of tropical
luxuriance and the road is fringed by a wild tangle of bramble and
brushwood tapestried with clematis and ivy and woodbine in a flaming
setting of dog-rose and azalea.

As we approach Bilejik eastward of the snow-capped Mysian Olympus the
character of the scenery completely changes. The grade of the road
rapidly increases and as we pass along gorges and cañyons, through
tunnels and over bridges and describe innumerable curves we realize
that we are ascending the famed table-land of Anatolia and are nearing
Sugut, the earliest home of the Ottoman Turks.

Eski-Shehr, from which a branch of the Anatolian Railroad runs to
Angora, the ancient Ancyra, is a flourishing town and, thanks to its
finely equipped railway shops, is the home of a large number of railway
employees and their families. Before the world war an excellent school
for the benefit of the children of the employees was established here
and was well attended. It was conducted on the German system and
instruction was given in German. Among the languages taught, besides
German, were Greek, French, Turkish, and Armenian. The town is noted
for being the chief center of the world’s supply of meerschaum,
a commodity from which the Turkish Government derives a handsome
revenue. From Eski-Shehr we went to Afium-Kara-Hissar, from which
great quantities of opium are annually shipped, and thence to Konia,
anciently Iconium, which is the western terminus of the Bagdad Railway.

But more interesting far than its scenic attractions and its historic
ruins, its railroads and various industries, are the people of
Anatolia. And by the people I mean not the foreign element--the Greeks,
Armenians, Circassians, and others, so conspicuous in Smyrna and
Constantinople--but the Osmanlis. For it is not in the large cities of
Turkey, where there is always such a heterogeneous population, that the
Ottoman is found at his best but in the small towns and villages of the
interior of the country and particularly in that portion of the Ottoman
Empire which formerly constituted the emirates of Osman and Orkhan.

No people in the world, it is safe to say, have ever been more
misunderstood or more misrepresented than the Osmanlis. For generations
they have been regarded as a nation guilty of every crime and steeped
in every vice. But since the Bulgarian agitation, in 1876, when Carlyle
wrote “the unspeakable Turk should be immediately struck out of the
question, and the country left to honest European guidance,” the
Osmanlis have been treated as a nation of pariahs who had not to their
credit a single redeeming feature.

They have been denounced as cruel, bloodthirsty, treacherous,
dishonest, intolerant, and fanatical in the extreme. They have been
pilloried as a nation of gross voluptuaries totally devoid of all moral
sense and incapable of any noble sentiment and generous action. They
have been stigmatized as a cancer on the body of humanity that should
be dealt with in the most drastic manner by the Great Powers of Europe.
Gladstone expressed public opinion when, speaking on the Eastern
Question, he said, “Let the Turks now carry away their abuses in the
only possible manner, namely, by carrying away themselves.... One and
all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province they
have desolated and profaned.”

But what is the truth about the Osmanlis? Are they the vile and
abominable people which Carlyle’s epithet would indicate? And are the
Christian nations of Europe justified in adopting towards them what
the English Conservatives aptly termed “Gladstone’s bag and baggage
policy”?

Let us see.

First of all it may be premised that most of the above indictments
against the Turks have been made by people who have little or no
personal knowledge of them, or by people who have been governed by
passion or prejudice or have been actuated by selfish or political
motives. And, secondly, it may be asserted as a fact that cannot be
gainsaid that those who have lived among the Turks any length of time
and have had an opportunity of becoming intimately acquainted with
them find them to be thoroughly good, gentle, brave, and loyal to the
core. And the longer one lives among them and the better one knows
them the greater is one’s admiration for them. This is especially true
of the real Turk--the Osmanli--particularly those of the peasant and
bourgeois class in Anatolia. These are as honest and upright as they
are temperate, pious, and religious.

The piety and the devotion of the Moslems, their gravity and solemnity
and reverential attitude during prayer, whether in the mosque or
elsewhere, are of such character as to make a deep impression on even
the least religious. “I have never entered a mosque,” writes Renan,
“without a deep emotion, and--shall I say it?--without a certain regret
at not being a Mussulman.”[115]

This devout character of the Mohammedans which so profoundly impressed
Renan, appealed with equal force to the poet who wrote:

_Most honor to the men of prayer,_
_Whose mosque is in them everywhere!_
_Who amid revel’s wildest din,_
_In war’s severest discipline,_
_On rolling deck, in thronged bazaar,_
_In stranger land, however far,
However different in their reach_
_Of thought, in manners, dress or speech,--_
_Will quietly their carpet spread,_
_To Mekkeh turn the humble head,_
_As if blind to all around,_
_And deaf to each resounding sound_
_In ritual language God adore,_
_In spirit to His presence soar,_
_And in the pauses of the prayer,_
_Rest, as if rapt in glory there._

Many, if not most of the erroneous notions which have been obtained
respecting the Osmanlis have had their origin, at least in the minds
of the great majority of people, in the ludicrous conceptions which
have long been current regarding the harem life of these much maligned
people. When a harem is referred to in Europe or America it is pictured
as consisting of a swarthy, fierce, and sensual pasha, seated on a
broad divan, garbed in richly embroidered robes, armed with a highly
ornate scimitar, and contentedly smoking his narghile while his
ever-youthful wives are entertaining him with music and dance and song.

Nothing could be more preposterous, or further from the reality. For
monogamy and not polygamy is the rule in the Ottoman Empire especially
in Anatolia, and always has been. The Koran does, indeed, permit
polygamy but under such restrictions that a plurality of wives is
confined to those who are able to make due provision for their support.
And even among the wealthy monogamy is daily becoming more prevalent.
Thus the late Sultan, Mohammed V, unlike some of his polygamous
predecessors, had but a single wife and to her, also unlike his
predecessors, he was legally married.

Indeed, so unpopular has polygamy become among enlightened Mussulmans
that an eminent authority on the subject declares that “if
Mohammedanism had a Pope and a Church, in a word, an authority always
living and invested with the right to modify the precepts of the
Koran, in order to adapt them to the needs of the age, it is almost
certain that polygamy would already have disappeared.”[116]

Much of the prevailing misconception concerning the harem life in
the Orient arises from the lamentable ignorance in our western lands
regarding the true meaning of the word harem. To many who should know
better it is synonymous with a place of debauchery, whereas, it is, on
the contrary, the very opposite of this. Derived from the Arabic word
_harim_, Turkish _harem_, it signifies anything forbidden
or a sacred thing or place. Thus the part of a Moslem’s home which is
assigned for the exclusive use of his wife and children, for their
female servants and friends is called the harem. It is their sanctuary
to which no males are admitted except the immediate members of the
family. It may be but the half of a Bedouin “House of hair,” or the
wing of a marble palace on the Bosphorus but it is still the harem--the
sacred abode, the _sanctum sanctorum_, of the feminine members of
the household and women visitors.[117]

In ordinary Ottoman houses the harem occupies the upper story and is
the best and most commodious part of the building. The usual term
employed to designate the wife’s apartment is _haremlik_, while
that occupied by the husband--his reception room where he receives
his male friends--is known as _selamlik_, and is generally on
the ground floor. The women’s apartment is always recognized by its
screened windows. The occupants of the _haremlik_ can thus see
everything in the immediate vicinity without being seen.

The name _harem_ applies not only to the wife’s part of the
home but also to the sections reserved for women on tram cars and
steamers, and to the women’s waiting rooms in railway stations and
women’s compartments on railway trains. The harem, thus understood,
is an institution that has very much to recommend it. It secures its
occupants a privacy which, in the estimation of Oriental women, more
than counterbalances their apparent loss of liberty.

But, contrary to what is usually thought, the harem is not a
Mohammedan institution. It long antedates Islam for, as archæological
investigations in the Orient clearly evince, there were separate
apartments for women in the buildings of ancient Persia, Assyria, and
Babylonia.[118]

Nor do the inmates of the harem consider themselves as imprisoned in
their houses like birds in a cage. Far from it. Mrs. Meer Ali, an
English lady who married a Mohammedan gentleman and resided twelve
years in Lucknow, India, clearly states the Oriental women’s view of
harem life when she writes:

To ladies accustomed from infancy to confinement, this kind
of life is by no means irksome. They have their employments
and their amusements, and though these are not exactly to our
tastes, nor suited to our mode of education, they are not the
less relished by those for whom they were invented. They,
perhaps, wonder equally at some of our modes of dissipating
time and fancy we might spend it more profitably. Be that as it
may, the Muslim ladies, with whom I have been long intimate,
appear to me always happy, contented and satisfied with the
seclusion to which they were born; they desire no other, and
I have ceased to regret that they cannot be made partakers of
that freedom of intercourse with the world we deem so essential
to our happiness, since their health suffers nothing from that
confinement by which they are preserved from a variety of snares
and temptations; besides which they would deem it disgraceful
in the highest degree to mix indiscriminately with men who are
not relations. They are educated from infancy for retirement and
they can have no wish that the custom should be changed which
keeps them apart from the society of men who are not very nearly
related to them. Female society is unlimited and they enjoy it
without restraint.[119]

What has been said of the harem may also be asserted of the
yashmak--the veil worn by most Oriental women, irrespective of
race or creed. When women appear in public,--and they have great
liberty in this respect, if properly veiled--this garb or the
_tcharchaff_, possesses many advantages which Christian as well as
Moslem women would be loath to forego. For like the latticed window
of the harem it enables them to see without being seen and like the
caliph of the story, they can freely move through a crowd without
having their identity known. Furthermore, when enveloped in her
_ferijee_--cloak--and _yashmak_, the person of the Oriental woman is
as secure as in the harem and she is thus safeguarded against all the
annoyances and insults to which her western sisters, especially those
in the larger cities, are so frequently exposed. Some of the Ottoman
suffragettes of Stamboul may envy the European women their gorgeous
Parisian hats and gowns, but I am quite convinced that many western
women would gladly exchange the creations of Worth and Redfern for
the _tcharchaff_ or for the _ferijee_ and the _yashmak_, or for the
_bash-oordoo_ and the _yeldirmee_--which serve the same purpose--and
all the immunities and privileges which these kinds of apparel secure
to the wearer.

Again much has been said about the cruel treatment which Ottoman women
have to endure from their husbands. To judge by the accounts of certain
writers who substitute fancy for fact, the average Turkish husband is
a Bluebeard who makes his wife’s life one continuous martyrdom. Such
reports are as ill-founded as all the fantastic tales that have so long
obtained credence respecting the harem and other matters pertaining to
the everyday life of the Ottoman Turk. But, as in these things it is
impossible for a man to obtain first-hand information, I shall quote
from a woman who had exceptional opportunities of becoming thoroughly
acquainted with the home life of the Osmanlis of Anatolia and whose
conclusions, therefore, are of preponderant value.

This woman is Lady Ramsay, the gifted wife of Sir W. M. Ramsay,
the distinguished archæologist of Aberdeen. Professor Ramsay whose
investigations in Anatolia extend over a period of thirty-five years
is probably the greatest living authority on the history of this part
of Asia and on the manners and customs of its inhabitants. As Lady
Ramsay frequently accompanied her husband on his expeditions which led
him to very nook and corner of the country, she had absolutely unique
opportunities for studying the home life of the Ottoman women of Asia
Minor. As a result of her observations she does not hesitate to declare
that “cases of brutality on the part of a man towards his wife are a
hundred times commoner among the lower classes of this country”--Great
Britain--“than they are in Turkey.”[120]

Such testimony coming from a witness so competent and so impartial
should be conclusive. The reports to the contrary of men who have
traveled in Anatolia are of no value whatever, for the simple reason
that these men could not possibly get information at first hand.
For the _harem_ is everywhere absolutely barred to them, and
what information they might get would necessarily be based on idle
rumor and therefore quite valueless. Women, however, even when total
strangers, are always hospitably received by their Ottoman sisters.
And if they are able to speak the language of the country, they
have little difficulty in becoming quite familiar with the everyday
life of the people. But men, no matter how extensive their travels
in Anatolia, will all be forced to confess with a noted English
traveler--“throughout our journey, the female sex may be said not to
have existed for us at all.”[121]

Much has been said about the divorce evil in Turkey. No doubt this
does constitute a foul blot on the social system of Islam but it is not
so bad as it is usually represented. The Koran safeguards the rights of
the wife in many ways and public opinion is daily becoming more opposed
to a man’s arbitrary repudiation of his wife. In spite, however, of
the present facile dissolution of the marriage bond the frequency of
divorce in Anatolia is far less than in many parts of the United States.

The Turkish wife [writes another English traveler who had spent
many years in the Ottoman Empire] has been called a slave
and a chattel. She is neither. Indeed her legal status is
preferable to that of the majority of the wives in Europe and,
until enactments of a comparatively recent date, the English
was far more of a chattel than the Turkish wife who has always
had absolute control of her property. The law allows her the
free use and disposal of anything she may possess at the time
of her marriage, or that she may inherit afterwards. She may
distribute it during her life, or she may bequeath it to whom
she chooses. In the eyes of the law she is a free agent. She may
act independently of her husband, may sue in the courts or may
be proceeded against without regard to him.[122]

The same author, in referring to the attachment of husband and wife for
each other, declares that among the Turkish peasantry “one meets with
Darby and Joan as frequently as in England.”[123]

“How far removed are we then,” asks an Ottoman gentleman, “from the
seductive odalisques whose pictures, in the East, are only to be seen
on biscuit tins.”[124]

But a stranger error than any yet referred to is that which asserts
that the Ottomans and Mohammedans generally deny to women the
possession of a soul as well as a future existence. How such an opinion
originated or gained such wide acceptance is impossible to say. I have
never known an Ottoman to hold such a view, and there is certainly no
warrant for it in the Koran. And yet in an article on “Woman’s Place in
the World,” written but a few years ago by a noted duchess in England,
it is explicitly stated that Mohammedanism “consigns woman, as far as
psychic qualities are concerned, to the level of beasts, forbidding her
forever the hope of salvation.”[125]

A few quotations from the Koran will suffice to show how groundless is
this statement. In the twentieth sura--chapter--we read:

O my servants--enter ye into Paradise, ye and your wives, with
great joy.

Again the Koran declares:

But he who doeth good works--be it male or female--and believes,
they shall enter into Paradise.

In the thirty-third sura it is written:

Verily the Moslems of either sex, and the true believers of
either sex, and the devout men and the devout women, and the men
of veracity and the women of veracity, and the patient men and
the patient women, and the humble men and the humble women, and
the almsgivers of either sex, and the men who fast and women
who fast, and the chaste men and the chaste women, and those
of either sex who remember God frequently, for them hath God
prepared forgiveness and a great reward.

According to the teaching of Mohammed, all true Moslems are enjoined
to pray for the dead--for the women as well as for the men. This, of
itself, is sufficient evidence of Islamic belief in the future life for
all mankind, irrespective of sex. There are, doubtless, in Turkey as
elsewhere, men who deny immortality to women, but these are confined
to that class of Moslems “who, having made shipwreck of their faith,”
prefer to class themselves with the beasts of the field by denying that
they themselves have souls.

Surprising as it may seem to some, no more beautiful tributes to
women can be found than those given in the Koran, or in the Hadith
which contains the traditional teachings of Mohammed. In one place
the Prophet declares “the world and all things in it are valuable but
more valuable than all is a virtuous woman”; in another he asserts
that “women are the twin-halves of men.” Again, he tells his followers
that “the son gains Paradise at the feet of the mother”; and yet again
we have his truly remarkable statement that “Paradise is beneath the
ground on which mothers walk.” Are not these amazing words to proceed
from the lips of a seventh century Arabian?

One need spend but little time in Anatolia to find that the men among
the Osmanlis are a most lovable people. What first impresses one is
their good manners. Whether they live in a palace or a hovel they are
always self-respecting, courteous, and dignified. In this respect
they continually remind one of the people of Spain where courtesy is a
national heritage. It was this striking characteristic of the Osmanli
that led Bismarck to declare:

In the Orient the only gentleman is the Turk.[126]

Another national characteristic of the Osmanlis is cleanliness.
Their homes, however humble, are as scrupulously swept and scrubbed
as a Dutch dwelling place.[127] And the same may be said of their
coffeehouses and restaurants. In this respect they are in marked
contrast with those of the Greeks and Arabs.

Many writers have endeavored to account for the exceptional courtesy
and cleanliness of the Osmanlis, but the reasons usually advanced
are far from satisfactory. “Their religion,” writes Sir Edwin Pears,
“inculcates cleanliness and sobriety; ... it has helped to diffuse
courtesy and self-respect among its adherents.”[128]

If this were true it should hold good for the Moslems of Egypt and
Morocco which, as all travelers in these countries know, is very often
far from the case. When we shall be able to assign a reason for the
matchless courtesy of the Castilian hidalgo or for the Dutch hausfrau’s
singular love of cleanliness, we shall probably find an acceptable
explanation of the seemingly innate courtesy and cleanliness of the
Osmanlis of Anatolia.

And contrary to almost universal belief, the Osmanlis, both men and
women are a people of very industrious habits. This is particularly
true of those who make their living by tilling the soil and by tending
their flocks and herds. So far as the men are concerned the traveler
has ample evidence of their toilsome lives from the time he leaves
the swift-flowing Bosphorus until he arrives at the foothills of the
picturesque Taurus. As to the women they are, according to those who
know them best, as laborious as the men. A competent witness, one who
is himself an Ottoman, who was born and bred in Anatolia and whose
testimony regarding the domestic life of his countrymen bears the
clearest impress of truth, is the clever and entertaining Halil Halid
who, having spent many years in England, writes English as a native.

Speaking of his countrywomen he declares:

No qualities are so much sought after in average marriageable
women as the domestic ones. In the provinces the peasant women,
besides managing their humble domestic affairs, have to work in
the fields, more especially when their brothers and husbands
are away discharging their compulsory military service. The
daughters of well-to-do people, besides attending to the
business of their households, are indefatigable with their
needles and are always busy with needle work or embroidery.[129]

It will be understood from the details I have given [he
continues], that the popular notion prevailing in this country
of the harem and the life of the harem is much mistaken. Women
in Turkish harems do not really pass their time in lying on
sofas or couches eating sweetmeats and smoking water-pipes all
the day long. Of course, they are as fond of sweet-stuffs as
most ladies of this country. But to lie down on a couch in the
presence of others is considered by Turkish women vulgarity of
the most disgraceful kind.

The representations of harem life given in books and on the
stage or shown in exhibitions, is either the work of Turkey’s
detractors or simply the work of imaginative persons who know
nothing about it and whose object is to attract the curiosity of
English people by exhibiting grotesque sights and thus to make
money.

Many Europeans [writes the same author] who pay a flying
visit to the Levant and hasten to sit down and write a book
about their experiences, derive all their information from
their cicerones and interpreters [worthless and unscrupulous
fellows whom our author justly denounces as ignorant and
shameless cheats] who are, as a class, of the worst products
of non-Mussulman natives of the Levant. Probably it is on
account of this that a countryman of mine once remarked: “When
we read such books, especially those written in English, about
ourselves, we always learn something from them which we never
knew or heard of before.”[130]

“But,” it will be asked, “what about the morality of the Turks”?
This is a question that is continually asked and about which as many
erroneous notions prevail as about the harem. One might answer by
saying that, where passion is given free rein, poor human nature is
about the same in all parts of the world. I shall, however, reply in
the words of the witty and vivacious Lady Mary Montague who, writing
from Constantinople where her husband was ambassador, to a friend in
England, declares:

As to their morality or good conduct, I can say, like Harlequin,
that it is just as it is with you; and the Turkish ladies don’t
commit one sin the less for not being Christians. Now that I am
a little acquainted with their ways, I cannot forbear admiring,
either the exemplary discretion, or extreme stupidity of all the
writers that have given accounts of them.[131]

As to “the infamous vices” of which the Mussulman Orient is said to
be the chief theater, it will be sufficient for our present purpose
to quote the words of one who has spent many years among the Moslems
and who has, probably, as thorough a knowledge of them as any recent
writer. “Is it, then, true,” demands the distinguished Count Henri de
Castries, “that these vices are more numerous in the Orient than in the
Occident? This reputation given to Islam is the result of superficial
generalizations without which travelers would have scarcely anything
to write. These vices of mature age are, unfortunately, common to all
countries. More of them are indulged in Paris, London, and Berlin than
in the entire Orient.”

It would be difficult to find people who are more distinguished for
natural virtues than are the Osmanlis who have not been debased by
oppression or corrupted by power. Their love of the simple life is
remarkable. Often their only fare is bread and water. To this they may
add a little cheese and fruit and some vegetables. The majority are
vegetarians. Of those who are not, their meat diet consists chiefly of
mutton and fowl which is usually prepared with rice or with vegetables.
Beef they rarely eat and pork never, for its use as an article of food
is strictly proscribed by the Koran.

And yet, notwithstanding their frugal fare, they are noted for their
health and strength. “As strong as a Turk” has long been a proverb. And
when one sees the amazing burdens which the _hamals_ of Stamboul
frequently carry, one is ready to admit that the proverb is more than
justified.

The chief beverage of the Osmanlis is water, for the Koran absolutely
forbids the use of intoxicating drinks of any kind whatsoever. For the
Osmanli, therefore, the dramshop does not exist. He does, however, love
his little cup of black coffee. Although the Moslem doctors of the
law originally interdicted its use as the invention of the devil, the
drinking of coffee in Mohammedan countries is now universal.

I know of only one prettier picture of contentment than an Osmanli
peasant taking his cup of coffee before going to work in the morning
or after the labors of the day, and that is when he indulges in
his favorite pastime of Kaif--which is perhaps best expressed by
the Italian phrase, _dolce far niente_. Garbed in his brown
shalvar--baggy trousers--blue jacket, red sash, and white stockings,
and sitting before his home under a tentlike plane tree, quietly
smoking his narghile, with drooped eyelids and rapt countenance, he
is the personification of comfort and happiness. Tranquil, immobile,
absorbed in an enchanting reverie, how far is he not removed from the
unbridled desires and malignant envy of the restless populace of our
large cities of the West!

_Ah! qu’il est doux de ne rien faire_
_Quand tout s’agite autour de nous!_

What a subject for the brush of a Villegas or a Fortuny![132]

And then the honesty of this quiet peasant of simple tastes and
harmless pleasures. He would never cheat you. Even if he be but a poor
fruit seller, gaining but a pittance for a day’s labor, he will always
add something to the amount called for, for fear of having made a
mistake in the amount due the purchaser. If you should be his guest,
you may sleep in his home with open doors. Nobody will molest you and
your belongings will be as safe as if under lock and key. So great,
indeed, is the reputation of the Osmanli for probity and sterling
honesty that:

Among men, who do not concern themselves with politics, but
whose fortune and interests are bound up in the country, the
vast majority prefer the Turk to any other denizen of the land
for his integrity and trustworthiness.

The proof of it is that it is to him they confide the care of
their property. There are English families that have existed in
Turkey for generations, and generations of Turks have served
them in positions of trust. These are invariably Turks of the
old school, good Mussulmans and simple in their thoughts and
lives. A finer type of men no land can show, and happily they
are not yet rare.[133]

Nor does one find elsewhere such humane treatment of dumb animals.
“Fear God with regard to animals,” enjoined Mohammed, “ride them when
they are fit to be ridden and get off when they are tired. Verily
there are rewards for our doing good to dumb animals and giving them
water to drink.” No Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
is needed among the Osmanlis for so strong a sympathy exists between
this gentle and tender-hearted people and all domestic animals that
anything like cruel treatment would be impossible. Even the dog, which
is considered as an unclean animal, is always treated with kindness.
An Osmanli will gather together the folds of his garments to prevent
his coming in contact with the impure brute but will at the same time
gladly divide with it his last morsel of food.

There are few writers who are more familiar with the real Ottomans than
the distinguished Academician, Pierre Loti. And this is what he says of
them:

Nowhere, so much as among the Turks--the real Turks--does one
find solicitude for the poor, the helpless, the aged and for
children; such respect for parents, such tender veneration for
the _mother_. If a man, even of mature years, should be
seated in one of those innocent little cafés, where alcohol has
always been unknown, and his father should unexpectedly enter,
he rises, lowers his voice, extinguishes his cigarette, and
humbly takes a seat behind him.[134]

Elsewhere the same sympathetic and magnanimous author writes:

Their little towns located in the interior, their villages,
their country homes, are the last refuges not only of the calm
but also of the patriarchal virtues which are more and more
disappearing from our modern world: loyalty and honesty without
blemish; veneration of children for parents of a kind that is
not longer known to us; inexhaustible hospitality and chivalrous
respect for guests; moral elegance and native delicacy, even
among the most humble; kindness towards all--even towards
animals; unbounded religious tolerance for whomsoever is not
their enemy; serene faith and prayer. When arriving among them
after leaving our Occident of doubt and cynicism, of noise and
scrap-iron, one feels as if suffused with peace and confidence
and believes he has remounted the course of time towards some
indeterminate epoch, near, perhaps, to the Golden Age.[135]

In Anatolia particularly are applicable the words of the English
traveler, Walpole, who, when speaking of the hospitability of the
people of Turkey, tells us that “in the East alone now do we find in
the Oda Nessafer of the village the guest-chamber of Plato. A sum
is set apart by the government for supplying these; though usually
the more wealthy traveler repays what he receives, adding a small
gratuity.”[136]

In hospitality the Osmanlis of to-day are heirs of the best traditions
of the Greeks of old who, as Homer informs us, were wont to say:

_For Jove unfolds our hospitable door:_
_’Tis Jove that sends the stranger and the poor._[137]

One of the most striking instances of Osmanli hospitality of which I
have recently heard is an experience of my good Franciscan friend,
the Reverend Paschal Robinson, Professor of History in the Catholic
University of America in Washington, D. C. Some years ago he had
occasion to travel through the greater part of Asia Minor. During the
seven months of his journey he was always the guest of the Turks, who
were all Moslems. And yet, although he was an entire stranger among
them, the generous and courteous Osmanlis everywhere received him with
the most cordial hospitality. Not only did they supply him gratis with
food and shelter, but they also provided him with the necessary means
of transportation from one place to another. And never would they
accept the slightest compensation for their services.

My actual traveling expenses during these seven months [Father
Paschal assures me] were the equivalent of only seven American
dollars. And, although the passport requirements in Turkey have
always been exceedingly strict, I never carried a passport and
nobody ever asked me for one. My habit which I always wore in
Anatolia was my passport.

But for members of his order, Father Paschal’s case is not exceptional.
In Moslem lands the Sons of St. Francis are always shown similar
kindness and consideration and have been ever since the famous
interview of the Poverello of Assisi with the Sultan of Egypt at
Damietta eight hundred years ago. Can greater hospitality be found in
other lands?

By the hammering reiteration of a tradition which, for most part, had
its origin in the reports of imaginative travelers and which has, in
recent years, been greatly fostered by a subsidized press bent on
forcing the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, the Osmanlis have
been pictured as monsters of cruelty. To judge by certain propaganda
articles and brochures which, within recent years, have been given
world-wide currency, the average Ottoman is like the viceroy described
in Don Quixote, who “every day hanged a slave; impaled one; cut off the
ears of another; and this upon so little animus, or so entirely without
cause, that the Turks would own he did it merely for the sake of doing
it, and because it was his nature.”[138] People who have lived among
the Osmanlis and have learned to admire their gentleness and sense of
justice would denounce such a characterization as absurd.

“During the two years I have traversed the country,” writes a French
Colonel from Asia Minor, “I have never heard of a murder or a theft.”
This is not the evidence of a solitary witness. Innumerable foreigners
who have resided in Anatolia could give similar testimony.[139]

Nor does it apply only to the Osmanlis of the present time. History
abounds in like testimony regarding them in every century of their
history.

It is surprising [writes the historian Finlay] how well the
Ottoman government preserved tranquillity in its extensive
dominions, and established a greater degree of security for
property among the middle classes, than generally prevailed in
European states during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
This end was obtained by a regular police, and by the prompt
execution of a rude species of justice in cases of flagrant
abuses and crimes. In the populous cities of the Ottoman Empire,
and particularly in Constantinople, which contained more
inhabitants than any three Christian capitals, the order which
reigned in the midst of a great social corruption, caused by
extreme wealth, the conflux of many different nations, and the
bigotry of several hostile religions, excited the wonder and
admiration of every observant stranger. Perfect self-reliance,
imperturbable equanimity, superiority to the vicissitudes of
fortune, and a calm temper, compensated among the Ottomans for
laws which were notoriously defective and tribunals which were
infamously venal.

Knolles says, “You seldom see a murder or a theft committed by any
Turk.” European gentlemen accustomed to the barbarous custom of wearing
swords on all occasions, were surprised to see Turks of the highest
rank, distinguished for their valor and military exploits, walking
about even in provincial towns, unarmed, secure in the power of public
order and the protection of the executive authority in the State.[140]

But, it is asked, do not the reported atrocities of the Turks in
Armenia and the Balkans prove that their reputation for the most
frightful deeds of savagery is established beyond peradventure? An
adequate answer to this question would lead us too far afield, for
the Osmanlis, unlike their enemies, have few champions or political
knights-errant, and our information, therefore, respecting the
atrocities in question is almost entirely one-sided. To those, however,
who are desirous of reading the Ottoman side of the question I would
recommend the thoroughly documented work of Pierre Loti entitled
_Turquie Agonisante_.[141] A careful perusal of this work will
convince any impartial reader that in this, as in every other question,
“the unspeakable Turk” is far from being “the homicide of all human
kind” he is so frequently pictured to be.

I would not, however, have it inferred from the foregoing pages that I
ignore the corruption and organized bribery and the extent to which the
government is made to subserve the interests of those who govern rather
than those who are governed. This condition has existed in Turkey from
time immemorial, not only in the administration of governmental affairs
but in the administration of justice as well. But it is, unfortunately,
a condition that exists in all parts of the Orient from Constantinople
to Peking.[142]

Nor am I blind to the incalculable miseries to which the peasantry
of Anatolia are exposed by the ravenous tax-gatherers who rob them
of their little savings and keep many of them in constant penury.
The exactions and cruelties of these soulless agents of Turkish
misrule are almost incredible. It is these oppressive measures of
Turkish maladministration, coupled with the opening of the Suez Canal,
which have done much to close the overland trade routes to which
Anatolia owed much of its former prosperity. It is to be hoped that
the reorganized Ottoman government will succeed in eliminating the
crying evils here indicated, but they are of so long standing that
statesmanship of the highest order will be required to deal with a
situation which is now almost desperate.

In marked contrast to the administrative bribery and corruption which
have so long been the bane of Turkey, as well as of so many Eastern
countries, is the remarkable spirit of tolerance which distinguishes
the Ottoman government. Thus when the members of religious
orders--priests and nuns--were cruelly driven from France they were
cordially welcomed by Turkey--the reputed home of intolerance and
fanaticism--where they were guaranteed full liberty to continue their
apostolate of education and charity.[143]

The opposition raised a few years ago by an uncontrollable mob to the
passing of a procession in honor of the Blessed Sacrament through
the streets of London is still fresh in the memory of all. Contrast
this with the attitude of the people of Constantinople to a similar
ceremony. The following account of the procession is translated from
the Turkish newspaper, the _Stamboul_:

On Sunday last took place the _annual_ procession--I
underscore the word annual--of Corpus Christi. The brilliance
of the fête was heightened by the presence of Monsignor Nardi,
and all the Catholic colony of the neighborhood assembled in
the pretty church to see and hear its first pastor. Towards
five o’clock the procession emerged amid a vast concourse
of spectators who lined the way on either hand, the sacred
_cortège_ marching to the music of liturgical chants and
the band of the Salesian Fathers. In front walked the school
children, after them the faithful, then the clergy and notables
of Makri Keui, while in the rear Monsignor Nardi, surrounded
by the clergy, bore the Blessed Sacrament. Perfect order was
maintained by the police with a degree of tact which did honor
to the force. And for the space of an hour the procession
traversed the gayly decorated streets of the quarter, which
had been newly graveled for the occasion by the orders of
the worthy and ever-courteous president of the municipality,
Sherif Effendi. Such ceremonies leave a pleasant impression in
a country like Turkey where everyone is free to practice his
religion according to the dictates of his conscience.[144]

The same freedom of worship, notwithstanding reports to the contrary,
is enjoyed by the Armenians. They are, besides, left perfectly free
to have their own schools and to retain their own language. They have
not had such liberty in Russia. “For six hundred years the Armenians
were contented under the dominion of the Turks,” declared one of their
bishops a few years ago, and they would, doubtless, be still living in
peace with their old masters were it not for the machination of Russian
propagandists and Armenian revolutionists. The proof of this is that
“the highroad from Trebizond to Erzeroum ... is dotted with Christian
monasteries and churches unmolested for centuries.”[145]

Napoleon I was wont to say that a lie, given twenty-four hours’ start,
becomes immortal. But, when lies about the Turks have been repeated for
generations in spite of the official denials of the Ottoman government
and in spite of the contradictions of men who have long lived among
these much misunderstood and greatly misrepresented people, what hope,
one may ask, can there be for the final triumph of truth? What can be
done to counteract shameless calumnies and official _dementis_
when the greater part of the press is either muzzled or avowedly
hostile and when public opinion has been so utterly poisoned by long
and constant reiteration of all kinds of vilification and slander that
the unfortunate victims are everywhere prejudiced and denied the right
of a hearing which the law--not to speak of Christian charity--of all
civilized nations accords to even the worst of criminals?

“Professional scribblers,” writes Pierre Loti, “who have never set
foot in Turkey, expectorate ‘great historical romances’ on the ‘Tigers
of the Bosphorus’ and the ‘Monsters of Stamboul.’”[146] “And they go
so far even as to confound the true Turks with that aggregation of
sharpers from all the Balkan and Levantine races who put on a fez in
order to live among the Anatolians as gnawing parasites, parasites to
the bone, whose depredations and usury, ruining entire villages, would
almost excuse the worst vengeance of the rude and upright laborers of
Anatolia who finally revolted.”[147]

Sidney Whitman, the distinguished English author who knows Turkey so
well, is at one with the illustrious Academician when he writes:

In the course of my many visits to Constantinople I have
repeatedly been made acquainted with instances of questionable
newspaper correspondents who came to the Palace with the
scarcely veiled intimation that it was to be a case of pay or
slander. During the Armenian disturbances in 1896 a French
female journalist went up to the Palace and openly declared that
she intended to be paid or write up “atrocities.”[148]

But, notwithstanding the lurid tales that have so long been circulated
about the Osmanlis, they have, nevertheless, loyal friends where one
would least expect to find them. I have adduced in their favor the
testimony of those who from long association among them have learned
to know them and admire them for their splendid human qualities. Among
these witnesses to the virtues of the Osmanlis are French, English, and
American men whose competence is as incontrovertible as their authority
is unimpeachable. It were easy to add to the number and among them we
should find French, Italian, and German priests and bishops, Sisters of
Charity and _religieuses_ of the various teaching orders who have
spent long years among the Osmanlis in all parts of the Ottoman Empire
and their testimony would confirm that already introduced.

It may, however, be urged that the testimony in question is that of
friends and sympathizers. It affords me, therefore, special pleasure to
reproduce here the generous appreciation of “The Terrible Turk” which
has recently appeared in the _Pall Mall Gazette_[149] from the pen
of a Serbian gentleman who has had an opportunity of knowing him in war
as well as in peace. It fully corroborates all that has been stated
in the preceding pages and is as great an evidence of the writer’s
nobility of soul, as it is a splendid tribute to the character of a
whilom foe:

We Serbians are fighting against the Turks with all our might,
but we do not wish to be unjust to them. I am perfectly
certain that every Serbian soldier, marching now victoriously
through Macedonia and Albania, and every wounded Serbian lying
somewhere in a hospital, and every Serbian mother, sister,
wife, sweetheart, who has lost her son, or her brother, or her
husband, or her lover, on one of the many bloody battlefields,
would applaud my effort to do justice to our enemy. And,
therefore, I do not hesitate to say a good word for the Turk. I
do homage not to the Turk, but to truth.

An average Turk--or shall I perhaps call him a normal Turk?--is
an excellent man. He believes in God, and prays to God more
earnestly and more intensely than an average or normal Christian
does. And he persistently and honestly tries to conform his
everyday life to the commandments of his great Prophet. He is
charitable, honest, trustworthy; he is modest, yet dignified;
he is proud, but not vain; he is brave, but not boastful; he
is sober, clean, polite; he is generally poor, but always
hospitable; and he is patriotic, ready to starve and suffer
and die, without a murmur, for his faith and the honor of his
country. But this excellent, virtuous, and God-fearing brave man
is heavy, slow and somewhat stupid, and in the electrical and
aeroplanic twentieth century cannot stand against scientific
organizations and quick-firing guns of the clever, sharp-witted
Greeks, Serbians, and Bulgars.

The Turk was master of the Balkan nations for nearly five
centuries. During all those centuries he consistently refrained
from interfering with our national churches and with our village
municipal life. From the liberty which the Turk left to our
Church and our municipal life in the country, our political
liberty was re-born. But, notwithstanding his religious
tolerance and his non-interference with our village life, we
hated him as long as, and just because he was our master. But
now, when our victories have deprived him of his position as
master of our countries, we will be pleased to have him for our
friend, because--although he is not exactly a “jolly”--he is
certainly a good fellow.

How different is this portrait of “The Unspeakable Turk,” painted by
one who knew him by life-long association from that of the atrabilious
author of _Sartor Resartus_, whose delineation of him was based on
fancy and prejudice, if not on pathetic ignorance!

The great trouble in Asia Minor to-day is an economic one. This is the
verdict of those who are most competent to judge--of those who have
lived among the Osmanlis for years and have only words of praise for
their many natural virtues and their abounding goodness of heart. It
is the verdict of men and women to whom the brotherhood of man and
the fatherhood of God are not empty words, of those who believe that
the precepts of Christian charity are as obligatory for nations as for
individuals, and that it behooves the Great Powers to assist in its
economic stress at least this part of the Ottoman Empire and to help
it to develop its marvelous natural resources. Were they to do this,
Anatolia would again blossom as the rose and flourish once more as
it did in the heyday of Greek and Roman splendor. But such altruism
is quite alien to the self-seeking policy of the dominant nations
of Europe. Acting on the theory that might makes right they coolly
proceed to the dismemberment of the empire and endeavor to justify
it by alleging, in French diplomatic phrase, the requirements of the
_action civilisatrice_ of Western as against Eastern civilization
while every one who thinks knows that the real reason is the lust of
conquest.

Although I do not hold a brief for the Osmanlis, I would make a plea
for more tolerance for a people who have so long exhibited such
tolerance toward others. Having myself been among the number of those
who unconsciously did grave injustice to them before I came to know
them as they are, I feel that I am fully warranted in urging a change
of attitude towards them. Equitable statesmanship, as well as Christian
charity, demands such a change. We can never hope to remove the barrier
between the East and the West, between Islam and Christianity, so long
as the age-long misunderstandings and misrepresentations above referred
to continue to separate peoples who should live in union and harmony.

CHAPTER VII

THE BAGDAD RAILWAY

_In its political and military, not to speak of its
commercial, consequences, the securing by Germany of the Bagdad
Railway is perhaps the most important event which has occurred
in the Old World since the Franco-Prussian War._[150]
ANDRÉ CHÉRADAME.

At Konia, anciently Iconium, we reached the junction of the Anatolia
and the Bagdad Railways. From an economic and military standpoint, both
roads are of supreme importance to the Ottoman Empire. They supply
commerce with long needed means of communication between the interior
and the seaboard, and enable the Sultan to conduct the administration
of his extensive territory with far more efficiency and despatch than
was before possible. Politically, however, the Bagdad Railway is
incomparably still more important. No great railroad has ever attracted
more attention; none has ever owed so much to its name; none has ever
so fired the imagination of Germans and Ottomans; and none has ever
so exhausted the resources of diplomacy or provoked greater struggles
for its control. Historically both roads have a special interest to
the student and the historian not only on account of the classic lands
through which they pass but also on account of the long and strenuous
efforts which several rival nations made to obtain from the Sublime
Porte the authorization to build and operate the great road which was
to unite the West and the East.

So greatly has the Bagdad Railway modified the Near Eastern Question,
so completely has it changed the data and the consequent solution of
the problem, and so perfectly does its history dovetail into the
narrative of our journey, that a brief account of the origin and
struggling beginnings of the road is necessary to a clear conception of
many things that shall be said in subsequent chapters.

Many and diverse, as the ambitions of those who gave them birth, have
been the projects to unite by rail the superb capital on the Bosphorus
with the mysterious city of Harun-al-Rashid on the distant Tigris.

Two-thirds of a century ago there were few projects which were proposed
with more insistence to the British Cabinet and to the House of Commons
as well as to English capitalists than that which had for its object
the construction of a railway which, starting from a point on the
Mediterranean, should cross Mesopotamia in the direction of India.

The original plan called for an overland route which would connect
the Mediterranean with the Persian Gulf. It was based on an elaborate
survey of the Euphrates valley, which had been made by an English
officer, Colonel Chesney, in 1835–1837. The primary object was to
shorten the journey from England to India, which was then made across
the Isthmus of Suez, or round the Cape of Good Hope.

The preliminary survey of this contemplated line was made by order of
the British Government which voted £20,000 for expenses. Materials
for two armed steamers were, under the direction of Colonel Chesney,
transported with almost insuperable difficulties from the mouth of the
Orontes to the Euphrates. This gallant officer had under his command
a well-equipped staff of engineers and men of science, and the work
which the expedition set out to execute was performed, as the official
reports show, in the most thorough manner. More than two years were
devoted to the task of exploring the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the
region through which they flowed, and the enthusiastic commander felt
sure his labors were to issue “in the consolidation and perfection of
the overland communications between Great Britain and India.”[151]

But how quickly and completely his illusions were dispelled!

When I returned from the East in 1837 [he wrote long after]
it was with the full belief that a question of such vast
importance to Great Britain--nationally, politically and
commercially--would be at once taken up warmly by the Government
and the public. The way had been opened--difficulties which at
one time had looked formidable had been overcome; the Arabs and
the Turkish Government were favorable to the projected line to
India. But thirty-one years have since passed, and _nothing
has been done_.[152]

In 1851 a company was organized in England for realizing Colonel
Chesney’s plan for connecting the Mediterranean with the Persian Gulf.
A firman was obtained from the Porte and everything was ready for
beginning work--except cash. As the enterprise was not supported by
the government, English capitalists considered participation in it too
hazardous to justify investment. The company’s concession lapsed for
lack of the necessary funds.

The question was again taken up in 1872 and referred to a Parliamentary
commission. But, although Colonel Chesney’s plan of building a
road along the Euphrates was favorably received, it was again
abandoned--this time in favor of the Suez Canal, a large interest in
which had been purchased for England by her astute premier, Disraeli,
who was quick to perceive the paramount value of this passageway
between England and her possessions in the Orient.[153]

During many years thereafter this new route between Asia and Europe
so absorbed public attention that the Euphrates Railway was almost
forgotten. But towards the end of the century numerous projects for
constructing the road were taken up by several groups of promoters and
financiers of different nationalities.

Among these was the project of an Italian, Sig. A. Tonietti, who,
acting in behalf of a company of Italian and English financiers, sought
a concession for the construction of a line which should start from
Alexandretta on the Mediterranean and which, following the Euphrates
to Bagdad and Basra, should terminate at a point on the Persian Gulf.
He also sought a concession for building a number of branch lines,
one of which was to extend to Khanikin on the Persian frontier. In
addition to this he asked for authorization to cultivate the unoccupied
government lands along the course of the railroad during the term of
the concession. In return for this authorization he agreed to establish
an irrigation system which should restore the Euphrates valley to its
pristine fertility.

There was also a French group of financiers who, headed by M. Cottard,
a distinguished railroad engineer in Turkey, endeavored by all means
in their power to secure a concession for building a railway which was
to be a prolongation of the Anatolian line to Bagdad and Basra and to
follow essentially the same course along the Euphrates as the projected
road of Sig. Tonietti.

In addition to the two projects just mentioned was that of the Russian
Count Kapist, who proposed to build a line which should start from
Tripoli, in Syria, and, passing Bagdad, should terminate at Koweit
on the Persian Gulf. Count Kapist and his associates pretended that
they were assured of the eventual coöperation not only of English
capitalists but also of the British Government.[154]

The applicants for these divers concessions were, however, all doomed
to disappointment. Never before had so many, so antagonistic, and so
powerful interests made so long and so strenuous efforts to secure
the coveted privilege of building a railroad in foreign territory.
Never were diplomats more active in Constantinople, never was intrigue
more complicated, and never was greater pressure brought to bear
upon the Sublime Porte by the rival nations of Europe. France wished
to safeguard her interests in the Levant and extend her sphere of
influence in the Near East. Russia desired to tighten her hold on
Transcaucasia and to prepare for the eventual dismemberment of the
Turkish Empire of which she fondly hoped to secure the lion’s share.
England, although she had control of the Suez Canal, saw in the Bagdad
Railway a menace to her Indian possessions and determined to nullify
the danger before it was too late.

France had been on the friendliest terms with the Ottoman Government
since the time of Francis I and her financiers naturally felt that
the much coveted concession should be awarded to them as citizens of
the most favored nation. English capitalists put forward claims which
they regarded as deserving greater consideration than those of their
competitors.

But French and English as well as Italian and Russian claims were
ignored, their projects for connecting the Mediterranean with the
Persian Gulf were rejected and the long and eagerly sought concession
was awarded to a group of German capitalists, _alias_ the Deutsche
Bank, _alias_, their opponents contend, the German Government.

What the Germans call _Drang nach Osten_--Trend towards the
East--dates from the time of Alexander the Great. It drove the legions
of the Cæsars to the Euphrates and the Tigris and impelled the hosts
of the Crusaders to seek glory on the desert wastes of Syria and
Mesopotamia. It urged Napoleon to undertake his famous campaign in
Egypt and was at the bottom of his alliance with the Czar Alexander
I--an alliance that was to carry the combined armies of France and
Russia to the heart of India.

As to the Germans, they have never ceased “to dream of the
_Morgenland_ since the epic of Barbarossa’s crusade and the
legendary disappearance of that great figure of Teutonic battle and
romance in the Cilician stream.” When von Moltke, 1835–1839, was
assisting the Sultan Mahmud II to reorganize the Ottoman army on the
German plan he was greatly impressed with the possibilities offered by
Asia Minor as a field for German commerce and enterprise. Others of
his countrymen thought it would be good policy to divert the current
of German emigration from America to Asia Minor. And, although the
Porte had always been opposed to all schemes of German colonization
in Turkey, there was reason to believe that the Ottoman Government,
after the completion of the Bagdad Railway, would consent to German
colonists settling in certain places in Anatolia and Mesopotamia. For,
several decades before the Germans had secured the concession to build
the Bagdad Railroad, the friendliest relations had existed between
Constantinople and Berlin. This was particularly true after the defeat
of France in 1870, when Germany was reorganized as the first military
power in the world. For thenceforward Turkey not only maintained a
goodly number of military students in Germany, but also had many German
officers in her army, among whom was the distinguished Field Marshal
Goltz Pasha.

It was, however, more than a half century before von Moltke’s idea of
developing Anatolia and Mesopotamia was given practical consideration.
It was then taken up by Dr. George von Siemens, the distinguished
president of the Deutsche Bank, who, like so many of his countrymen,
had come under the spell of Germany’s _Weltpolitik_ and, like
them, had been caught in the current of the _Drang nach Osten_.

Dr. von Siemens was not only one of the ablest of the group of eminent
men whom the Kaiser had gathered about him, but was also a great
favorite of the German War Lord. He not only shared von Moltke’s views
regarding the development of Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, but, with rare
clearness of vision, saw that this development could be achieved only
by the construction of a railway through the broad wastes which lay
between the Bosphorus and the Persian Gulf. To reclaim for civilization
the long-neglected valleys of the Euphrates and the Tigris and to
restore to their ancient splendor the broad and fertile plains of
Anatolia and Mesopotamia--so long the favored home of humanity--became
his dominant ambition, and to the achievement of his cherished project
he directed for years, with marvelous address and persistency, his
indomitable energy and _savoir faire_. Slowly but surely his dream
began to be realized.

Before the Anatolian Railway was completed the Turkish Army was eating
bread made from Russian flour; now it is using grain grown in the
fertile acres of Asia Minor. And before the advent of the railroad the
communications between the interior of Asia Minor and the seaboard
were so wretched that the freight on domestic grain was greater than
on that imported from Russia or the United States. The result was that
the Anatolian peasants then grew only enough wheat for their own needs.
Before the advent of the railroad not a single ton of grain from the
region traversed by the Anatolian Railroad reached the seacoast for
export. After the road was completed the export of wheat and other
cereals became, in a very short time, an important item of commerce.
The peasantry received “for their harvests from twice to four times the
prices formerly paid and the railways brought revenue to the (Ottoman)
treasury.”[155]

The cost of the railway was great, indeed, but greater far was its
value to Turkey, for it was not only the best but also the only
practical means of “bringing the disjointed members of that large
empire within reach of control,” and of “bringing security and
cultivation, order and civilization, to a country that once had been
the most fertile on earth.”[156]

That Germany should have received the concession for building the
Bagdad Railway in the face of such strong competitors as Russia,
France, and England was a great surprise to those who were not
familiar with the relations among the Great Powers and who were not
well informed respecting the diplomatic game as it was then played in
Constantinople. To those, however, who had an accurate knowledge of
the strained relations which existed between the Porte and certain of
the western nations and who knew how suspicious Abdul-Hamid II was of
all schemes affecting Turkey, which were engineered in Russia or Great
Britain, or in behalf of Russian or British interests, the outcome of
the long diplomatic game at the Porte was looked upon as a foregone
conclusion.

A brilliant French publicist attributes the success of the Germans in
securing the concession for the Bagdad Railway to the fact that the
era of great ambassadors from France and England at the Sublime Porte
was closed at the period in question--that in the year immediately
preceding “the publication of the irade of the concession in 1899,”
there was then “an utter bankruptcy of great men” at Constantinople
from these two countries.[157]

Opposed to the English, French, and Russian Ambassadors, and almost
isolated from his colleagues, was the alert and sagacious Baron
Marschall von Bieberstein, the noted ambassador from Germany who,
according to an anonymous writer in the _National Review_, “was
the most influential of the ambassadors at Yildiz, and, in accordance
with the thoroughly sensible and practical cast of German ideas as to
the functions of diplomacy, had used his position more actively and
successfully than any minister had done before to promote the business
interest of his nationals in Turkey.”[158]

Not to speak of the failure of France and Russia to secure the
concession for building the Bagdad Railway, it may here be declared
that England’s hopes of securing it were doomed from the very
beginning. Her control of the Suez Canal and her occupation of
Egypt, which was the territory of a Turkish vassal, not to speak of
Gladstone’s denunciation of the Sultan as the “Great Assassin,” all
predisposed Abdul-Hamid in favor of Germany and as strongly predisposed
him against Great Britain.

A writer in the _National Review_, referring to this subject,
declares:

For many years the immobile Turk had never been so likely to
go out of his way for any purpose in the world as when an
opportunity to do the English Government a discourtesy or
English influence a disservice; and it may almost be said that
even a bribe worthy of the fabulous wealth of the detested
island would not have induced Abdul-Hamid to give to an
Englishman what he could give to any one else.[159]

When it was officially announced that the concession for the building
of the Bagdad Railway had been granted to a German syndicate, there
was great jubilation from the Rhine to the Vistula over what was
regarded as a great victory for Teutonic diplomacy and enterprise. The
enthusiastic sons of the Fatherland fancied that they already saw the
well-equipped trains of the Bagdad Railway “running in the track of
Alexander” from the Dardanelles to the embouchure of the Shatt-el-Arab,
and exulted in the thought that “where the Mermnadæ, the Achæmenidæ,
and the Greek, Roman, Arabic, and Turkish conquerors failed, there
Germany had a good prospect of success.”[160]

In Turkey the diplomatic victory of the Germans meant a great
exaltation of Teutonic prestige and a corresponding diminution of the
credit and influence of the defeated Powers.

In France, the predominant position of power and influence
acquired by Germany was interpreted as a complete subversion of the
Eastern Question and as an event which made the solution of this
long-standing question correspondingly difficult--“_ce qui boulverse
complètment les données du problème et par consequent sa solution
possible_.”[161]

France [writes M. Aublé] had long been the disinterested
protector of a nation whose moral and material elevation she
had constantly sought and had spent in all branches of human
activity of that unfortunate country many milliards of francs.
What she loved to regard as a second France, she saw with sorrow
was about to escape her and come under the influence of a hated
rival.[162]

Russia’s attitude toward the Bagdad Railway was no less hostile. It
had, for obvious reasons, been her policy since the time of Peter
the Great to weaken and eventually dismember the Ottoman Empire. Her
objection to the road was that it contributed immeasurably to the
financial, political, and strategical strength of Turkey, and that
this would completely foil all her well-laid plans for her ultimate
partition. She also regarded the road as a menace to Transcaucasia,
but, more than this, she feared that it would, in the possession of
Germany, halt her further advance into Western Asia and prove, mayhap,
a stepping-stone to Germany’s annexation of Asia Minor.

But the resentment of Great Britain was far greater than that of
either France or Russia. She had more at stake and greater reasons
for serious apprehension for the future. So long as she controlled
the Suez Canal and there was no competing line towards India she felt
secure. But when, in 1888, Baron Hirsch’s Railroad through the Balkan
Peninsula was completed to the Bosphorus and connected Constantinople
with Western Europe, and steps were taken to extend this line through
Anatolia and Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf, alarm, bordering on
dismay, took possession of her publicists and statesmen.

The political and military importance of an overland railway from the
Bosphorus to the Persian Gulf which could not be reached by a hostile
fleet could not be overestimated.

Indeed [as a noted English authority wrote in 1917] so long as
the forts of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus remain intact
the Sultan and his allies enjoy the advantages of a naval power
in a limited area--the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmora and the
Dardanelles--without the possession of a fleet. This enables
the Sultan and his Germanic allies rapidly to convey troops or
foodstuffs from Europe to Asia Minor, Syria and Mesopotamia
and _vice versa_, in the very face of the Allied Fleets,
which are powerless to interfere in areas protected by defences
which had proved, as one had to expect they would prove,
impregnable.[163]

Another English writer saw in German control of the Bagdad Railway the
doom of English trade and French enterprise in the Near East.

Is the same fate [he asks] to be meted out to the French
railways in Syria as that which has overtaken the non-German
railways in Asia Minor? Are they to be absorbed into the Bagdad
Railway, or be cut off from any prospects of development? On
the further side of the area, are the British communications up
the Tigris to be starved into submission, and is the trade of
Manchester and our great industrial centers to be placed at the
mercy of variable by-laws in the statutes of railway companies
owned or largely controlled by Germany? In the present temper
of British diplomacy, a German victory of this kind is, I am
sorry to say, not outside the bounds of possibility, however
momentous may be the consequences, not only to our trade but
also to our whole political future. If it be achieved, German
enterprise will dominate the countries west of India and will
extend along two great arms to the frontiers of Egypt and to
the head of the Persian Gulf. Regions lying upon the main line
of the maritime communications of the British Empire will
gradually, but none the less irrevocably, become invested with
a political complexion and bias out of harmony with our vital
interests.[164]

But this was not all. Judging by the articles that filled the English
press after the concession for building the Bagdad Railway had been
granted to Germany, the great fear of many in England was that this
concession would lead to a protectorate over Turkey by the Teutonic
Powers;[165] that it “would permanently diminish English credit in the
East and throughout all Islam” and exalt German prestige at Britain’s
expense; that it involved the ousting of England from their “former
political and commercial primacy in the Ottoman Empire”; that, to quote
a British writer, it would “squeeze us out of Asiatic Turkey,” as the
diplomacy of Germany had “succeeded in squeezing us out of East Africa
where we surrendered to her territory which was ours by virtue of
having been explored by Speke, Grant and Stanley.”[166]

In the meantime the Teutonic Powers were trying to secure the necessary
capital for their stupendous enterprise. From the very beginning of
their vast undertaking they, under the lead of Dr. Siemens, president
of the Administrative Board of the Anatolian Railway, fully realized
the difficulties they would encounter in securing the funds requisite
to cover the enormous cost of their colossal work. But to achieve
success they had recourse to all the methods of shrewd business and
sane diplomacy. And they were quick to perceive that the wisest and
safest policy would be to work along the line of least resistance.
Instead, therefore, of antagonizing their defeated competitors
they would invite them to coöperate with them in the construction
and operation of the great steel highway. They would, in a word,
internationalize it and make it a purely commercial enterprise, whose
sole object would be the expansion of western trade and the development
of the fabulous resources of the mysterious East.

But, as the concessionaires soon discovered to their surprise and
disappointment, this was more easily said than done. The story of their
many and long negotiations with foreign capitalists and statesmen
is a long one and reveals, as few other things have done, national
jealousies, distrusts, and ambitions. Each of the nations concerned
desired to have the lion’s share in the building and management of the
road, and, when this was impossible, those who had perforce to accept
minor parts, or none at all, strove by every means in their power,
covertly or openly, to misrepresent the object of the undertaking and
damn it in the estimation of those who were counted on to coöperate in
carrying the enterprise to a successful conclusion.

Neither the French nor the English government was willing to give
the Bagdad Railway project official recommendation. This attitude of
the two governments deterred many capitalists from investing in an
enterprise which they had been disposed to view most favorably. The
French Government went so far as to forbid the securities to be listed
on the Bourse.[167]

But the chief opposition to the project came not so much from the
governments in question as from the press. This was particularly the
case in England.

A letter written in 1903 by the late Sir Clinton Dawkins--one of
a group of English capitalists who were eager to coöperate with the
Germans in the building of the Bagdad Railway--to Herr Arthur von
Gwinner, the successor of Dr. von Siemens as director of the road,
leaves no doubt about this whatever.

The fact is [Sir Clinton writes] that the business has become
involved in politics here, and has been sacrificed to the very
violent and bitter feeling against Germany exhibited by the
majority of our newspapers and shared in by a large number of
people.

This is a feeling which, as the history of recent events will
show you, is not shared by the Government or reflected in
official circles. But of its intensity outside those circles,
for the moment, there can be no doubt; at the present moment
coöperation in any enterprise which could be represented, or,
I might more justly say, _mis_represented, as German
will meet with a violent hostility which our government has
to consider.... The anti-German feeling prevailed with the
majority; London having really gone into a frenzy on the matter,
owing to the newspaper campaign which it would have been quite
impossible to counteract or influence.[168]

As a result of an important meeting of Potsdam between the Czar and the
Kaiser in November 1910, Russia waived all share in the Bagdad Railway.
The reason for this withdrawal was, it is asserted, the willingness
of Germany to allow Russia to build a railway in the north of Persia
which should eventually connect with a branch of the Bagdad Railway at
Khanakin on the Persian frontier.

The reason, therefore, why the Bagdad Railway was not
internationalized, as was the desire of Dr. Siemens and his associates,
is manifest. The nations constituting the _Entente Cordiale_ were
unwilling to accept the offer of the _concessionaires_, who thereafter
proceeded to construct the line without outside assistance.[169]

When the statesmen and financiers of France and England found that
internationalization of the Bagdad Railway was impossible and that
the Germans were preparing to build it without their coöperation they
bethought themselves of killing the enterprise by creating a financial
vacuum:

“Let a vacuum of capital be created around the Bagdad Railway,”
ironically writes M. André Geraud, who had no sympathy with the methods
his countrymen and their English allies had adopted in their dealings
with the German _concessionaires_, “let the Anglo-French air-pump
be set in action, and then, as soon as the pecuniary oxygen becomes
rarefied, the Bagdad Railway will be seen to languish and die.”[170]

But this method, it was soon discovered, utterly failed to have the
desired effect. It neither deprived the railway company of resources
nor checked its activity. “The air-pump,” as M. Geraud wittily remarks,
“broke down as soon as it was started.”[171]

The time had passed when it could be truthfully said that the Bagdad
Railway could not be built by a single power. The same statement had
been made regarding the Suez Canal, but France, under the lead of De
Lesseps, showed what the enterprise and the genius of her people were
capable of accomplishing when they were united in an undertaking that
was to reflect on them imperishable glory and redound at the same time
to the welfare of humanity.

Confident in their ability to construct the Bagdad Railway unaided,
the Germans, under the guidance of able financiers, were not long
in demonstrating to the world that their enterprise was in no wise
inferior to that which led to the magnificent achievement of the French
in the Land of the Pharaohs.

The hostile attitude of the Anglo-French press towards the Bagdad
Railway was not allowed to pass unnoticed by the publicists of Germany.
From the day that the irade authorizing the building of the great
railroad was issued they had been enthusiastic about the enterprise
that was, they felt sure, to be of inestimable advantage to the
Fatherland. They descanted especially on it as an agency for developing
German trade in the Near East, whose commerce hitherto had been almost
entirely in the hands of their rivals. They fondly pointed to the
day, in the not distant future, when they would be able to exploit
the vast mineral riches of Asia Minor, and when Anatolia, Syria, and
Mesopotamia, as a result of intensive culture under German direction,
would be able to supply them with untold stores of grain, wool, cotton,
fruit, petroleum, and other commodities; when, thanks to their control
of the Bagdad Railway and its branches, they would enjoy a virtual
monopoly of near eastern commerce.

The eminent German engineer, Wilhelm von Pressel, who had served the
Fatherland so long and so well in the Ottoman Empire,[172] prepared
plans for connecting Europe with Asia by a tunnel under the Bosphorus.
But his fellow countryman, Siegmund Schneider, insisted that the two
continents should be connected by a bridge, which he describes in a
dithyrambic fashion which most vividly exhibits the exaltation of the
promoters of the great Berlin to Bagdad Railway.

The architectural effect [Herr Schneider writes] of the metallic
mass richly gilded, suspended from massive piers, crowned
by glittering cupolas and minarets, brilliantly illuminated
at night would be fantastic. This bridge would constitute a
formidable closure of the enfilade of fortified works with
which the Turkish coasts bristle. Its debouches in Asia and
Europe would be defended by powerful bridge-heads, its piers
would be armed with armored rotary batteries whose long range
would infallibly sink any squadron that would venture into the
Strait.... The express trains of the future will go directly
from Berlin to Babylonia in five days.[173]

German engineers confidently asserted that the day was not far distant
when trains _de luxe_ equal to any in Europe or America would
cover the distance between Constantinople and Bagdad in sixty-five
hours. The time formerly required to make the journey between these two
cities by caravan was from fifty to fifty-five days.[174]

Nor was this an empty boast. No road has ever been more carefully or
more solidly built than is the Bagdad Railway. Roadbed, culverts,
revetments, bridges are of the strongest and most durable materials.
The sleepers are of metal, while the steel rails are specially
made for sharp curves and fast and heavy trains. German engineers
declare that they are the heaviest in existence. At a time when the
heaviest rails used in the United States weighed one hundred pounds
per lineal yard, those selected for the Bagdad Railroad weighed
twenty per cent more. And so it is with the warehouses, the offices,
and especially the stations all along the line. So massive are the
last-named structures that they are called “German Castles.” Indeed,
it is the firm conviction of many that these buildings were so
designed that they might serve as strongholds in emergencies, such
as sudden uprisings of lawless nomads or fanatical Moslems. Nothing
was left to chance. So far as experience and engineering science
could forecast the necessities of the future, provision was made for
all eventualities--save only such a cataclysm as a world war, which
threatened to interrupt the continuity of civilization.

As to the end and aim of the Bagdad Railway we are left in no doubt.

We must [writes Professor Diering] be true to ourselves
by emphasizing and cultivating everything German. In all
undertakings engineered by German diplomacy and financed with
German money the official language must be German. Hence French,
which has been the official language on Turkish Railways, must
disappear. There must be a German school near every large
railway station; and in these schools both the German and
Turkish languages must be employed in giving instruction; any
other language will be merely taught. Only specially selected
and well-educated teachers should be sent to Turkey. Above all,
German medical men must be introduced into Turkey’s railway
system. They are the best medium for spreading German influence
and for awakening esteem and affection for Germany.

On broad lines it is now quite clear what form the future
Turkish Empire will assume. From Tripolis across to Persia and
on to the ridges of the Caucasus, German energy--without injury
to the sovereignty of the Osmanic State--will coöperate in
Turkey’s renaissance and in the development of her treasures.
But our enemies, together with their money, languages and
schools will disappear from the territories which they hoped to
divide among themselves.[175]

Equally explicit is another German writer, Herr Trampe, respecting the
ulterior object of the Bagdad Railway.

The ancient highroad of the world [he declares] is the one which
leads from Europe to India--the road used by Alexander--the
highway which leads from the Danube _via_ Constantinople
to the valley of the Euphrates, and by northern Persia, Herat,
and Kabul to the Ganges. Every yard of the Bagdad Railway
which is laid brings the owner of the railway nearer to India.
What Alexander performed and Napoleon undoubtedly planned can
be achieved by a third treading in their footsteps. England
views the Bagdad Railway as a very real and threatening danger
to herself--and rightly so. She can never undo or annul its
effects.[176]

The increasingly hostile attitude of the _Entente Cordiale_ toward
the Bagdad Railway, the violent ebullitions of the press of the rival
powers portended trouble. No sooner had the concession for the building
of the Bagdad Railway been officially announced than it began to weigh
as a nightmare on a great part of Europe. The chancelleries of the Old
World began then to realize more clearly than ever before the boundless
possibilities of the great oriental highway. English statesmen saw in
it the virtual doubling of the German fleet at the head of the Persian
Gulf, and then the cry was heard throughout Britain, “Let us have the
Russians at Constantinople rather than a great power on the Persian
Gulf.”

The Bagdad Railway [declares an English writer] was a _damnosa
hæreditas_, which was due as much to a lack of imagination
and effective organization on the part of our business community
in the eighties and nineties of the last century, as it
undoubtedly was to a mistaken policy in those critical years on
the part of the British Government.[177]

Small wonder, then, is it that the Bagdad Railway was from the very
beginning of the great World War considered as one of the chief
contributing causes of the terrific cataclysm of the second decade
of the twentieth century and that, whatever political, economic, and
social adjustments may be entailed as a result of the most stupendous
struggle of history, it is destined to modify even more profoundly the
relations between the Orient and the Occident than did the far-reaching
campaigns of Alexander the Great, which introduced Greek people and
Greek culture to the East and made known to the West the riches and the
wonders of Persia and India and Babylonia.

CHAPTER VIII

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE CRUSADERS

_Nations melt_
_From power’s high pinnacle, when they have felt_
_The sunshine for a while, and downward go_
_Like lauwine loosened from the mountain’s belt._
BYRON “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” Canto IV, 12.

Aside from the interest which attaches to it as the north-western
terminus of the Bagdad Railway, Konia, the ancient Iconium, like so
many other places in Anatolia, is extremely rich in legendary and
historic lore. According to a local myth it was the first spot to
emerge from the waters of the Deluge. It is mentioned in the legend
of Perseus and the Gorgons. A local legend has it that the name was
derived from the Greek word _eikon_--figure or image--referring to
the mud figures, which, when breathed upon by the wind, were converted
into living men and women. This is evidently a variant of the old myth
of Deucalion and Pyrrha. It was doubtless this pride in their great
antiquity and a belief that Phrygian was the primitive language of our
race that led the inhabitants of Iconium to claim a Phrygian origin.
That Phrygian was really the oldest language they had no doubt. For,
it was averred, the Egyptian King, Psametik, had conclusively proved
this by showing that “infants brought up out of hearing of human speech
spoke the Phrygian language.”

The Ten Thousand Greeks, in the army of Cyrus, halted here on their
famous expedition to southern Mesopotamia. Cicero reviewed his troops
here when he was proconsul of Cilicia. It was one of the important
missionary centers of the early evangelizing activity of St. Paul. It
was to this city that, accompanied by Barnabas, he directed his steps
after he had been expelled by the Jews from Antioch.

In Roman times Iconium stood at the intersection of several important
highways and was designated by Pliny _urbs celeberrima_--a most
celebrated city. According to a venerable tradition, Iconium had for
its first bishop Sosipatros, one of the seventy-two disciples, who was
succeeded in the episcopal chair by Terentius, likewise one of this
chosen body of disciples. Equally noteworthy is the fact that Iconium
was the birthplace of St. Thecla, who is said to have been converted
to Christianity by the Apostle St. Paul. She is the heroine of the
_Acta Pauli et Theclæ_. From the earliest ages of the Church
she was greatly venerated in Asia Minor, where she was known as the
“Apostle and Proto-martyr among Women.” In the Greek Church her feast
is celebrated on the twenty-fourth of September under the title of
“Proto-martyr among Women and the Equal of the Apostles.”

And here, according to a venerable tradition on which oriental
geographers set much store, is the tomb of “Plato the Divine,” who,
under the name of Eflat, is revered by the local population as a
thaumaturgus. The origin of this singular tradition in this part of
Anatolia--so distant from the real burying place of the immortal
philosopher--is one of the curiosities of Ottoman folklore.[178]

During two centuries--from 1099 to 1307--Iconium was the capital of
the Seljuk Sultans of Rum[179] and is still regarded as one of the
holy places of Islam. Many of its sultans were patrons of art and
literature, and, during the zenith of its splendor, this Seljukian
metropolis could boast of nearly as many colleges and students as
Bagdad--the far-famed capital of the Abbasside Caliphate.

Its present chiefest title to fame is the tomb of the noted
Jelal-ed-din-Rumi, usually known as Mevlana. He was famed for knowledge
and wisdom and was the founder of the Dancing Dervishes and the author
of the “Mesnevi,” a celebrated poem in Persian verse, in which is
instilled the Sufi system of pantheism. His successors, as heads of the
Dancing Dervishes, have their residence in Iconium and theirs is the
right and the privilege to gird each Ottoman Sultan, on his accession
to the throne, with the historic sword of Osman. This imposing
function, which is performed in the Mosque of Eyub in Stamboul, has
been likened to the coronation by the Pope of the Holy Roman Emperor.

By those who know them best the better class of Dancing, or, more
properly, the Whirling Dervishes, are described as being a very
tolerant and large-minded people. Thus it is said that “in the
dangerous period in the winter of 1895–1896, when religious and
national feeling ran high in Turkey, it was mainly owing to the
Mevlevis that the softas of Konia were prevented from attacking the
Christian population of the town.”[180]

But the orthodox Moslems, as represented by the softas and mollahs,
do not regard with sympathy the peculiar ceremonial practices of the
various orders of dervishes, especially their use of incense, music,
and lighted candles in public worship. To the strict followers of
the Koran the characteristic forms of worship of the Mevlevis and
Rufais, more commonly known as the Dancing and Howling Dervishes,
are as distasteful as are the ritualistic services of certain modern
Anglicans to the conservative members of the Church of England. As
to the esoteric doctrines of the dervishes, especially those based
on the _Mesnevi_, they are declared by the doctors of Islam
to be quite irreconcilable with both the Koran and the Hadith--the
accepted traditions of Mohammedanism. It must be said that the bizarre
performances of the Dancing and Howling Dervishes--performances which
are resorted to as a means of detaching the minds of the devotees from
all things earthly and attaining a state of spiritual ecstasy--are
to the casual spectator but little different in kind from certain
revivals of our southern negroes. The solemn dervishes, however,
exhibit far more dignity and reverence in their devotions than do the
excitable and noisy Africans in their camp-meetings and revivalistic
gatherings.

Surrounded by a barren and desolate country, Konia, when seen from
afar, looks like an oasis in the desert. It is situated on an elevated
plateau well-watered by mountain streams and blessed with a salubrious
climate. It was these attractive features that led the Seljukian Turks
to choose it for their capital. Its luxuriant gardens and orchards have
long been famous and add much to the city’s picturesqueness--especially
when viewed from a distance. For when one enters the old Seljukian
capital there is little to attract attention except a few mosques. Of
the old Greek city practically nothing remains aside from the fragments
of friezes, cornices, bas-reliefs, and ancient inscriptions which are
found in the walls which surround the erstwhile Seljukian capital.
Here, as in so many other places in Anatolia, the Turks, when requiring
material for their mosques and palaces, converted the imposing temples
of the Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines into quarries for stone, and
lime. As in Nicæa, a great part of the space within the walls of Konia
is covered with crumbling ruins overgrown with weeds and bushes. The
poet must have had such a scene in his mind’s eye when he penned the
lines:

_There a temple in ruin stands_
_Fashioned by long-forgotten hands;_
_Two or three columns and many a stone,_
_Marble and granite with grass overgrown_
_Out upon time! It will leave no more_
_Of the things to come than the things before._

Modern Konia, a good part of which lies outside of the walls of the
Seljuk capital of the thirteenth century, is composed of one-story
buildings, constructed chiefly of wood and sun-dried bricks. But amid
all the squalor and decay that distinguishes this historic city there
are several mosques and medresses--colleges--which will well repay
careful inspection.

Among the buildings deserving particular attention is the splendid
tekke of the Dancing Dervishes, in which is the tomb of Hazret Mevlana,
the founder of this peculiar order. It is popularly known as the “Blue
Mosque” from the exquisite sapphire and turquoise blue tiles which
until recently covered the cupola that rises above the great turbeh of
the founder. There is nothing in Brusa, Stamboul, or Cairo that can
surpass its rich and delicate traceries and arabesques, its profusion
of jeweled lamps, its wealth, precious tapestries, wondrous faïence,
its magic glories of color from the looms and kilns of Persia and
India. But over and above all this wealth of ornamentation there is a
religious atmosphere that does not exist in the ordinary mosque. For
the dervishes, unlike the orthodox Moslems, make a special appeal to
the emotions of their followers, and hence their widespread influence
and popularity throughout the Mohammedan world.

There is, however, no attempt made here to affect the emotions through
any of the plastic or pictorial arts. In this respect the Blue Mosque,
like every other mosque in Islam, is absolutely devoid of paintings and
statues. The reason is that Moslem law proscribes all representations
of the human form, either in painting or statuary, as impious, because
they are regarded “as encouragements to idolatry and as profanations of
God’s chief handiwork.”[181]

According to one of the traditional sayings of Mohammed, “Whoever
draws a picture will at the day of resurrection be punished by being
ordered to blow a spirit into it; and this he can never do; and so he
will be punished as long as God wills.” Nor does the Prophet leave any
doubt as to the nature of the punishment, for he declares explicitly,
“Every painter is in hell-fire.” In another saying, however, he greatly
modifies this pitiless statement and tells the painter, “If you must
make pictures, make them of trees and of things without souls.” It is
because of this concession to artists that one may frequently see in
Mohammedan houses pictures of flowers and trees and even of landscapes,
provided there be in them no delineation of “the human form divine.”
But in the homes of the strict adherents of Moslemism all images are
rigorously tabooed, for, according to another saying of the Prophet,
“Angels do not enter into the house in which is a dog, nor into that in
which are pictures.”[182]

Konia is now a flourishing city of about sixty thousand souls. Most
of its inhabitants, like those of Brusa, are pure Turks, who rigidly
adhere not only to the religion but also to the manners and customs
of their fathers. There is here, however, a goodly number of Greeks,
Armenians, and Germans, besides whom there is also, among the employees
of the Bagdad Railway, a sprinkling of Swiss, French, and Italians.
Among the various institutions we visited, none gave us more agreeable
surprise than those established here some decades ago by the Priests
and Sisters of the Assumption from France, which are in a very
prosperous condition. The Sisters have a school and dispensary, and
their devoted care of the poor and sick has made them greatly beloved
by all classes, irrespective of creed. Nowhere is the zeal of the
ardent French nun seen to better advantage than in foreign missions,
where her enthusiasm, notwithstanding the great difficulties she
frequently encounters, never abates and where she exhibits a happiness
that communicates itself to all who come in contact with her.

Nowhere in Anatolia, except probably in Brusa, has one a better
opportunity to study the manners and customs and simple pastimes of the
genuine Turk than in Konia. Theaters and operas, as we know them, they
have not. From all social assemblages, like those in the western world,
which are frequented by men and women alike, they are debarred by a
custom that is more binding than the laws of the Medes and Persians.

But notwithstanding the total absence of all the entertainments that
contribute so much to the pleasure of the people of Europe and America,
the Anatolian has a way of spending his leisure hours that quite
satisfies him. His amusements are simple indeed, but with them he is
content.

Most of these center in the coffeehouse, which, to a great extent,
takes the place of the restaurant in France and the club in the United
States. Like the club and restaurant the Turkish coffeehouse

_Is the resort of public men; the haunt_
_Of wealthy idlers and the trysting-place_
_Of such as have no home to indicate--_
_A place where each may come and go at will,_
_Think his own thoughts, pursue his own affairs,_
_Or fling his ore of feeling and of sense_
_Into the common crucible._

Unlike the club and restaurant, the coffeehouse serves no food or
alcoholic liquors of any kind. Aside from the people who congregate
there, and it is usually well-patronized, its attractions are as
limited as they are simple. In the less pretentious places these are
confined to coffee, tobacco, and, occasionally, the _Medak_, or
story-teller. In the more sumptuous places of the larger cities there
is also music, but it is generally of a very inferior quality, for
the instruments employed are for the most part limited to a drum, a
tambourine, and two or three rude guitars.

In Anatolia, as in all Moslem countries, the _Medak_ is a most
popular character. Not infrequently his ability is so marked that he
attains the rank of a personage, and his services on festive occasions
are in great demand and for them he is liberally remunerated. The
admirable manner in which he can, unaided, fill the rôle of entire
casts of the most diverse characters, his marvelous versatility
in personating the people of different nations, and in imitating
the tones, phraseologies, and even the facial expression of the
multitudinous races of the Turkish empire are really astonishing
and are to his audience a source of unending delight. Not a few of
the Medaks, in addition to histrionic talent that would do honor to
the best European stage, have a gift of expression and a facility
of invention that make them the rivals of the most eminent Italian
_improvisatori_. With such entertainers the Turks can readily
forego our more elaborate forms of amusement, even if they were
available.[183]

* * * * *

But the stories and drolleries of the Medak--although always a
perennial source of pleasure--are not the chief attractions of the
coffeehouse. These are partly supplied, as Lowell so playfully puts it,
by

_The kind nymph to Bacchus born_
_By Morpheus’ daughter, she that seems_
_Gifted on her natal morn_
_By him with fire, by her with dreams--_
_Nicotia, dearer to the Muse_
_Than all the grapes’ bewildering juice._

Although the use of tobacco was long forbidden in the Mohammedan
world[184] and although its lawfulness is still disputed by a large
number of Moslems, especially the Wahabis, the “scented weed” is now
used almost universally from Morocco to Delhi and from Stamboul to
Mecca. It is, however, well for the Moslems of to-day that tobacco and
coffee were unknown in the time of Mohammed, as he would most likely
have put them under the same ban as intoxicating liquors and games of
chance.

Nothing more perfectly harmonizes with the temperament of the
Oriental than the smoking habit, and it is doubtless this practice
that contributes not a little to that remarkable patience and that
wonderful repose which so distinguishes the Turk and the Arab from the
nervous and overwrought American or European. An Oriental reclining
on his cushioned divan with his bubbling narghile supplied with the
rose-scented tobacco from Shiraz or Salonica is a matchless picture
of contentment, and nothing that the hurry-scurry West can offer will
excite his envy or disturb his peaceful reverie.

The invariable accompaniment of the narghile or chibouk with their
aromatic and sedative narcotic is the zarf, with its small cup of
foaming black coffee made from the prized Mocha berries of Arabic
Felix.[185] Only in the East is this grateful and refreshing beverage
properly prepared.[186] Let those who doubt this statement read of its
virtues as celebrated by the Arabic poet, Abd-el-Kader Anazari Djezeri
Hanbali. Only those will find his eulogy a wild extravagance who have
never experienced the revivifying effects of the dark ambrosia that so
gladdens the Bedouin’s tent and the pasha’s palace.

O Coffee! thou dispellest the cares of the great; thou bringest
back those who wander from the paths of knowledge. Coffee is the
beverage of the people of God and the cordial of His servants
who thirst for wisdom. When coffee is infused into the bowl
it exhales the odor of musk and is of the color of ink. The
truth is not known except to the wise who drink it from the
foaming coffeecup. God has deprived fools of coffee, who, with
invincible obstinacy condemn it as injurious.

Coffee is our gold and in the place of its libations we are
in the enjoyment of the best and noblest society. Coffee
is as innocent a drink as the purest milk from which it is
distinguished only by its color. Tarry with thy coffee in the
place of its preparation and the good God will hover over thee
and participate in His feast. There the graces of the salon, the
luxury of life, the society of friends, all furnish a picture of
the abode of happiness.

Every care vanishes when the cup-bearer presents the delicious
chalice. It will circulate freely through thy veins and will not
rankle there. If thou doubtest this, contemplate the youth and
beauty of those who drink it. Grief cannot exist where it grows;
sorrow humbles itself in obedience before its powers.

Coffee is the drink of God’s people; in it is health. Let this
be the answer to those who doubt its qualities. In it we will
drown our adversities and in its fire consume our sorrows.
Whoever has once seen the blissful chalice will scorn the
wine-cup. Glorious drink! Thy color is the seal of purity and
reason proclaims it genuine. Drink with confidence and regard
not the prattle of fools who condemn without foundation.[187]

So much for the oriental coffeehouse and the pleasure and surcease
of care and sorrow which it offers its listless, dream-loving
habitués. What are the amusements of the women of the Orient? Let the
distinguished English writer, Julia Pardoe, whose knowledge of Turkish
life and manners was not surpassed even by that of the well-informed
Lady Mary Wortley Montague, give a reply to this interesting but
ill-understood question. In the quotation given she is writing about
the women of Constantinople, but what she says of them can, _ceteris
paribus_, be asserted of their sisters in other parts of the Ottoman
Empire:

It is a great fallacy [she declares] to imagine that Turkish
females are like birds in a cage or captives in a cell;--far
from it; there is not a public festival, be it Turk, Frank,
Armenian or Greek, where they are not to be seen in numbers
sitting upon their carpets or in their carriages, surrounded by
slaves and attendants, eager and delighted spectators of the
revel. Then they have their gilded and glittering caiques on the
Bosphorus, where, protected by their veils, their ample mantles
and their negro guard, they spend long hours in passing from
house to house, visiting their acquaintances and gathering and
dispensing the gossip of the city.

All this may and indeed must appear startling to persons who
have accustomed themselves to believe that Turkish wives were
morally manacled slaves. There are, probably, no women so little
trammelled in the world; so free to come and go unquestioned,
provided that they are suitably attended, while it is equally
certain that they enjoy this privilege like innocent and happy
children, making their pleasures of the flowers and the sunshine
and revelling, like the birds and bees in the summer brightness,
profiting by the enjoyment of the passing hour and reckless or
thoughtless of the future.[188]

Since these lines were written, the liberty of the Turkish woman has
been greatly extended, as have also her opportunities of obtaining a
higher education, which were so long denied her.

From the foregoing it seems that the peoples of the Orient--both men
and women--get quite as much pleasure out of life--in their own way,
of course--as do our luxury-loving people of the Occident at the
expenditure of far greater effort and wealth. But in this, as in other
things--every one to his taste. _De gustibus non est disputandum._

But much as one may be interested in the mosques and medresses and the
customs of the people of Konia, the traveler of a practical turn of
mind will find more to engage his attention in the splendid barrage
which was constructed about a decade ago, some twenty odd miles to the
south-east of the city, for the irrigation of the broad plain of Konia.
It is the work of a German company, which, by utilizing the waters of
two neighboring lakes--the Beushehr and the Sogla Geul--has enabled
its enterprising managers to irrigate nearly a hundred and fifty
thousand acres of valuable land which would otherwise remain arid and
unproductive. It is notable as being the first undertaking of the kind
in Asia Minor, and has already been of untold value to the inhabitants
of Konia Plain. The success of this important work is sure to lead to
the construction of similar reservoirs in other parts of Anatolia,
with the happy result that many broad stretches of this long-neglected
and deserted country will eventually be restored to their former
fertility and populousness.

Time was, as history informs me, when Asia Minor, which has long been
presented in many parts by pictures of utter barrenness and desolation,
was one of the most fertile and productive and flourishing in the
world. It was from this land, as DeCandolle[189] has shown, that Europe
received many of its most important fruits and cereals, as well as many
of its most valuable shrubs and trees. From Asia Minor came the peach,
the plum, the cherry, and the apricot, the quince and the mulberry, and
probably also the apple and the olive. From it also came wheat, barley,
oats and lucerne and numerous other useful cultivated plants. It was
doubtless for these reasons that an old legend located in this region
the cradle of our race.

Before leaving Konia it may be noted that it was on the route of
the Crusades led by Godfrey de Bouillon and Frederic Barbarossa.
Godfrey’s forces found the city abandoned by the enemy, but the army of
Barbarossa was forced to take the city by storm and compel the Sultan
to sue for peace.

After leaving the old Seljukian capital we found little worthy of note
until we reached the famous chain of the Taurus Mountains. For a great
part of the distance our train passed over a level plain, sparsely
populated. Here and there were small villages with mud-built houses
surrounded by diminutive tracts of land under cultivation, not unlike
those that are everywhere visible in northern Mexico.

What impressed us here, as in other parts of Anatolia, was the paucity
of its inhabitants and their total failure to utilize the marvelous
natural resources of the country. Although the area of Asia Minor is
equal to that of France, its population is but one-fifth of that of
the French Republic. And yet the natural resources of the country are
enormous, and if properly conserved would suffice to support several
times its present population. Rich in valuable minerals of all kinds,
its untold treasures of ore are left unmined. Its flora, too, is as
varied as it is valuable. The oak, for instance, counts more varieties
here than in any other part of the world. Fifty-two species occur
in Anatolia, twenty-six of which are not known to exist elsewhere.
But in this part of the world, forestry is an unknown science. Worse
still. Not only is arboriculture practically unknown, but thousands
of valuable trees are every year wantonly destroyed. If the water,
mineral, and forest resources were properly conserved and developed,
Asia Minor would again be as it was in the long ago--one of the most
populous and flourishing regions of the globe.

No country perhaps has seen such a succession of prosperous
states and had such a host of historical reminiscences, under
such distinct eras and such various distributions of territory.
It is memorable in the beginning of history for its barbarian
kings and nobles whose names stand as commonplaces and proverbs
of wealth and luxury. The magnificence of Pelops imparts lustre
even to the brilliant dreams of the mythologist. The name of
Crœsus, King of Lydia ... goes as a proverb for his enormous
riches. Midas, King of Phrygia, had such abundance of the
precious metals that he was said by the poets to have the power
of turning whatever he touched into gold. The tomb of Mausolus,
King of Caria, was one of the seven wonders of the world.[190]

But as it is now, this country, once so famed for its wealth and its
splendid cities, for its “powerful and opulent kingdoms, Greek or
Barbarian, of Pontus and Bithynia and Pergamus--Pergamus[191] with its
two hundred thousand choice volumes”--is so poor and neglected that
its people frequently suffer from famine and from all the miseries
consequent on improvidence and failure to utilize the vast treasures
within their reach. It is to be hoped that the advent of the railroad
and the introduction of irrigation and the promised establishment of
an efficient forestry will ere long materially improve the present
sad economic condition of the country, and that fair Anatolia will
once more be covered, as of yore, with flourishing marts of commerce
and magnificent cities where there are now crumbling columns of Greek
temples and scattered fragments of Roman palaces and amphitheaters--a
veritable “sepulchre of the past.”

The plain which we now traversed was for a considerable distance
gravelly land, alternately marshy and dry and not infrequently very
saline. Rocks of a volcanic character were often visible. There
were little evidences of life except here and there long droves of
heavily burdened donkeys and camels and occasional flocks and herds of
wandering Turkomans.

Trains of camels in the deserts of Asia and Africa have always had a
peculiar fascination for me. Like the llama trains of the Peruvian and
Bolivian Andes they seem to be specially adapted to their environment
and to the work which they are called upon to perform. Before the
invention of the steam engine both, in their sphere, were all but
indispensable--the sure-footed llama on dizzy mountain heights, the
thirst-resisting camel in torrid, interminable deserts. Even since the
appearance of the locomotive these useful animals are apparently as
much in demand as ever. For, in addition to transporting merchandise,
as formerly, where railroads do not exist, they are still in constant
use in delivering goods to such roads as are already in operation.

In the region of which I am now speaking, one, at times, sees only
three or four camels at most; at others there are a hundred or more,
all loaded to the limit of endurance. But whenever they appear in the
gray, barren, undulating plain, they, with their drivers, at once
give life and color to the landscape which is else but a dull study
in monochrome. Their leader is usually a dirty, unkempt, diminutive
donkey--in marked contrast to the stately animals that submissively
follow him--which is frequently bestridden by a somnolent Turk wearing
a faded old fez and voluminous red trousers, with his legs reaching
almost to the ground. As the caravan gradually approaches one hears the
jingling of the bells of the light-stepping donkey and the clanging of
the larger bells of the heavy, lurching camel. But we also presently
discover that both donkey and camels are decked with gaudy trappings
adorned with beads and cowrie shells. These, however, are not solely
for ornament, as one might suppose, but rather to avert the evil eye
which, in the Near East, is even more dreaded than it is in any part of
southern Italy.

How the camel carries one back to patriarchal times, to times even when
the domesticated horse was known only in warfare! As a long line of
betasselled camels came near our train one day, they seemed by their
sneers and the lofty manner in which they held up their heads to be
conscious of their ancient lineage and to resent the trespassing by the
Bagdad Railway on what was long their exclusive domain. But to judge by
the general appearance of the country--the old patched tents, the reed
huts, the hovels of unbaked mud, the peculiar garb of the people, the
primitive methods of agriculture, the simple manners and customs of
the people--this part of Anatolia, notwithstanding the advent of the
iron horse, is in almost the same condition as it was when Joseph and
his brethren tended their father’s flocks in the land of Canaan.

If this part of Asia Minor was as arid and desolate in the days of
Godfrey de Bouillon and Barbarossa--and we have no reason to believe it
was materially different--we can easily realize what must have been the
trials and sufferings of the Crusaders during their long march through
“burning Phrygia” and inhospitable Lycaonia. Their route was through a
dry, sterile, and salty desert, a land of tribulation and horror.[192]
It was then, no wonder that, in view of the perils and sufferings
entailed by an inland expedition, the later Crusaders preferred to make
the journey from Europe to the Holy Land by sea.

Terror [writes Michaud] opened to the pilgrims all the passages
of Mount Taurus. Throughout their triumphant march the
Christians had nothing to dread but famine, the heat of the
climate and the badness of the roads. They had particularly much
to suffer in crossing a mountain situated between Coxon and
Marash which their historians denominate, “The Mountain of the
Devil.”[193]

So great, indeed, were the toils and dangers and disasters experienced
by the Crusaders before they reached the Holy City of Jerusalem,
that the brilliant French historian is moved to declare, “If great
national remembrances inspire us with the same enthusiasm, if we
entertain as strong a respect for the memory of our ancestors, the
Conquest of the Holy Land must be for us as glorious and memorable an
epoch as the war of Troy was for the people of Greece.”[194] Again
he avers, “When comparing these two memorable wars and the poetical
masterpieces that have celebrated them, we cannot but think the subject
of the _Jerusalem Delivered_ is more wonderful than that of the
_Iliad_.”[195]

There are several passes through the Taurus, but by far the most
important of them is the famous one long known as the _Pylæ
Ciliciæ_, or Cilician Gates.[196] From time immemorial this
celebrated pass has been the gateway between Syria and Asia Minor,
between southwestern Asia and southeastern Europe. Assyrians, Hittites,
Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Saracens, Crusaders
passed through them. Asurbanipal, Cyrus the Great, and Sapor I led
their armies through their narrow defiles. Cyrus the Younger and
Xenophon pushed their way through them on their way to fateful Cunaxa.
Alexander, Cicero, Harun-al-Rashid led their armies through this narrow
passage. It was also traversed by St. Paul, by hosts of the Crusaders
and by pilgrims innumerable from the earliest ages of the Church.

On our way across the Taurus we followed in the footsteps of Alexander
and the Crusaders as far as the Vale of Bozanti. Here the Bagdad
Railway diverges slightly eastward from the old military and trade
route which passes through the Cilician Gates. As we preferred to
follow the old historic route to passing through nearly eleven miles
of railway tunnels, we left the train at Bozanti Khan and proceeded by
carriage through the Cilician Gates to Tarsus.

We were well repaid for so doing, for we had, in consequence, one of
the most delightful mountain drives in the world. On each side of the
road were towering heights clothed with forests of pine and other
evergreens, while rising far above these was the sky-piercing summit
of Bulgar Dagh covered with a mantle of snow of dazzling whiteness.
Further on our way

_The pass expands_
_Its strong jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,_
_And seems with its accumulated crags,_
_To overhang the world._

And, as if to give life and variety to the majestic scene, we saw
circling the fantastic peaks and hovering above the beetling crags in
quest of prey, a number of great bare-necked vultures, which seemed to
be fully as large as the lammergeier of the Alps and no mean rivals of
the condor of the Andes.

The narrow gorge known as the Cilician Gates answers perfectly to
Cicero’s appellation of Pylæ-Tauri, gateway of the Taurus. And it
corresponds almost equally well with Xenophon’s description of it when
he declares it “but broad enough for a chariot to pass with great
difficulty.” On both sides of the mountain torrent which rushes along
the historic roadway are lofty and almost vertical precipices that
could easily be so fortified as to convert it into a Thermopylæ, where
a handful of men could hold a large army at bay. It was indeed by
fortressing this pass that Mehemet Ali was long able, in defiance of
the power of the Turkish Sultan, to retain control of Syria.

Shortly after emerging from the Pylæ Ciliciæ we catch our first view
of the famed Cilician Plain, the _Cilicia Campestris_, which
occupies so large a page in the history of this part of the world.
Through it we see coursing like silver bands the distant rivers of
familiar names--the Sarus, the Pyramus, and the Cydnus. The road in the
vicinity of the pass is fringed with forests of pine and plane trees,
under whose outstretched branches flows a leaping, laughing, tuneful
stream which is ever making the same gladsome music as it did when St.
Paul passed this way bearing the joyful tidings of the Gospel to the
receptive peoples of Asia Minor. But as we near the plain we note a
marked change in climate. Vegetation is not only more luxuriant but is
almost semi-tropical in character. The road is bordered with laurel,
bay, cedar, evergreen oak, wild fig, and wild olive. There are thickets
of myrtle and oleander draped with wild vines and creepers, which
greatly enhance the picturesqueness of the enchanting scene.

It was along this road, embowered in all the verdure and bloom of a
semi-tropical climate, that the weary and footsore Crusaders passed
after their long and toilsome march through the burning desert of
Phrygia. Now that they had crossed the formidable Taurus, the greatest
barrier athwart their long line of march, and were at last about to
tread the sacred soil of the Holy Land, we can easily imagine the joy
with which they chanted their favorite hymns, the enthusiasm with which
they filled the air with their war cry, _Dieu le veult_. Clad in
polished armor, shining brightly in the Syrian sun, and exultantly
marching under their great banners, they form a magnificent pageant,
worthy of the chivalry of the Ages of Faith and of the noble cause in
which they have magnanimously pledged fortune and life. And as the
Christian host moves onward towards its goal, “one pictures, above
the lines of steel, the English leopards, the lilies of France, the
great sable eagle of the Empire and then the other coats of the great
houses of Europe--chevrons and fesses and pales”--ever triumphantly
approaching the Holy City until at last they are privileged to “plant
above the Holy Sepulchre the banner with the five potent crosses,
argent and or, unearthly, wonderful as should be the arms of the
heavenly Jerusalem.”

Still following in the footsteps of the Crusaders we finally, after
the most delightful of drives, arrived at the old city of Tarsus, the
birthplace of St. Paul the Apostle. This was the first city in which
Baldwin and Bohemond and the Tancred the Brave flew their colors after
crossing the Taurus. We had followed in their footsteps a great part of
the way from the legend-wrapped Bosphorus to the romantic Cydnus--the
Cydnus in which Alexander so imprudently bathed, where Cleopatra met
Anthony and where legend long had it that Barbarossa lost his life. But
the truth of history bids us declare that this great German hero--in
whose footsteps we had so closely followed from his embarkation on the
far-off Danube--perished not in the waters of the Cydnus but in those
of the Calycadnus, several score miles to the northwest of the more
famed Cilician stream. It was then in the Calycadnus--the modern Gieuk
Gu--that “perished the noblest type of German kingship, the Kaiser
Redbeard, of whom history and legend have so much to tell.” The spot
where he met his fate was fabled to have been indicated long ages
before by a rock near the river’s source, which was said to bear the
portentous words _Hic hominum maximus peribit_--here shall perish
the greatest of men.

But although history had declared that the heroic _Römischer
Kaiser_ was no more, his admiring subjects knew better. Like
Charlemagne, Desmond of Kilmallock, Sebastian I of Brazil, Napoleon
Bonaparte, and other worthies,[197] he still lives, but has retired
into strict seclusion till, in the fulness of time, “he shall come
again full twice as fair and rule over his people.” According to one
legend the monarch is fast asleep in the castle of Bordenstein, or
in the vaults of the old palace of Kaiserslautern. But according to
another legend, he is held by enchanted slumber under the Kyffhauser
mountain. All, however, agree that he sits

_Taciturn, sombre, sedate and grave_,

before a stone table “through which his fiery-red beard has grown
nearly to the floor, or around which it has coiled itself nearly three
times.” Here, like King Arthur, of whom it is written, “_Arturus rex
quondam rexque futurus_,” he rests until

_In some dark day when Germany_
_Hath need of warriors such as he,_
_A voice to tell of her distress_
_Shall pierce the mountain’s deep recess--_
_Shall ring through the dim vaults and scare_
_The spectral ravens round his chair,_
_And from his trance the sleeper wake._
_The solid mountain shall dispart,_
_The granite slab in splinters start,_
_(Responsive to those accents weird)_
_And loose the Kaiser’s shaggy beard._
_Through all the startled air shall rise_
_The old Teutonic battle cries;_
_The horns of war that once could stir_
_The wild blood of the Berserker,_
_Shall fling their blare abroad, and then_
_The champion of his own Almain,_
_Shall Barbarossa come again._

CHAPTER IX

IN HISTORIC CILICIA CAMPESTRIS

_Domes, minarets, their spiry heads that rear,_
_Mocking with gaudy hues the ruins near;_
_Dim crumbling colonnades and marble walls,_
_Rich columns, broken statutes, roofless halls;_
_Beauty, deformity, together thrown,_
_A maze of ruins, date, design unknown--_
_Such is the scene, the conquest Time hath won._
NICOLAS MICHEL.

It is doubtful whether, in any part of the world, more history has been
condensed in less area than in the picturesque region formerly called
Cilicia. Roughly speaking, it comprised the triangle bordered by the
Mediterranean and the lofty ranges of the Taurus and Amanus Mountains.
Its rich alluvial plains, watered by the celebrated Cydnus and Pyramus,
Sarus, and Pinarus, early attracted a large population, who found there
not only a mild and serene climate but also a soil that yielded in
rare abundance the plants and fruits most useful to their sustenance
and comfort. But, although the economical value of the Cilician
Plain--called by Strabo _Cilicia Campestris_--was great, it was
rather the political and military importance of this country that made
it the prize of contending nations from the earliest dawn of history.

In the days when Hittite and Assyrian fiercely contended for universal
empire--long

_Ere Rome was built or smiled fair Athen’s charms_

it was the highway between Asia Minor and Mesopotamia. It was the
royal road between Persia and Greece on which was heard the martial
tread of the armies of Xerxes, Cyrus, and Alexander. Rameses II--the
Napoleon of Egypt--and Asurbanipal--the Napoleon of Assyria--led
their victorious hosts along this road and, like the warriors who
had preceded them, found subsistence for their men in the fertile
valleys of the Pyramus and the Cydnus. It was also a field of frequent
sanguinary conflicts during the days of Pompey and Cicero, of Mark
Anthony and Zenobia, the rarely gifted but ill-fated “Queen of the
East.” It was a continued arena of strife during protracted wars
between the Byzantine Emperors and the Sassanian Kings, between the
Osmanlis and Timur and Jenghiz Khan, and, in recent times, between the
Sultan of Constantinople and his ambitious and rebellious viceroy,
Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt.

Three of the decisive battles of the world war were fought on the
Cilician Plain. It was on the banks of the Pinarus that Alexander won
his memorable victory over Darius--a victory that gave the irresistible
Macedonian the control of the vast region between the Mediterranean and
the Euphrates and paved the way for the brilliant triumph at Arbela,
which made him the master of the world’s greatest continent. It was
here that more than five hundred years later Septimus Severus crushed
his rival Pescennius Niger, when “the troops of Europe asserted their
usual ascendant over the effeminate natives of Asia.” And it was on
this same historic spot that Heraclius defeated Chosroes and once more,
in a most signal manner, showed the superiority of the West over the
East.

But in addition to its celebrity as the theater of contests for world
supremacy, Cilicia, like so many other regions we have described in the
preceding pages, is noted as a field of romance, of myths, and legends
innumerable.

Among the strange romances that still await the pen of novelist and
historian is that connected with the extraordinary life and deeds of
the Turkoman freebooter, Kutchuk Ali Uglu, who a century ago had his
stronghold in the mountain fastnesses near Issus. Here, during forty
years, he openly defied the authority of the Porte and the Great
Powers of Europe. With the audacity of a Fra Diavolo and the cruelty
and relentlessness of a Barbary corsair he ravaged the surrounding
country and plundered traveling merchants and the grand annual caravan
of pilgrims from Constantinople to Mecca whenever they came within his
reach.

I am not [he was wont to say] as other Darah Beys are--fellows
without faith, who allow their men to stop travellers on the
King’s highway;--I am content with what God sends me. I await
his good pleasure, and--_Alhumlillah_--God be praised--He
never leaves me long in want of anything.[198]

Among some of the most daring performances of this desperado was the
seizure of the master of an English vessel with a part of its crew, who
were cast into prison. A large ransom was demanded for their release,
but before this was forthcoming all but one perished. Strange as it may
now seem, the English government with all its power was never able to
obtain any satisfaction for this atrocious act of violence.

Shortly afterwards, the dauntless robber took possession of a richly
laden French merchantman--which, through ignorance of the locality,
came too near his fortress--and after appropriating its cargo, sank
the vessel and sent the captain and crew to the French Consul at
Alexandretta. Protests against these high-handed proceedings were
made by all the consular authorities at Aleppo, but without avail. To
the vigorous remonstrance of the Dutch Consul, Kutchuk Ali coolly and
blandly replied:

My dear Friend, I am threatened with attacks from the four
quarters of the earth; I am without money; I am without means;
and the ever watchful providence of the Almighty sends me a
vessel laden with merchandise. Say, would you not in my place
lay hold of it, or not?

It was only a few months later that this same consul was arrested
and imprisoned by the audacious freebooter. And, notwithstanding the
cordial friendship which had long existed between the two men, the
ruthless marauder did not liberate his prisoner until he had extorted
from him a very large ransom.

And during the eight months’ incarceration of the hapless consul,
Kutchuk Ali--was it from shame for ill-treating an old friend?--never
once visited his hapless victim or admitted him to his presence. But,
to show the character of this singular brigand, he did not fail,
through his lieutenant, to send to his prisoner words of sympathy and
consolation.

Tell him [the captor said] that unfortunately my coffers were
empty when fate brought him into this territory; but let him
not despair, God is great and mindful of us. Such misfortunes
are inseparable from the fate of men of renown, and from the
lot of all born to fill high stations. Bid him be of good
cheer; a similar doom has twice been mine, and once during nine
months in the condemned cell of Abdul Rahman Pasha; but I never
despaired of God’s mercy, and all came right at last,--_Alla
Karim_--God is bountiful.[199]

When one is told that Kutchuk Ali, during his forty years of a
desperado’s life, never had more than two hundred men, and frequently
a far less number, it seems incredible that he was so long able to
defy not only the Porte but even the greatest powers of Europe. But
we forget that the notorious Calabian bandit, Fra Diavolo, during the
same period and with a much smaller band of outlaws, was wantonly
perpetrating similar atrocities in southern Italy. And it was only a
few generations earlier that the notorious Captain Kidd was roving the
high seas in open defiance of the naval power of the civilized world.

One of the most popular legends in Cilicia is that of the Seven
Sleepers. According to the Christian version they were seven brothers
who fell asleep in a cave near Ephesus during the persecution of
the Emperor Decius, and did not awake until the time of Theodosius
II--nearly two hundred years later. The Mohammedans, however, contend
that the cave in which this preternatural event occurred was about ten
miles northwest of Tarsus. Because of the prominence the Prophet gives
the legend in the Koran, the Cilician cave has become among the Moslems
a favorite place of pilgrimage. Mohammed has, however, elaborated the
story by introducing the dog--Al Rakim--of the Seven Sleepers and
descanting on the care that Allah took of the bodies of the sleepers
during their long, miraculous sleep.[200]

But it is in classical legend and myth that Cilicia is specially
rich. It was near the mouth of the Pyramus, according to Homer, that
Bellerophon, after his fall from Pegasus,

_Forsook by heaven, forsaking humankind,_
_Wide o’er the Aleian field he chose to stray,_
_A long, forlorn, uncomfortable way._

Mopsuestia, which was formerly one of the largest and most flourishing
cities of Cilicia, was fabled to have been founded during the Trojan
war by Mopsus, the son of Manto and Apollo, while Adana, the most
important commercial center on the Sarus and the Bagdad Railway, owes
its name, legend has it, to Adam, its fabulous founder.

A notable feature of the history of Cilicia is the number of crowned
heads who died or found their last resting place within its borders.
Constantius, the son of Constantine, died of fever at Mopsucrene,
near Tarsus, while marching against his nephew and rival, Julian the
Apostate. It was to Tarsus that the embalmed body of the Apostate
Emperor, who had been transfixed by a Persian javelin beyond the
Tigris, was brought for burial. It was in Tarsus that Maximinus, the
last of the great persecutors of the Church, preceding Constantine the
Great, died in the greatest agony of a frightful disease--a visitation,
according to many, for his barbarous persecutions of the Christians and
for his horrible blasphemies against their Lord and Savior. It was, we
are informed by Strabo, at Anchiale, the port of Tarsus, where were
entombed the mortal remains of the celebrated Assyrian ruler known to
the Greeks as Sardanapalus. On his monument was a stone statue beneath
which was the famous epitaph--attributed to the Assyrian monarch
himself--which, as rendered by Byron in his tragedy “Sardanapalus,” ran:

_Sardanapalus,_
_The King and son of Ancyndaraxes_
_In one day built Anchiale and Tarsus._
_Eat, drink and love; the rest’s not worth a fillip._[201]

Asurbanipal, according to this inscription which was supposed to
express in a few words the guiding principles of this life, evidently
belonged to that class of Europeans who are seemingly becoming daily
more numerous of whom the poet speaks in the words:

_Esse aliquos manes et subterranea regna_
_Vix pueri credunt._[202]

The population of Cilicia, as might be expected from its having been
from time immemorial the great arena of the nations of the Orient and
the Occident, has always been of the most cosmopolitan character. In
ancient times Medes and Persians, Assyrians and Babylonians, Scythians
and Hittites foregathered here, sometimes bent on the purpose of
commerce but more frequently on the prosecution of war and conquest.
To-day we find here Syrians and Arabians, Greeks and Armenians, Kurds
and Ansaryii, Turkomans and Osmanlis, and representatives from divers
parts of Africa and Europe. Was it this heterogeneous character of the
Cilicians which gave rise to their widespread reputation for perfidy
and untruthfulness and that led to the proverb _Cilix haud facile
verum dicet_?

Knowing the complex character of its inhabitants, one is not surprised
to learn that the gods and idols of the Cilicians were as manifold
as the people themselves and that their worship exhibited all the
promiscuity of the divers nations from whence they came. Baal and
Astarte, Isis, Ishtar, and Osiris had their altars alongside those of
Mars and Mercury, Zeus and Aphrodite. There was, indeed, a time--just
before the advent of the world’s Redeemer--when it could be said that
Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia, was, in very truth, the pantheon of
paganism.

During the zenith of its glory, Cilicia was one of the most densely
populated countries in the world. But it has long since so fallen from
its high estate that, like the lands of the Nile and the Euphrates, it
is a region of ruins. So great indeed have been the ravages of time
and warring mortals that “ruins of cities, evidently of an age after
Alexander, yet barely named in history, at this day, astonish the
adventurous traveler by their magnificence and elegance.”[203]

Mopsuestia, which once counted two hundred thousand inhabitants, was
an archbishopric and for a time the capital of the Kingdom of Lesser
Armenia, now numbers less than a thousand. Anazarbas, which was the
home of the poet Oppian and Dioscorides who, “during fifteen centuries
was an undisputed authority in botany and _materia medica_, has
long since been level with the ground.” Nor is this all. Of many places
mentioned by Cicero, when he was proconsul of Cilicia, even the sites
are unknown.

Because of the strong appeal made by its legendary and historic lore we
lingered longer in Tarsus than in any other spot in the Cilician plain.
Like many other places we visited during our journey, Tarsus is as rich
in myth and legend as it is in literary and historical associations.
According to one myth, Tarsus was founded by Perseus, the son of
Jupiter and Danæ, while on his fabled expedition against the Gorgons.
Another has it that the city was so named because Pegasus, the winged
horse of Olympus, dropped there one of his pinions.[204] Josephus,
however, identifies it with the Tarshish of the Old Testament, whence
the ships of Hiram and Solomon brought their treasures of tin, silver,
and gold.[205]

From an inscription on the Black Obelisk of Salmanasar II, we learn
that Tarsus was captured by the Assyrians under Salmanasar about the
middle of the ninth century, B. C. It was thus in existence several
centuries before the mythical Romulus and Remus erected on the
Capitoline their sanctuary for homicides and runaway slaves, and its
foundation was probably laid before the legendary introduction into
Greece of the Phœnician alphabet by Cadmus when he went in quest of
Europa.

Centuries passed by and Tarsus became a great and flourishing
center of commerce and literary activity. While Paris--_La Ville
Lumière_--was as yet only a collection of mud huts on a little
island in the Seine, inhabited by the Gallic Parisii, and London was
but “a thick wood fortified with a ditch and rampart”[206] and occupied
by half-savage, woad-stained Britons, Tarsus ranked as a center of
Greek thought and knowledge with the world-famed cities, Athens and
Alexandria.[207] Its schools and lecture rooms were frequented by vast
numbers of students from far and near, while its agora and gymnasium,
as in Athens in the days of Socrates, drew large concourses of people,
young and old, who assembled to discuss not only the current news of
the day, but also questions of literature, science, and philosophy.

Although famed throughout the Roman Empire as a _civitas libera et
mimunis_--a capital and a free city--and as a great emporium of
eastern trade, its proudest boast was that it was a city of schools and
scholars. Here were found poets and orators of marked eminence. Here
were philosophers of many schools, Stoics and Peripatetics, Platonists
and Epicureans--all with their enthusiastic followers and all seriously
discussing the same problems which have engaged the attention of
thoughtful men from their time to our own.

In the long list of men produced by Tarsus, or who added luster to its
name as teacher of students, were the two Athenodori, one of whom had
been the tutor of Julius Cæsar and the other the friend of Cato and the
instructor of Augustus. These were Stoics. Among the Academicians was
Nestor, who was the preceptor of Marcellus, the son of Octavia, sister
of Augustus. Other eminent men of Tarsus, mentioned by Strabo, were the
philosophers, Archimedes and Antipater, the latter of whom was highly
praised by Cicero, and who, next to Zeno, was considered as the most
eminent of the Stoics. There were also Strabo, the great geographer,
the grammarians Diodorus and Artemidorus, and the poets Dionysides and
Aratus, from whose poem, “Phænomena,” St. Paul quoted the pregnant
words, “For we too are His offspring,” in his epochal address to the
Athenians on the Areopagus.

According to Strabo, Rome was full of learned men from Tarsus, in whose
schools, as has been well said, was taught in its completeness the
whole circle of instruction, the systematic course from which we get
our word “encyclopædia.”[208]

But the flowering of so many ages of preparation in philosophy and
religion was the great “Apostle of the Gentiles.” The selection of his
birthplace seems to have been providential. Sir William Ramsay is so
convinced of this that he writes “that it was the one suitable place
that has been borne in on the present writer during long study of the
conditions of society and geographical environment of the Cilician
lands and cities.... Its peculiar suitability to educate and mould the
mind of him who should in due time make the religion of the Jewish
race intelligible to the Græco-Roman world, and raise that world up
to the moral level of the Hebrew people and the spiritual level of
ability to sympathize with the Hebrew religion in its perfected stage,
lay in the fact that Tarsus was the city whose institutions best and
most completely united the oriental and the western character.... Not
that even in Tarsus the union was perfect; that was impossible so long
as the religion of the two elements were inharmonious and mutually
hostile. But the Tarsian state was more successful than any of the
other of the great cities of that time in producing an amalgamated
society, in which the oriental and the occidental spirit in union
attained in some degree to a higher plain of thought and action.
In others the Greek spirit, which was always anti-Semitic, was too
strong and too resolutely bent on attaining supremacy and crushing
out all opposition. In Tarsus the Greek qualities and powers were
used and guided by a society which was on the whole more Asiatic in
character.”[209]

In Tarsus the future apostle came into close contact with the greatest
teachers and scholars of his time, and was thus prepared to enter the
intellectual arena with the keenest minds of Greece and Rome. Being,
as he could proudly boast, “a Roman of no mean city,” as well as a
disciple of Gamaliel, one of the seven wise men of the Jews, he was
peculiarly fitted to preach the truths of the Gospel not only to his
own people but also to the much greater world of the Gentiles.

Never was a more important or a more far-reaching mission entrusted
to mortal man. It is not too much to say that no one of his time was
better equipped for it than the tent maker of Tarsus. Wherever he
could secure a hearing for his marvelous message he was sure to go--to
the synagogue, to the agora, to the courts of governors and consuls.
Learned in the Law and the Prophets, he was a match for the ablest
teachers of Israel. Familiar with the literature and philosophy of
the pagan world, he spoke as one having authority before the “Men
of Athens” and the representatives of the Cæsars. Thanks to the
opportunities which he enjoyed in his youth of associating with the
wise and learned men of Tarsus and to his thorough acquaintance with
the highest forms of Greek culture, he was able, through his quick
intelligence and his ardent love of souls, “to recognize and sympathize
with the strivings of those who, living in the times of ignorance, were
yet seeking after God, ‘if haply they might feel after Him and find
Him,’ and to read in their aspirations after a higher life the work of
the law written in the hearts of all men.”[210]

As one wanders through the narrow and squalid streets of modern
Tarsus--a city of less than twenty thousand inhabitants--one finds
no vestige whatever of its former splendor. But few ruins remain,
the most conspicuous of which is the concrete foundation of a Roman
structure popularly regarded as the tomb of the cynical voluptuary,
Sardanapalus. No tradition indicates the house of the Apostle of the
Gentiles or points to any church dedicated to his memory. The banks of
the silt-filled Cydnus are lonely and desolate. Owing to the neglected
condition of the river channel, no white-winged ships are here
visible, as of yore, laden with the treasures of foreign lands. And
yet it was up this now abandoned stream that Cleopatra sailed in her
gorgeous barge when she came to answer the challenge of Mark Anthony.
How, by her surpassing address, she led captive the great triumvir is
admirably described by Shakespeare, who, following Plutarch, paints
the famous picture of her entrance into Tarsus, which was then in the
dazzling splendor of oriental magnificence:

_The barge she sat in, like a burnisht throne,_
_Burnt on the water; the poop was beaten gold,_
_Purple the sails and so perfumed that_
_The winds were love-sick._
_With them the oars were silver,_
_Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke_
_And made the water which they beat, to follow faster,_
_As amorous of their strokes. For her own person_
_It beggared all description, she did lie_
_In her pavilion, cloth of gold, of tissue,_
_O’erpicturing that Venus, where we see_
_The fancy outwork nature. On each side her_
_Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,_
_With divers-colored fans whose wind did seem,_
_To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,_
_And what they undid did._

The old capital of Cilicia is, of truth, a city of a wonderful historic
past. But among all her proud memories those which have made her best
known throughout the ages and which will endure the longest are not
those of her abounding wealth and luxury, her superb monuments and
palaces and temples, long in ruins; not those that clustered around her
poets and philosophers and made her a favored sanctuary of the Muses;
not those of her schools and gymnasia and her one-time eminence as the
rival of Athens and Alexandria as the home of learning and culture; not
those of Persian satraps and Roman proconsuls who here lived as the
famed representatives of imperial authority; not those awakened by the
presence within her gates of an Asurbanipal, an Alexander, or a Cicero;
not those associated with the love-enmeshed Mark Anthony and the
fateful “Siren of the Nile,” who both perished the ignoble victims of
a debasing passion and a foiled ambition. No; that which has rendered
her immortal is that she was the birthplace of a poor tent maker who
was disowned by his own family because he became the bond servant of
the Crucified, to whom he bore witness from Jerusalem to Rome; of one
who, while preaching the good tidings of the Gospel, toiled night
and day lest he should “be chargeable to any one”; one who, while
preaching the Kingdom of God, was accused by the Thessalonian Jews of
“turning the world upside down”;[211] one who, during his long and
fruitful apostolate and his almost superhuman labors in the service
of his Master, gloried in persecution and was the frequent victim of
stripes and chains and imprisonment; one who was the fearless teacher
and the strong supporter of the infant Church, and whose matchless
Epistles have, during nineteen centuries, been the guide of doctors
and professors; one who wrote his own epitaph when he declared “To me
to live is Christ, and to die is gain,” and who, in the capital of the
Cæsars, won an Apostle’s exceeding great reward--a martyr’s crown; one
whom his contemporaries knew as Saul, otherwise Paul,[212] of Tarsus.

While in Cilicia I made a special effort to ascertain the truth
regarding the Armenian massacre that so stirred Europe and America to
horror in 1909. I had long been convinced that most of the reports
circulated respecting Turkish atrocities in Cilicia, like the reports
disseminated throughout the world regarding other similar atrocities
so frequently ascribed to the Turks, were _ex parte_ accounts
of what had actually occurred and that most, if not all, of them
were greatly exaggerated. And recalling the activities since 1885 of
Armenian revolutionists, many of them inspired by Russian Nihilist
propaganda, the conviction grew that in probably the majority of
massacres in Asia Minor, as well as in that of Constantinople in
1896, “the Armenian revolutionaries, by their riotous action, had put
themselves and their innocent countrymen outside the law.” As the
result of my investigations I am now satisfied that my previous views
were not without foundation.

The massacre in Cilicia--organized, it was averred, by the Moslem Jews
of Salonica--surpassed in frightfulness any that had taken place during
Abdul-Hamid’s long and troubled reign. When, therefore, one understands
the origin of the Cilician massacre, one may safely conjecture the
cause of most, if not all, of the others in Turkey which have so
shocked the world during the last four decades.

But, in a matter of such import as the one under consideration, I
prefer to give the views of those who visited Cilicia when the terrors
of the great massacre in Adana were still fresh in the memory of
everyone, or who by long residence in Armenia are well acquainted with
its people and are thoroughly familiar with the measures to which
Armenians resort in order to achieve their independence of the Ottoman
Empire.

Many influences [writes an English traveler who had exceptional
opportunities for studying the question and who is well disposed
towards the Armenians] went to the making of the (Cilician)
massacre, some more or less, obscure, as the part taken in
planning it by the Turkish Jews of Salonika and others belonging
to the deeper causes of faith and race which ever underlie
these horrible affairs. But some were local and exhibited the
inconceivable unwisdom which Armenians so often display in their
larger dealings with Moslems.

Cilicia [known during the Crusades as Lesser Armenia] is
a district closely connected with Armenian history and
independence; and here, in the sudden period of liberty
which followed the downfall of Abdul-Hamid, Armenians gave
unrestrained vent to their aspirations. Their clubs and
meeting-places were loud with boastings of what was soon to
follow. Post cards were printed showing a map of the future
Armenian kingdom of Cilicia and circulated through the Ottoman
post. Armenian nationalists marched in procession in the streets
bearing flags purporting to be the flag of Lesser Armenia come
to life again. The name of the future king was bandied about,
no aloof nebulous personage, but, it is said, a well-known
Armenian land owner of the Cilician plain, held in peculiar
disfavor by the Moslems. Giving a fuller meaning to these
matters was the steady assertion that an Armenian army gathering
in the mountains by Hajin and Zeitun--an army of rumor like the
legendary Royalist Army of Jales which terrorized revolutionary
France--would presently march upon Adana and set up an Armenian
kingdom again.

Sober Armenians of Cilicia tell you now that these proceedings
were folly, the work of revolutionary societies and hot-heads
and that the mass of the Armenian population held aloof. But
there can be no doubt that the movement was approved and
supported by many, and intended to involve the whole race;
that it had in fact, got beyond the control both of those who
desired to go more slowly and those who disapproved of it
altogether.[213]

What is here said of the hot-brained revolutionaries of Lesser Armenia
can with even greater truth be affirmed of their seditious compatriots
of Greater Armenia. For those who know them best do not hesitate to
declare that their lurid accounts of frequent and inevitably recurrent
atrocities in certain parts of Asia Minor are to be interpreted in the
same way as those which were first published regarding the horrors
of Adana and other towns of Cilicia in 1909, and of Constantinople
in 1896.[214] We get only one-sided reports respecting them, which
reports, if not glaringly exaggerated, are in nearly all instances in
severest condemnation of the “bloodthirsty” Turk.

No one probably has a more accurate knowledge of Turkey and her people
or has made a more thoughtful study of the Armenian Question than has
the noted traveler and Orientalist, David G. Hogarth, sometime fellow
in the University of Oxford. With an experience of several years in
Armenia, he frankly declares, writing of the Armenian Question:

So far as I understand this vexed matter, the source of the
graver trouble is the presence in the heart of Armenia of the
defiant Kurdish race which raids the villages where the flocks
are fattest and the women most fair, now cutting an Armenian’s
throat, now leaguing with him in a war on a hostile tribe and
resisting in common the troops sent up to restore the Sultan’s
peace. Whatever the Kurd does is done for the sake neither of
Crescent nor Cross, for he bears neither one emblem nor the
other in his heart, but just because he is Ishmael, his hand is
against every man who has aught to lose.

The Armenian, for all his ineffaceable nationalism, his
passion for plotting and his fanatical intolerance, would be
a negligible thorn in the Ottoman side did he stand alone ...
but behind the Armenian secret societies--and there are few
Armenians who have not committed technical treason by becoming
members of such societies at some period of their lives--it sees
the Kurd, and behind the Kurd the Russian; or, looking west,
it espies, through the ceaseless sporadic propaganda of the
agitators, Exeter Hall and the Armenian Committees. The Turk
begins to repress because we sympathize and we sympathize the
more because he represses, and so the vicious circle revolves.
Does he habitually, however, do more than repress? Does he, as
administrator, oppress? So far we have heard one version only,
one party to this suit with its stories of outrage and echoing
through them a long cry for national independence. The mouth
of the accused has been shut hitherto by fatalism, by custom,
by the gulf of misunderstanding which is fixed between the
Christian and the Moslem.

If the Kurdish Question could be settled by a vigorous Marshal,
and the Porte secured against irresponsible European support
of sedition, I believe that the Armenians would not have much
more to complain of, like the Athenian allies of old, than the
fact of subjection--a fact, be it noted, of very long standing;
for the Turk rules by right of five hundred years’ possession,
and before his day the Kurd, the Byzantine, the Persian,
the Parthian, the Roman, preceded each other as over-lords
of Greater Armenia to the misty days of the first Tigranes.
The Turk claims certain rights in this matter--the right to
safeguard his own existence, the right to smoke out such
hornets’ nests as Zeitun which has annihilated for centuries
past the trade of the Eastern Taurus, the right to remain
dominant by all means not outrageous.

I see no question at issue but this of outrage. For the rest
there is but academic sympathy with aspiring nationalisms or
subject religion, sympathy not over cogent in the mouths of
those who have won and kept so much of the world as we: Arria
must draw the dagger reeking from her own breast before she can
hand it with any conviction to Pætus.[215]

To speak in this fashion of the Armenians is more painful to me than
I can express. From my youth I have sympathized with them in their
great sufferings and, like most other people who depended on one-sided
information, I attributed all their misfortunes to the much maligned
and much calumniated Turks. Were the Armenians raided and maltreated
by the lawless and murderous Kurds, who have been responsible for the
greater part of the crimes which have been imputed to the Osmanlis?
A sensational report was at once flashed over the world of a great
massacre in Asia Minor perpetrated by the fanatical and fiendish Turk.
Were they victims of Russian intrigue and aggression, driven from
their homes and forcibly separated from their families? Again it was
the Turk that was at the bottom of it all. Did they suffer reprisals
for seditious outbreaks of plotting Huntchagists and revolutionary
Armenians of foreign extraction? Still again the hue and cry was raised
in Europe and America that the soulless Turk, always the Turk, only the
Turk, was the guilty one. Armenian agitators, Armenian jacks-in-office,
Armenian revolutionary committees provoking the Turks to retaliate
on their offenders in order to force the intervention of the Great
Powers[216]--these political mischief-makers go scot-free while the
ever vilified Osmanli is pilloried before the world as a monster of
iniquity and a demon incarnate.

The Anatolian Halil Halid, who was born and bred in Asia Minor and
who spent many years in England, commenting on the matters under
consideration, pertinently asks, “Did the humanitarian British public
know these things? No; it does not care to know anything which
might be favorable to the Turks. Have the political journals of this
country--Britain--mentioned the facts I have stated? Of course not,
because--to speak plainly--they know that in the Armenian pie there
were the fingers of some of their own politicians.”[217] And those
that are well informed know the reason of Britain’s attitude toward
Turkey, for they know that “since 1829, when the Greeks obtained their
independence, England’s Near East policy has been remorselessly aimed
at the demolition of the Turkish Empire and the destruction of Ottoman
sovereignty.”

Does France, the first nation of Europe to form an alliance with the
sublime Porte, know these things? She does, but, at the present time,
it suits her purpose to feign ignorance of them and to follow the
policy of England in her dealings with those whom she has professed
to be her friends and allies since the days of Francis I. With a
volte-face worthy of a politician she does not even allow a favorite
Academician, Pierre Loti--who knows the Turks better probably than any
man in France--to make a statement in their favor, without censoring
it, for fear he will reflect on the course of the present government.

Does our own country, whose people are supposed to be always on the
side of justice and fair play, know the truth about the Turks and
Armenians in Asia Minor? Not one in a hundred; not one in a thousand.
The reason is simple. They have heard only one side of the Armenian
question, and, in most cases, are quite unwilling even to hear anything
to the advantage of the long-defamed Turks. With most of our people
the case of the Turks has been prejudged and thrown out of court. And
when one who has made a thorough study of conditions in Asia Minor
writes that “the most part of the peasantry are men of peace, needing
no military force to coerce them, giving little occasion to the scanty
police and observing a _Pax Anatolica_ for religion’s sake,”[218]
he gives most of our people, who should have an open mind, a distinct
shock, but does not change in the least their life-long prejudices.
And when the same well-informed writer declares that “Aliens, Greek,
Armenian, Circassian thrust him”--the Turk--“on one side and take his
little parcel of land by fraud or force”[219] he is suspected of being
a special pleader and his testimony is rejected as worthless.

But it may be said that I too am a special pleader for the Turk.
Nothing is farther from my intention. My sole desire is to make
known the truth as I have found it, and I have found that it is not
all on the side of the Armenians. “The Turk’s patience is almost
inexhaustible, but when you attack his women and children his anger
is aroused and nothing on earth can control it.”[220] Then, like
all other races of mankind, when stirred by religious or political
fanaticism or goaded on by domestic sedition and foreign intrigue, the
Turks also resort to reprisals and massacres that startle the world.
It may, however, be questioned whether in all their history the Turks
have perpetrated such refined atrocities as characterized the Reign of
Terror in France, Russia dragonades in Poland, Serbian and Bulgarian
savagery in the Balkans, unprovoked deeds of violence instigated by
Armenian revolutionists in Asia Minor. But of all the people involved
in these unspeakable outrages the Turk is the only one who is not
pardoned. Why not? He has never been granted a fair hearing before the
great tribunal of humanity.

From the foregoing it is evident that the Armenian Question will not be
settled so long as Armenian agitators are allowed to sow with impunity
the seeds of sedition in Asia Minor, or so long as they are abetted by
European nations whose manifest goal is the partition of the Turkish
Empire.[221] It is also evident that, so long as present conditions
persist, sporadic massacres like those provoked by the Armenians in
Cilicia and Constantinople are inevitable. These conditions involve
also the greater and more important Turkish Question, or, speaking
broadly, the Mussulman Question. The Great Powers cannot, without grave
consequences, treat Turkey as a pariah nation. This the ever-increasing
number of adherents of the Prophet will not tolerate. The two hundred
millions of the Faithful are, be it remembered, the chief factors
in the Near Eastern Question, which can never be settled so long as
the Moslems are not accorded fair play in the arena of nations. The
present schemes of exploitation and conquest in Mohammedan lands now
being executed by the Great Powers can, in the long run, have but
one result--and that in spite of all peace treaties and leagues of
nations--the result of still farther separating the Cross and the
Crescent and of strengthening the barriers that have existed between
the East and the West since Greek battled with Trojan on the Plain of
Troy.

As we wandered through the suburbs of Tarsus, made fragrant by the
inviting gardens and orchards of lemon and orange, we were deeply
impressed with the possibilities of the exceptionally rich alluvial
soil of the Cilician Plain. Having all the fertility of the Nile it
should, if drained, irrigated, and scientifically farmed, sustain a
population even greater than that which inhabited it in the days of
Pompey and Trajan. In soil and climate it is as favorable for the
production of cotton and sugar cane as Texas or Louisiana, while in
cereals and fruits of many kinds it yields as large crops as the most
favored districts of France or Germany.

But irrigation is needed near the foothills of the surrounding
mountains and adequate drainage is required near the mouths of the four
chief rivers that bring fertility to the plain. For, as it is now, a
great part of the land bordering the Mediterranean is covered with
swamps like that described by Ovid in his beautiful story of Philemon
and Baucis:

_Haud procul hinc stagnum, tellus habitabilis olim,_
_Nunc celebres mergis fulicisque palustribus undæ._[222]

During the past few decades a great change has been made for the
better, as is attested by the large number of American agricultural
implements which are now found throughout the plain and the hundreds
of ginning machines, looms, and thousands of spindles--mostly from
England--which are seen in the cotton factories of Tarsus and Adana.
But, although a great advance has been made over the condition
which obtained a third of a century ago, there is yet vast room for
improvement. When the Ottoman Government shall awaken to the necessity
of conserving its natural resources, when it shall systematically
reforest the territory whose once precious woodlands have been so sadly
despoiled, and shall duly drain the vast swamps which have been formed
by the neglect of its treasure-giving rivers, _Cilicia Campestris_
will again be worthy of the name which legend tells us it once
bore--Garden of Eden.

As it is now, the whole extent of Cilicia from the Taurus to the Amanus
and from the mouth of the Cydnus to the headwaters of the Pyramus
is chiefly remarkable for ruins of cities and the sites of towns
whose very names are forgotten. Everywhere on the plain and on the
girdling foothills, one will see crumbling fortresses built by Genoese
and Venetians; moss-covered strongholds of Saracens and Crusaders;
Corinthian columns and marble colonnades, arches, and vaulted roofs
of Christian churches; reminders of mediæval warfare and of days when
this historic land was swept by inundations of barbarian hordes, who
destroyed by fire and sword the arts and labors which were once the
pride of western Asia. Everywhere one observes fragmentary remains of
Roman bridges and arches, of aqueducts and causeways, of Greek altars
attributed to Alexander to commemorate his victory over the Persians;
dilapidated walls and towers and sepulchral grottoes with an occasional
Greek or Arabic inscription to mark the sites of Corycus, Pompeiopolis,
and Anazarba--those cities of renown, where their inhabitants could
quietly rest under their vines and fig trees free from the incursions
of predatory Cliteans and Tibareni and barbarians of Hun and Scithian
savagery, who spread terror and devastation wherever they could gratify
their lust of cruelty or plunder. It was the boast of the Mongols that
so complete was their work of “extirpation and erasure” of certain
cities, where they had wreaked their full fury of rapine and murder,
“that horses might run without stumbling over the ground where they had
once stood.”[223] Judging by the calamities that have been inflicted
on the once populous cities of Cilicia one would say that they were,
in the expressive words of St. Prosper of Aquitaine, _depredatione
vastatœ_--ravaged by depredations as ruthless as those that ever
characterized the frightful irruptions of Timur or Jenghiz Khan.

This indiscriminate destruction of centers of culture and marts of
commerce is often attributed to the Turks. But, as we have already
seen, the Turks--I refer especially to the Osmanlis--who have been the
rulers of the Ottoman Empire for more than five hundred years, were
not like the Mongols and Tartars, a nation of raiders, but a nation of
colonizers and empire builders. Their object, therefore, was not to
destroy but to construct and develop. Those who make this charge, which
is in great measure gratuitous, forget the wholesale destruction of
the hordes of Timur and Jenghiz Khan, not to speak of other raiders,
and lose sight of the fact that some of the most famous cities of the
East were reduced to ashes by the armies of Greece and Rome more than
a thousand years before the appearance of the armies of the Ottoman
conquerors in Syria, Greece, and Ionia. Thus, to mention only a few
instances, it was Alexander the Great who destroyed Halicarnasus,
the birthplace of the historians Herodotus and Dionysius. Here stood
the magnificent tomb of Mausolus, classed by the ancients among the
seven wonders of the world, the ruins of which were in 1402 used by
the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem as a quarry for building their
castles. It was the Roman general Mummius who brought ruin to the
famous city of Corinth. This was, in truth, rebuilt by Julius Cæsar,
but only to be destroyed again, at a much later period, by the Greeks
themselves. It was the Emperor Aurelian who doomed to destruction
Palmyra, the magnificent capital of Zenobia, almost during the heyday
of its architectural splendor and commercial prosperity. It was the
Goths who demolished the temple of Diana at Ephesus, another of the
world’s wonders, while the city itself was in ruins even before the
advent of the devastating Timur. But it was Timur who razed Sardis, the
capital of Crœsus, whose name has ever been a synonym of untold wealth.
It was Malik al-Ashraf, ruler of Egypt and Syria, who destroyed the
famed city of Tyre after its long and eventful history which antedated
the reigns of Hiram and Solomon.

Moreover, for thousands of years before the advent of the Osmanlis
in western Asia there was at work an agency of destruction that is
usually quite disregarded by those who are so propense to impute to the
“Unspeakable Turk” the heaps of ruins which overspread a large part
of the great Ottoman Empire--an agency whose power of annihilation is
incomparably greater than ever was that of Hun or Mongol. This is the
earthquake. From the dawn of history this irresistible power has been
in action in nearly all the countries bordering the Mediterranean,
and has, times without number, exhibited its relentless fury from
Cilicia to Sicily and from Egypt to Dalmatia. In Palestine, Syria,
Asia Minor,[224] and Greece whole cities were subverted. In the reign
of Valens and Valentinian the greater part of the Roman world was
shaken by seismic disturbances of the most appalling violence. Time and
again the massive walls of Constantinople, its palaces, churches, and
monasteries crumbled under the earth’s paroxysmal movements, and the
extent of the disaster inflicted was beyond computation. At Cyzicus
a temple which its builders fondly hoped would be as stable and as
durable as the pyramids was, in an instant, leveled with the ground by
one of those periodical earth shocks that have visited Asia Minor from
time immemorial.

In the destructive earthquake of 365 A. D., no fewer than fifty
thousand persons lost their lives in Alexandria. But probably no city
in the world has suffered more from seismic vibrations than Antioch,
which is near the southern border of Cilicia. Here in the terrific
earthquake of 526 A. D., the loss of life totaled a full quarter of a
million people. During the celebration of a public festival in Greece,
at which a vast multitude had assembled, “the whole population was
swallowed up in the midst of the ceremonies.” It was during this period
of widespread catastrophe in Greece that “the ravages of earthquakes
began to figure in history as an important cause of the impoverished
and declining condition of the country.”[225]

The same causes that led to the economic and social decline of Greece
operated with equally dire results in Asia Minor and Syria and
Palestine. When, therefore, we contemplate the countless ruins of
once famous cities, that are so conspicuous in a great part of Greece
and Turkey in Asia, let us assign them to their real causes--not “the
ravaging Turks,” but the devastating Huns and Goths, Tartars and
Mongols, Persians and Saracens, and the blind and convulsive forces of
nature.

It is far from my purpose to excuse the Osmanlis from any of the
crimes they have perpetrated against civilization. But the foregoing
paragraphs evince that their part in the destruction of the proud
cities and monuments--magnificent centers of culture and commerce--of
the ancient world has been greatly exaggerated. Their great sin against
humanity, at least for generations past, has been one of omission
rather than commission.[226] It has consisted--I speak of the ruling
classes--in their inefficient government, which has given little or
no encouragement to trade or industry; which has neglected roads and
bridges, making interior communication difficult and often impossible;
which has failed to develop the vast resources of a country to which
a beneficent nature has been rarely prodigal; which has oppressed and
trodden down a laborious and long-suffering peasantry, than which
there is no better in the world; which has failed to provide for the
education of the masses, ever eager for knowledge and improvement;
which has permitted systematic bribery in high places and allowed
crying malfeasance in office to go unpunished; which, by its unexampled
apathy, has been responsible for one of the richest countries in the
world degenerating into one of the most desolate, and for a great mass
of its people--although innocent--becoming the most execrated.

Surely this indictment is damning enough without cumbering it with
counts which are irrelevant or of which the Sultan’s government is
not guilty. But, fortunately for those who are able to read the signs
of the times, there are well-grounded hopes for a change for the
better--for a return to the position among nations which the Ottoman
Empire occupied when its schools and scholars were as famed as were its
achievements on land and sea--when the followers of Osman shall be as
far in the van of civilization as they are now in the rear.

CHAPTER X

ISLAM, PAST AND PRESENT

Properly to appreciate Mohammed we must discard our religious
and national prejudices and see in his work only what he has put
in it, independently of the consequences which this work has
entailed and which may more or less wound us even to-day.
J. BARTHÉLEMY ST. HILAIRÉ.[227]

No one can travel through the Near East with an intelligent
appreciation of the manners and customs of its people without an
accurate knowledge of the religion professed by the majority of them
and an adequate familiarity with the life and times of the one whom
they revere as their Founder and Prophet. The reason is obvious. The
inhabitants--Osmanlis, Arabs, Turkomans--of this part of the once great
Ottoman Empire have so long lived under the theocracy established by
Mohammed and his successors that every detail of their religion and
civil life is regulated for them with a thoroughness that, outside
of Islam, is quite unknown. The Sultan as well as the Mollah is
both a religious and a civil functionary, and theocratic government
prevails everywhere from the palace of the Padishah on the Bosphorus
to the tent of the Bedouin in the Syrian and Arabian Deserts. What is
not prescribed by the Koran is ordered by the Hadith, that body of
legislative traditions which is based on the reputed sayings or acts
of the Prophet of Mecca, and which, in the eyes of loyal adherents of
Islam, has the force of prescriptions emanating directly or indirectly
from Allah, and which are, consequently, immutable.

It is evident, therefore, that one who is ignorant of the history of
Islam will not only seriously misunderstand the people of Moslem
countries but will also be compelled, before he shall be long in their
midst, greatly to revise his previous notions respecting them. For he
will soon discover, as have many others before him, that while he knew
all about their defects, he had little or no knowledge of their many
and very great virtues.

As his sojourn among the Moslems is prolonged and he becomes better
acquainted with them, he will find that most of his views concerning
them were based on ungrounded prejudice or age-old stories that had no
other basis than crass ignorance or un-Christian hatred. Not only this;
he will gradually learn to admire those whom he had been taught to
despise and, if he be of a deeply religious nature, he may find himself
endorsing the statement of the late General Gordon: “I love the Moslems
because they are not ashamed of God.”

To the student of history it seems incredible that so many and so
egregious errors regarding Islam should have so long prevailed among
men who are otherwise well informed and disposed to be fair in their
judgments of all peoples, regardless of creed or color. For “although
Islam has been described in so many books, there are yet educated
people who,” in the words of the learned Padre Marracci,[228] “believe
that Moslems are idolaters who adore Mohammed and the moon,”[229] and
who, as the scholarly Sprenger writes, “have not gotten much further in
the knowledge of Islam than that the Turks allow polygamy.”

If it were a question of the inhabitants of Central Africa, who were
practically unknown until the explorations of Speke, Stanley, and
Livingstone, we should not be surprised that even geographers should
know next to nothing about them. But it seems difficult to explain the
widespread ignorance which has everywhere obtained regarding a people
who have played so important a rôle in history as the Moslems, and who
during more than twelve centuries have been in constant relations with
the Christian nations of Europe.

But, although the contact between the East and the West has been
uninterrupted since the time Moslemism essayed

_To plant the Crescent o’er the Cross_,

the misrepresentations of Mohammed and his followers have continued
without intermission from the days of the Crusaders to the present
time. And the strangest thing is that the most extravagant tales about
Mohammedans and their religion were put in circulation when their
originators must have known that they had no foundation in fact.

Many of the stories--as false as they were ridiculous--that were long
current respecting the Arabian Prophet and the religion which he
founded were due to the _Trouvères_ and the _Troubadours_.
A great majority of the _Chansons de Geste_ exhibit a pitiful
ignorance of the tenets of the Saracens, and not a few of them
contributed to give vogue to the most revolting fables respecting
Mohammed and Islam. Although neither Leo the Isaurian nor Oliver
Cromwell, both the sworn enemies of images, were more opposed to
idolatry or to the worship of images than Mohammed, nevertheless, in
_La Chanson de Roland_,[230] the Franks are represented under
the walls of Saragossa as avenging their defeat at Roncesvelles by
mutilating and destroying the idols of their enemies.

In the _Chanson d’Antioche_--declared to be “a very beautiful
_chanson_ which does not contain any fables but only the
unadulterated truth”--the author, Richard le Pelerin, in the beginning
of his poem, asks God to put to dire confusion the followers of
Mohammed--especially those

_Qui croient et adorent la figure Mahom._

In the _Roman de Beaudouin de Sebourc_, the author goes to still
greater lengths. By a strange aberration he makes the idol of Mohammed
the emblem of Islam, as the Cross is the emblem of Christianity. For,
in this _chanson_ the Comtesse de Porthieu is represented as
wishing to abjure her faith before the Sultan Saladin and expressing
her readiness to adore the effigy of the Prophet:

_Mahom voel aourer; aportez-le-moi-cha._

And Saladin, on his part, is pictured as ordering the idol to be
brought for the adoration of the newly made convert to Mohammedanism:

_Qu’ on aportast Mahom, et celle l’aoura._

When it is remembered that Mohammed was all his life the relentless
enemy of images of all kinds and that he absolutely proscribed the
representation of animated creatures; when it is recalled that images
of all kinds have been studiously excluded from every mosque in the
world from the time of the Prophet until the present, one would
think that such misrepresentations as those spread broadcast by the
_trouvères_ would have found little acceptance, or have been as
short-lived as they were false. Had the object of the _trouvères_
been to perpetuate animosity among Christians toward Moslems they could
not have devised a more effective method of achieving their purpose.

But Mohammed and his followers had to be discredited and recourse was
had to foul means as well as fair. Not satisfied with making them
favor what they always consistently denounced, _trouvères_ and
chroniclers invented a most cruel legend regarding the death of the
Prophet. Notwithstanding the concordant and unquestioned verdict of
history respecting the demise of Mohammed, the pilgrim Richard, author
of the chanson _La Conquête de Jerusalem_, fabricates the odious
fable that the founder of Islam was devoured by swine while helplessly
inebriated.[231] And this, despite the well-known fact that Mohammed
was during his entire reforming career as much opposed to the use of
intoxicating drinks as he was to the use of images! Nevertheless this
alleged disgraceful end of the Prophet is assigned by the pilgrim
Richard and by Guibert de Nogent in his “_Dei Gesta per Francos_”
as the reason why Mohammedans never eat pork![232]

I call special attention to the erroneous notions regarding Mohammed
and Islam which pervade the pages of the _chansons de geste_,
as they are samples of other errors equally preposterous regarding
a people who should have been better understood, and as they
help to explain the origin of many similar misconceptions which,
notwithstanding all that has been said and written to the contrary,
still persist, among large masses of people, in all their original
force and crudeness.

Even long after the time of the _trouvères_ there were not wanting
historians and divines who were willing to repeat the silly legends
of the _chansons de geste_ whenever they thought they would
thereby give point to their attacks on the Koran or the Prophet. Thus,
among the leaders of the Reformation, the distinguished Orientalist,
Bibliander, seriously institutes a comparison between Mohammed and the
Devil. Melancthon declared him to be either Gog or Magog, if not both
together.[233]

Voltaire, in writing of the Koran, of which he had as superficial an
acquaintance as of many other things which engaged his flippant and
caustic pen, declared it to be “_Ce livre unintelligible qui fait
fremir le sens commun à chaque page_”--that unintelligible book
which makes common sense shudder at every page. And, like many writers
before and since his time, he was fully aware that his fictions were
totally at variance with history. But, as has been well expressed by
Hurgronje, “he wanted to put before the public an armed Tartuffe and
thought he might lay the part upon Mohammed.”[234]

Others again, like many writers of our own day, had a political as
well as a religious object in their attacks upon Islam. For, under
pretense of waging war against the nefarious tenets and practices of
Moslemism, they secretly had in view an assault on the Turkish Empire,
or, as a noted Swiss Orientalist long ago declared, all their efforts
were really directed _in oppugnationem Mahometanæ perfidiæ et Turcici
regni_.[235]

From the days of the Crusaders until the present there has been no
cessation of the campaign of vilification of everything Mohammedan as
there has for long been no abatement in political hostility on the part
of certain nations of Europe against everything Ottoman. Centuries
ago the cry was “_Pestem hanc ferro et flamma ab orbe depellendam
esse_”--the pest of Islam must be driven from the earth by fire and
sword. To-day the war cry is in Gladstonian phrase, “The Turk must,
bag and baggage, get out of Europe.” How much of truth and how much
of falsehood there have been in the most recent outcries against the
Moslems, especially against those living in the Ottoman Empire, will
be determined only when the historian shall be free from the violent
passions and the selfish interests and the age-long antipathies which
blind the writers of the present as they have blinded those of the past.

In the preface to his monumental work on the Koran, the erudite
Padre Lodovico Marracci laments the prevailing ignorance of his time
regarding everything Mohammedan and the paucity of books of value
respecting the religion and practices of so large a part of mankind as
the adherents of Islam.

Although [he writes] some have written learnedly and solidly on
these subjects, there is nevertheless no concealing the fact
that others, through ignorance of things Saracen, often omit the
truth and publish fictitious and fabulous things, which excite
the laughter of the Mohammedans and cause them to become more
obstinate in their error.[236]

But, notwithstanding Marracci’s eloquent plea for a more thorough study
of Islam, his words fell, for the most part, on deaf ears.[237] It was
not until our own epoch that a critical investigation of the Koran was
begun and that a really impartial inquiry into the life of Mohammed was
seriously undertaken. Men were still in doubt as to the true character
of the Arabian reformer and were still undecided as to whether he was

_Hero, impostor, fanatic, priest or sage._

All, however, were forced to admit that he must have been a man of
extraordinary power and influence to set in motion that mighty human
current which only a little more than a century after his death had
founded an empire which extended from the Tigris to the Gaudilquivir
and from the burning sands of Yemen to the chilly steppes of Turkestan.
Yet, although the scholarly works of Sprenger, Margoliouth, Prince
Caetani, and Noldeke-Schwally have thrown a flood of light on many
formerly obscure points in the life of the Prophet and elucidated
many previously disputed passages of the Koran, there is still as
much discussion as ever regarding the nature of Mohammed’s religious
vocation. Some contend that it was the result of hallucination,
others of epilepsy, others of psychopathic abnormality, others of
auto-hypnosis, while, as a result of long researches, Aloys Sprenger is
quite sure that the Prophet was a victim of muscular hysteria.[238]

But however much controversy there may be respecting the origin of
Mohammed’s self-styled mission or the nature of the mental disease from
which he is said to have suffered, there can be no doubt whatever about
the essence of his teaching as incorporated in the Koran. For the creed
of Islam is so simple that, as has been said, “it can be written on a
fingernail.”

The five duties of Islam, which means resignation to the will of God,
as declared by Mohammed, are as follows:

1. Bearing witness that there is but one God;

2. Reciting the daily prayers;

3. Giving the legal alms;

4. Observing the Ramazan or the month’s fast;

5. Making the pilgrimage to Mecca once in a lifetime.

In view of the clearness and simplicity of this creed, it is
difficult to understand how the Western World has so signally failed
to comprehend the real nature of Mohammed’s teaching. It is equally
difficult to conceive how the authors of the countless books on the
Prophet and his religion could have been honest and sincere when they
penned their diatribes against Mohammed or pronounced their bitter and
ludicrous invectives against his followers and the religion to which
they were so ardently attached. Had they been actuated by a spirit of
fairness and Christian charity they could so easily have ascertained
the truth about the doctrine which they so strangely misrepresented and
the people whom they so pitilessly maligned. For there never was a time
since the day Saladin entered the Holy City of Jerusalem accompanied
by its bishop, who had gone out to greet the humane conqueror; never a
time since the Poverello of Assisi went as a missionary to the Sultan
of Egypt, when men of good will, seeking the truth and nothing but
the truth, might not have had all the information desired both about
the doctrines of Islam and the practices of the millions who looked
upon Mohammed as directly commissioned by God to teach them the way to
Heaven.

Those who always exhibited such readiness to defame Islam and its
followers should have recalled the words of St. Augustine when he
declares that “there is no false doctrine which does not contain
something of truth.”[239] They should have given heed to the counsels
of the learned and zealous Father Marracci, who, guided by the
experiences among the Mohammedans of his brothers in religion, taught
them how they might bring the followers of Islam to a knowledge of the
Gospel and to a love of the Crucified. Had they done so there would
not be that inveterate hatred that now exists between the Cross and
the Crescent, and there would not be that separation into two hostile
camps of so many hundred millions of people who normally should be in
the same fold and under the same Shepherd.

For, contrary to what has been so often said and written during the
last thousand years and more, there is much, very much good in Islam.
No less an authority than the illustrious Cardinal Hergenrœther
declares:

Islamism ought to prepare for civilization the peoples most
advanced in barbarism, notably those of Africa. Those peoples
whom it is necessary to lead from fetishism to monotheism
are in their low degree of culture and brutal sensualism
materially aided by such a stepping-stone in their transition to
Christianity.[240]

When Mohammed began his marvelous career of religious reform his
countrymen in Arabia were, in many respects, as deeply sunk in vice
as the most debased tribes of Central Africa. They were idolaters
who were addicted to the grossest and most absurd fetishism. Trees,
stones, shapeless masses of dough and the most trivial things in nature
were objects of adoration. There was a special divinity for each of
the countless tribes of the peninsula. In Beit-Alia--House of God--in
Mecca, there was a different idol for each day of the year. Here also
was the most jealously guarded object of worship--a black stone that
was reputed to have fallen from heaven in the days of Adam--a stone
which, it was averred, was originally of immaculate whiteness, but
which was subsequently blackened by the myriad osculations of its
sinful worshipers.

Nor was this all. Not only were the Arabians noted for their loathsome
idolatry but also for their inhuman practice of disposing of female
children at their birth by burying them alive. And so great was their
superstition that it was not an infrequent occurrence for a father to
sacrifice his child to appease the fancied anger of an offended deity.
Besides this, blood feuds, sensuality of the vilest kind, drunkenness,
and utter disregard of even the natural rights of women were as rampant
as their general results were widespread and fatal.

When Mohammed set out to preach monotheism to these people who were
so steeped in every vice--people who had heard the Gospel but had
long abandoned its sublime teachings for the abominable practices of
idolatry, he encountered the strongest opposition from all quarters.
So relentless was the hostility displayed by friend and foe that his
projected reform seemed foredoomed. But, notwithstanding the jeers
which greeted him on every side and the persecutions which he endured
for years, he was eventually successful beyond his most sanguine
expectations.

Here we have the spectacle of a man that could neither read nor
write who, after twenty years of incessant struggle, had succeeded
in extirpating a system of idolatry which, by fostering morals the
most depraved and practices the most hideous, had for centuries made
the fairest parts of Arabia reeking sinks of iniquity. In place of a
blighting and debasing fetishism he substituted the worship of one God,
the Greater of heaven and earth--a God who is eternal, omnipotent,
merciful; who presides over the destinies of all His creatures; who
sees all their actions, even the most secret; who punishes the wicked
in another world and rewards the good, and who never abandons them for
a single instant either in this life or in the one to come. He preaches
submission, the most humble and the most confiding submission, to the
holy will of Him who is not only the Author of their existence but also
their unfailing support and their just and omniscient judge. And the
sole worship which the Mussulman is required to give to this one God is
prayer at stated periods of the day and an annual fast during the month
of Ramadan--a fast which is designed to direct his thoughts to Him who
has created him, who sustains him during life and who, for weal or for
woe, will be his Sovereign Lord after death.

Such essentially is Islam in all its simplicity as preached to the
Arabian world by the unlettered camel driver of Mecca; such the
doctrine which was destined to be adopted by many races and nations
in every clime. There is nothing new in it. Mohammed never pretended
to introduce anything new. He simply proclaimed to his benighted
countrymen not a new revelation, but, as he always insisted, the
long-forgotten faith of Abraham and Moses and Christ, as he understood
it.

With the exception, therefore, of Christianity, based on the
Old and New Testaments, with all its marvelous and beneficent
consequences, there is no religion in the world which can justly
be compared with Islam or which even remotely deserves to be
placed in the same category.[241]

And, with the exception of Christianity and Judaism, it is the only
religion in the world which has recognized and consecrated monotheism.
It is, therefore, far superior to the debasing paganism of Greece and
Rome. It is loftier and nobler than the repugnant dualism of Zoroaster
and the selfish and materialistic utilitarianism of Confucius. It is
incomparably more elevating than the fantastic metempsychosis and the
atheistic Nirvana of Gautama Buddha, which, with Confucianism, holds in
spiritual bondage a great majority of the teeming millions of Central
and Eastern Asia.

The eminent doctor of the Church, St. John of Damascus, shows how near
he considers Islam to Christianity when, in his account of the creed
of Mohammed, he treats it as a heresy analogous to Arianism.[242]
Peter the Venerable, the illustrious Abbot of Cluny, the first one to
have a translation made of the Koran, was of a similar opinion, as is
evinced in his work against Mohammedanism--a work which treats not of
the paganism but of the heresy of the Saracens, as its title--_Adversus
Nefandam Hæresim sive Sectam Saracenorum_--conclusively indicates.[243]
In like manner Dante, who was almost as distinguished as a theologian
as he was as a poet, places Mohammed in hell not as a heathen but as a
sower of “scandal and schism.”[244]

Arius, by denying the divinity of Christ, had prepared the way for
Islam, which saw in the Son of God only a prophet who, as Moslems
subsequently claimed, was but the precursor of Mohammed. St. Jerome,
in his memorable words--_Igemuit totus orbis et Arianum se esse
miratus est_--the world uttered a sigh and was astonished to find
itself Arian--expressed the one-time prevalence of the errors of the
Alexandrine heresiarch. The grave dissensions in the churches of Asia
and Africa that followed close upon dissemination of the heresy of
Arius immensely assisted Islam in its lightning career of conquest.
For the divided and degenerate Christians of these two continents were
easily persuaded that Moslemism was but one of the various Christian
sects and not a new religion.

The followers of Mohammed were formerly the victims of calumny
on account of their alleged beliefs and practices. Now it is the
organization of Islam and the character of its religious services that
seem to give rise to the most misunderstandings.

Thus, according to many modern writers, the Sultan of Turkey is to
Islam what the Pope is to Christendom. Nothing, however, could be
farther from the truth. That the caliphate, whether of the Ottoman,
Ommiad, or Abbassid dynasties, is in no way comparable with the Papacy
is clearly evidenced by the fact that Islam has never in all its
history regarded the Caliph as its spiritual head.[245]

Again the same writers, as well as many modern travelers, constantly
refer to the priests and the clergy of Mohammedanism. The fact is
that Islam has not and never has had anything like a clerical body as
it is understood in the Christian world. There is no ordination, no
priesthood with powers to bind and loose, no confessional, no baptismal
font, no altar, no sacrifice, no mediator between man and God. There
is in fact no one possessing any special powers through ordination to
perform any act that any adherent of Islam could not as rightfully
perform. For, Islam, as has been well said, is and has always been
“the lay religion _par excellence_.” There are, it is true, the
Khatib--preacher--and the imam--leader in prayer--but neither the one
nor the other possesses anything whatever of the sacerdotal character
of the Christian priesthood or of the hereditary Levites of ancient
Judaism.[246] They are usually selected on account of their grave
deportment and their knowledge of the Koran and of the traditions of
Islam, but otherwise they might be replaced by a mufti or kadi whose
occupations are analogous to our lawyer or judge. The chief purpose of
the imam, whose function closely resembles that of a precentor, is to
preserve order in public worship. But whether the religious functions
of the Moslems be performed by imams, khatibs, mollas, or any of that
large class of functionaries known as ulema, there are no gradational
distinctions among the worshipers themselves. The ulema may act like
priests and may sometimes be considered as priests by uninformed
people, but the ulema themselves, who ought to know, strongly and
consistently insist on their non-priestly character. So alien, indeed,
is all classification to Moslemism, so abhorrent to Islam is the very
idea of an ecclesiastical organization as distinct from the laity, that
Palgrave, whose long and intimate intercourse with the Mohammedans
made him thoroughly familiar with all the details of their creed,
did not hesitate when referring to their religious organization, to
declare, “‘Each one for himself and God for us all’ is an almost
literal translation of what the Koran sums up and a hundred traditions
confirm.”[247]

The erroneous notions that so generally prevail respecting the real
object of mosques are as numerous as those respecting its khatibs
and imams. The primary use of a mosque is to indicate the direction
of Mecca. Originally it was a simple platform with a wall at the
end facing Mecca. In facing this wall the worshiper looked towards
what was to him the holiest city in the world. In southern climates
this primitive type of mosque[248] sufficiently answered the chief
purpose contemplated. But the more rigorous climates of the north
required roofed places of worship, which eventually developed
into the magnificent structures which one now finds in Brusa, and
Constantinople, as well as in cities much farther south, such as
Damascus and Cairo and Jerusalem.

But the reverence which a Mussulman entertains for his mosque and that
which a Roman Catholic feels for his church are entirely different in
character. There is, in the eyes of a Catholic, a sanctity attaching to
a church that does not and cannot attach to a mosque. This is shown by
the names given to the two places of worship. A common name for mosque
is _Jami_, which means a meeting house, while the word church,
derived from the Greek, signifies the house of God--Τὸ κνριακὸν. In a
Moslem’s view God is present in the _jami_ or mosque, but only as
he is present everywhere else--in the field, on the mountain. But in
the church, according to Catholic teaching, God is really and truly
present under the veil of the Blessed Sacrament. Hence all the pomp and
ceremony of the Catholic ritual, all the gorgeousness of decoration
which so distinguishes the Catholic house of God from the Mussulman
meeting house. Because of the Sacramental Presence every Catholic
church is called the house of God. But among Mohammedans there is
only one specifically recognized _Beith Allah_--house of God.
This is the Kaaba at Mecca, which contains the Black Stone which was
for ages an object of idolatrous worship and which is even to-day the
chiefest object of Mohammedan veneration, if not also of downright
superstition. It is because of the presence of this old pagan fetish in
the Kaaba,[249] as well as on account of the fantastic legends which
are associated with the Kaaba itself, that the Moslem, when praying,
always turns toward Mecca. It is this Kebla--the direction of the Kaaba
in Mecca--that is carefully indicated by the niche or mihrab in the
interior wall of every mosque. For a time the Kebla was changed from
Mecca to the rock in Jerusalem, on which Solomon’s temple was erected,
but, whether from policy or atavism, Mohammed changed it back again
to its original location. By so doing he virtually reduced Islam to a
national religion--the religion of Arabia--instead of making it, as he
had dreamed, the religion of the world.

Again, the mosque, unlike the church, is never the center of that
kind of religious organization which we know as a parish. There is no
congregation comprising those who worship in a particular mosque. Nor
have the imams and khatibs any jurisdiction, like that of a Catholic
pastor, over those who assemble in the mosque for prayer. Worship in
the mosque may be called congregational only in so far as certain
individuals, who happen to gather there, unite in prayer to Allah
under the direction of the imam, but it is nevertheless individual, as
no Moslem has closer affiliations with one mosque than with another.
Wherever he happens to be when the muezzin calls for prayer, there is
his mosque and there he joins with his fellows in worship.

In the Ottoman Empire the imam, so far as he is charged with special
functions, is no more than a paid servant. Outside of acting as
precentor, or fugleman, at prayer his chief duties are to officiate at
marriages and funerals. There is none of that spiritual relationship
which exists between the Catholic priest and his parishioners; none of
that love of a father for his children, and none of that affection of
children for their father, which exists in every Catholic parish; no
one who is in any sense the shepherd of his flock--to assist the weak,
to direct the erring, to admonish the remiss, to upbraid the sinner,
and lead those aspiring to holiness to higher degrees of perfection
in the spiritual life. Far from feeling the need of such a guide and
superior, the Moslem prides himself on his ability to dispense with
such aids which he would regard as curtailing his religious liberty and
circumscribing his independence of action. He prefers to lead his own
life, without let or hindrance, without monitors or directors, and to
be free, if so disposed, to follow those votaries of pleasure in other
parts of the world, who

_Compound for sins that they’re inclined to_
_By damning those they have no mind to._

But one cannot fully understand the religious spirit of the Mussulman
without knowing something of the prayers which he is wont to address to
the Deity. No class of men, probably, have the name of God--Allah--more
frequently on their lips than the Moslems. This is particularly true of
those devotees--and their number is legion--known as dervishes.

Prayer five times a day is the second of the five pillars of Islam.
At dawn, at midday, in the afternoon, evening and night the Muezzin
ascends the minaret and repeats in a loud voice:

God is great. I bear witness that there is no god but God.
I bear witness that Mohammed is the apostle of God. Come to
prayers! Come to salvation!

But prayer may be said only when the clothes and body of the worshiper
as well as the place of prayer are free from all impurity. Moreover,
the prayers, whether said privately or in common, must be recited
according to a prescribed form and in specified postures from which
there can be no deviation. There are constant repetitions of the words
“God is great,” “I extol the holiness of my Lord, the Most High.”

_Holiness to Thee, O God!_
_And praise be to Thee!_
_Great is Thy name!_
_Great is Thy greatness!_
_There is no deity but Thee!_

A devout Mussulman will recite these and similar forms of prayer no
less than seventy-five times a day. But these words, which admit of
no variety or change, become, after ceaseless repetition, rather a
mechanical than a mental act and are frequently more in the nature of
lip service than the prayer of the Christian, which consists not only
in acts of praise, as in the above words of the Moslem worshiper, but
also in acts of impetration and thanksgiving. The Moslem’s nearest
approach to a Christian prayer is the first sura of the Koran, called
the Fatihah, which reads:

_Praise be to God, Lord of all the worlds,_
_The compassionate, the merciful._
_King of the day of reckoning!_
_Thee only do we worship, and to Thee only do we cry for help._
_Guide thou us in the straight path,_
_The path of those to whom Thou hast been gracious,_
_With whom Thou art not angry,_
_And who go not astray, Amen._

But we have only to compare this prayer--which has been called “the
quintessence of the whole Koran”--with the “Our Father” to see the
vast difference between the prayer of the Christian and that of the
Mohammedan. It is manifest in the very first word of the _Pater
Noster_, which shows that there is no comparison between the
Christian and the Moslem conception of God. Mohammed believed in God,
feared and obeyed Him according to his light, but, not recognizing His
Fatherhood, he did not and, from his view of the Deity, could not love
Him. It is so with his followers. Their God is a God of fear, not a God
of love, because not known as _God Our Father_. How different is
this from the relationship--sonship--of the Christian to his Creator,
who enjoys the blessed privilege of calling God _Abba_--Father.

Denying the Fathership of God, Moslem theologians maintain that it
is impossible for men to love Him. Man and God, they contend, are of
different natures, and where there is a difference of genus there
can be no love. The nearest approach to love, they contend, is man’s
perseverance in obedience to Allah.

Again, according to the same theologians, there can be no love of
God for man, for love, say they, implies change, which, as God is
infinitely perfect, is impossible. When God therefore is said to love
man, all that is meant, according to Al-Gazali, one of the most eminent
of Moslem theologians and philosophers, is that “God so affects man
that man comes to God.”[250]

But in this case, as in so many others, the common sense--or shall we
call it a special divine illumination?--of many in Islam has enabled
them to arrive at a truer conception of God and of their relations
to Him than was ever attained by Moslem philosophers and casuists
and incomparably superior to anything found in the Koran or in the
traditional teachings of Mohammed.

As a proof of this assertion, I need only adduce the beautiful prayer
of the Persian imam, El Kachiri, who, discarding the cold and formal
acts of praise prescribed in Moslem worship, pours forth his soul to
God in these touching and heart-felt words:

Thou, O Lord, threatenest me, with a bitter separation which
will forever deprive me of Thy presence! O Lord, do with me as
Thou wilt, provided that I be not forever separated from Thee!
There is no more bitter nor fatal poison than this separation.
For what can a soul separated from God do except be in a state
of inquietude and agitation which will be a continual torment?
One would rather suffer a hundred thousand deaths; for, after
all, they would not offer anything so terrible as the privation
of the vision of Thy divine face. All the evils of the world,
all the most acute and painful diseases joined together, seem
to me incomparably easier to bear than this removal from Thee.
It is this transitory removal which renders our lands sterile;
which dries up and infects our waters. What would it be if it
were eternal? Without it, the fire of hell would not burn; it
is through it that it becomes so hot. In a word, it is only Thy
presence which sustains us and showers upon us all kinds of good
things and Thy absence, it is, which causes all the evils of
hell.[251]

This prayer is fully in keeping with the teaching of many other Moslem
mystics of non-Semitic origin, who, contrary to the vulgar notions
so widely entertained respecting the Mohammedan paradise, explicitly
declare that the infinite happiness of the elect in heaven consists
in the enjoyment of the beatific vision. This ineffable happiness,
they aver, so far transcends all the other joys of paradise that they
completely disappear before it. “Paradise, O Lord,” exclaims the Sheik
el Alem, “is desirable only because one there sees Thee; because,
without the light of Thy beauty, it would pall on us.”[252]

These two quotations are remarkable but no less so than the words of a
Mussulman poet of Persia who, in addressing himself to Isa--Arabic for
Jesus--says:

The heart of the afflicted man draws all his consolation from
Thy words. The soul resumes life and vigor simply by hearing Thy
name pronounced. If the mind of man is ever able to raise itself
to the contemplation of the mysteries of the Divinity, it is
from Thee that it draws the light to know them and it is Thou
that givest him the attraction by which he is penetrated.[253]

How like the language of a Christian speaking of the grace of our
Saviour, Jesus Christ!

Far less excusable than ignorance of Moslem doctrine and practices, is
the disposition everywhere manifested in Europe and America to regard
Islam not only as a disintegrating organization but also as a decaying
power. Those who thus minimize the ever-growing strength of one of
the largest religious bodies in the world exhibit the fatuity of the
ostrich which imagines danger does not exist because it is unseen.

For generations past the western world has been periodically informed
that Mohammedanism as a religion is moribund and that Christendom
has nothing more to apprehend from it. It has been assured that
the mosques are unfrequented and crumbling into ruins; that schools
and colleges of Moslem law are neglected or languishing for lack
of financial support; that the precepts of the Koran are generally
disregarded and frequently openly flouted; and that Islam is under an
eclipse which portends disaster and extinction.

But what are the facts? I can best answer them in the words of Palgrave
whose sixteen years of investigations of Mohammedan conditions from the
shores of the Euxine to the interior of Arabia makes his words on the
question authoritative. Writing in 1872, he declares:

Were I to attempt the catalogue of mosques, colleges, schools,
chapels and the like, repaired or wholly fresh--built within
the circle of my own personal inspection alone--several pages
would hardly suffice to contain it. Trebizond, Batoom, Samsoon,
Sivas, Keysareeyah, Chorum, Amasia, and fifty other towns of
names unknown, or barely known in Europe, each can boast its
new and renovated places of Mahometan worship; new schools,
some of law, others of grammar, others primary, have sprung up
on every side; new works of charity and public bequest adorn
the highways.... Meanwhile, year after year sees a steady
increase in the number of pilgrims to the holy places of Islam;
and, although the greater facilitation consequent on steam has
undoubtedly contributed not a little to this result, much must
also be put down to the growing eagerness manifested by all,
high and low, to visit the sacred soil, the birthplace of their
religion and Prophet; while the pride that each village takes
in its “hajjees” is manifested in the all-engrossing sympathy
that accompanies their departure, and the triumphant exultation
of the entire populace that welcomes them home. It may not have
been less a thousand years ago: it certainly could not have been
more.[254]

Although it is nearly half a century since the noted author of
the _Narrative of a Year’s Journey through Central and Eastern
Arabia_ penned the paragraph just quoted, there is no evidence, so
far as I have been able to gather in my travels in Asia and Africa,
that the current of Moslem revival is running lower than it was fifty
years ago, nor is the rejuvenescence of Islam less marked nor its power
less resistant or less persistent.

Not only has Mohammedanism long been declared to be moribund but it
has also, from time immemorial, been represented as changeless in
doctrine as are the agricultural implements of the East--which are the
same to-day as “when Proserpine went a-Maying through Enna”--and “the
difficulty of bringing Islam and its ways into harmony with modern
society as comparable to squaring the circle.”

Again, what are the facts? So far is Moslemism from being what it
was when it came from the hands of the Prophet, or from what it is
as exhibited in the Koran, that it has been constantly undergoing
modification in religious doctrine and practice since the days of
the first caliphs. Not to speak of the countless changes which
have insensibly been effected by the quiet but continuous action
of Christianity, innumerable others have been brought about by the
teachings of Plato and Aristotle, by Roman law, Neo-Platonism, and
other similar but persistent and irresistible influences. This
is practically manifest in the hadith as modified and developed
by canonists, dogmatists, and mystics to enable Islam “to shape
religious ordinances of old customs” or “to adapt itself to the
peculiar characteristics and stages of development of the people whose
allegiance it wishes to win.”

For not only have law and custom, religious teachings and
political doctrines clothed themselves in Hadith form [writes
one of the most eminent authorities on Mohammedanism], but
everything in Islam, both that which has worked itself out
through its own strength, as well as that which has been
appropriated from without. In this work foreign elements have
been so assimilated that one has lost sight of their origin.
Sentences from the Old and New Testaments, rabbinical sayings
as well as those from the apochryphal gospels, the teaching of
Greek philosophers, sayings of Persian and Indian wisdom have
found room in this garb among the sayings of the prophet of
Islam. Even the Lord’s prayer is not lacking in well confirmed
Hadith-form.[255]

To say, then, that Islam has always been inflexibly opposed to the
influence of foreign science, or law, or philosophy, or theology
when these elements enabled it “to mould its intellectual heritage”
and adjust itself to an alien spirit or a new environment is not in
consonance with the facts of history. So far, indeed, is this from
the truth that “it may safely be said that there is nothing more
extraordinary in the whole history of Islam than the way in which
the theory of the verbal inspiration of the Koran and the consequent
stereotyped and unalterable nature of its precepts have, by ingenuity,
by legal fictions, by the ‘Sunna,’ or traditional sayings of Mohammed
or by _responsa prudentum_ been accommodated to the changing
circumstances and the various degrees of civilization of the nations
which profess it.”[256] Such being the case, one is not surprised in
finding so distinguished a writer as Stanley Lane-Poole making the
categorical assertion that “the faith of Islam has passed through more
phases and experienced greater revolutions than perhaps any other of
the religions of the world.”[257]

No less misleading and mischievous are the continuously repeated
statements that the days of Mussulman missionary activity have long
since passed; that Mussulman zeal for propagating the teachings of
the Koran and the Prophet no longer exists; that Pan-Islamism, as a
religious force with which Christianity must reckon, was long ago
dealt its death blow in the Gulf of Lepanto by Don Juan of Austria and
under the walls of Vienna by the immortal Sobieski.

But still, again, what are the facts? It is true that Moslem canon law
still divides the world into _Dar al-Islam_--Abode of Islam--and
_Dar al-harb_--Abode of war, according as these two parts are
in the possession of Mohammedanism or are yet to be won to it by the
sword, yet it is, nevertheless, equally true that this distinction
is now practically a dead letter and that the Christian Powers of
the world are now able to curtail Islam’s schemes of territorial
expansion and render forever impossible all hopes of world conquest.
But, although Islam as a political and military power is no longer
to be apprehended--at least for the present--it is not true that she
has discontinued her missionary activities or that her propaganda in
behalf of the religion of the Prophet is less determined than it was
in the days of Saladin or Solyman the Magnificent. We have only to
scan the authentic tokens that come to us from every quarter of the
globe to be convinced that Pan-Islamism is to-day a greater missionary
force--peacefully aggressive but fanatically persistent--than it has
perhaps ever been in any period of her history.[258]

Let us see. According to the most reliable statistics there are now
about two hundred and fifty million Mohammedans in the world,[259] and
this number, stupendous as it is, is rapidly increasing. The strongest
agency in their phenomenal development is the annual _hadj_ or
pilgrimage to Mecca which every free Mussulman is required to make
at least once in his lifetime. During the period of the _hadj_,
the Sacred City of Moslemism sees gathered around and within its
walls a vast, surging throng of devotees, which ranges from two to
three hundred thousand strong. They come from every part of Asia and
Africa--from the snow-swept steppes of Siberia, from the coral-fringed
islands of the Indian Archipelago, and from the tangled jungles of
Senegambia and Abyssinia. Turks, Kurds, Persians, Tartars, Chinese,
Malays, Egyptians, Berbers, Nubians--men of all colors and of countless
tribes and tongues--they all foregather in the Sacred City of Arabia to
get inspiration and strength to win proselytes to the creed of Mohammed.

From Mecca where every one is thrilled by the peculiar half-pagan
ceremonies which Mohammed incorporated into his religion, every hadji
returns to his home, imbued with the surpassing greatness of Moslemism
and exulting in the thought that his is the blessed privilege of
being numbered among the followers of the Prophet. Each one is a
zealous agent of Moslemism and is prepared, if need be, to give his
life, in disseminating its principles and in contributing, so far
as in him lies, towards the realization of the hopes of every true
Mohammedan--the final world triumph of Pan-Islamism.

Such a determined army of missionaries, stirred to a frenzy of
enthusiasm by their experience in what is to them the holiest spot
on earth, has during the last few decades achieved results that are
positively startling. Not in centuries has Islam so defiantly thrown
the gauntlet down to Christendom. And never before was it so incumbent,
as at present, on the followers of Christ to use every effort to
counteract their well-directed campaign of Mohammedan proselytism.

No agency is overlooked by the Moslems that will contribute towards
their success in their world-wide propaganda--traders, shepherds,
soldiers, husbandmen, shop-keepers, mollahs, muftis, marabouts--all are
engaged in the same ubiquitous, unceasing work of winning converts to
the religion of Mohammed.

But more active and persistent--were that possible--than the
proselytizers just mentioned, are the legions of zealots known as
dervishes who now count nearly a hundred different orders and millions
of members. Among them are all classes of people from the humblest
hamal to the proudest shah and sultan. They count untold thousands of
such ardent reformers as the Wahabis and Sanusiyahs who are undoubtedly
the most powerful propagators of Islam that the world has yet known.
The last named order has _zawivas_ or lodges with six million
oath-bound members in northern Africa alone. These are all sworn
to labor unceasingly for the extension of Pan-Islamism and for the
propagation of the revelation of Allah as contained in the Koran. So
unexampled has been their proselyting activity between Egypt and Cape
Colony during the last few decades that millions have been brought
under the banner of the prophet. Frequently in equatorial Africa whole
tribes have, in a short period of time, been won to Moslemism by the
unflagging zeal and resistless enthusiasm of its missionaries.

Every instrumentality that promises success is unhesitatingly brought
into requisition. With the view of confirming the wavering in their
own ranks and continuously increasing the number of converts, they
have everywhere established schools, orphan asylums, and printing
presses, and in Christian countries they have erected mosques. Only
lately a great mosque was completed at Petrograd. Converts to Islam
are found in Japan, Jamaica, British Guiana, and Brazil. The number of
immigrant Moslems in the New World was recently estimated at more than
one hundred and fifty thousand, most, if not all, of them fired with
the same zeal for the propagation of Mohammedanism as their brethren
in Asia and Africa. In the various parts of India, where according
to the most available statistics, there are more than sixty million
adherents of the Prophet, the annual number of converts to Moslemism
is variously estimated from ten thousand to six hundred thousand.

These facts prove conclusively that Islam is very far from being either
tottering or moribund. In the vigorous prosecution of the campaign
which is to make Pan-Islamism not only a dominant religious power but
a dominant political power as well, it exhibits all the pertinacious
activity of its palmiest days. It is everywhere winning victories and
ceaselessly planning new and greater victories. It is the most vigorous
and the most resolute anti-Christian force that confronts the Church
to-day. Those who think that Islam is approaching dissolution or
extinction should ponder the words of the Arab poet:

_Dead and buried had they seen me, so their ready tale they spread;_
_Yet I lived to see the tellers buried all themselves and dead._

In the preceding pages I have endeavored in the limited space available
to give an honest statement regarding the actual tenets and status of
Moslemism in the past as well as in the present. While, on the one
hand, I have studiously eschewed everything like detraction, I have,
on the other, as carefully avoided anything that could reasonably be
construed as an apology either for Mohammed or for Mohammedanism.
It has never entered my mind, God forbid! to compare Moslemism with
Christianity as a means for attaining to a true knowledge of our
Creator or for realizing the highest spiritual ideals of which our
race is capable. No, Christianity, especially that form of it which
has sanctified and crowned the lives of a St. Jerome, a St. Francis of
Assisi, a St. Theresa, a Joan of Arc; which presided at the sublime
meditations of an Augustine of Hippo, or a Thomas of Aquin, of a Dante
Alighieri, of a Christopher Columbus; which has given to the world such
matchless heroes and heroines of charity and self-sacrifice as a St.
Vincent de Paul, a Father Damien, a Sister of Charity, or a Little
Sister of the Poor; that for us is the truest, the holiest, the most
beneficent of all religions; the one that contains in all its fullness
the revealed word of God, the one which must be our guide to a world of
happiness eternal in the life beyond the tomb.

Truth and justice, however, compel us to admit that there are many,
very many, things in Islam to extort our admiration. Nor can there be
any doubt that Mohammed achieved many things for the improvement of his
idolatrous, drink-sodden, vice-steeped, feud-wrecked countrymen. The
Koran, we must confess, contains many beautiful things regarding one’s
duties towards God and one’s neighbor; but all of them are directly
or indirectly derived from the New or the Old Testament, or from the
doctrines of the early Church. Notwithstanding all this, however, the
teachings of Islam are as far beneath the saving and incomparable
truths of Christianity as is the gross and sensual Prophet of Mecca
beneath the all-pure and all-perfect Son of God.

But, to recur again to the previously quoted opinion of Cardinal
Hergenrœther, Islam can serve as a stepping-stone from fetishism
to Christianity and as such is worthy of our sympathetic study and
appreciation.

Among the countless amiable, honest, hospitable, deeply religious
Mussulmans that every traveler finds in Moslem lands there is a large
number who yearn for union with God and who would make any sacrifice
to conform with His holy will were it but clearly and unmistakably
made known to them. They are but awaiting the arrival of the Savior’s
messenger and will receive the word of salvation with joy and
thanksgiving. The spiritual unrest among Moslems; the ever-increasing
attempts at social and doctrinal reform; even the very zeal which loyal
Moslems exhibit in extending the creed of the Prophet--the only form of
religion with which they are really acquainted--attest their eagerness
in seeking the truth and explain their ardor in propagating what they
deem to be the only revelation of the Most High.

Add to all this a widespread feeling among Mussulman leaders as well
as among Christian missionaries that the time has finally come when
a serious effort should be made towards effecting some kind of a
_rapprochement_ between the Cross and the Crescent; when the vast
organizations of Islam and Christianity should endeavor to arrive
at a better understanding of one another’s doctrines and practices;
when, rising superior to that age-long antipathy and that mischievous
_odium theologicum_ which has so long kept them in a state of
implacable hostility, they should strive to meet one another as
brothers in one Lord and as children of the same Father.

More than sixty years ago Abd-el-Kader, the gifted Algerian ruler and
patriot, wrote: “If the Mussulmans and Christians would give ear to
me, I should cause their divergence to cease and they would become
brothers.”[260]

The number of Moslems who entertain a view similar to that of the
distinguished emir is daily increasing. They feel that the moral
and religious ideas of the various races of mankind are not so
irreconcilable as they are ordinarily supposed to be. The greatest
barrier towards a nearer communion of sentiments between Christians and
Mohammedans has been erected by ignorance and prejudice. Remove this
barrier and the way, they contend, will be prepared for intellectual
sympathy and, eventually, for religious union.

Notwithstanding the long centuries of wars between the Cross and the
Crescent, Mohammedans are so far from regarding our Savior, as is
commonly supposed, with the hatred and contempt which Christians have
usually entertained for the Prophet of Mecca, that they have for Him
a reverence which is inferior only to that with which He is regarded
by Christians themselves. They believe that He will again return to
earth and, having slain Antichrist, will establish a reign of peace and
justice among men. They believe that truth will at last be triumphant
and the sword will be sheathed forevermore. According to the Shiahs
of India there will then be an amalgamation of Islam and Christianity
and then, finally, will be realized in its truest and highest sense
something of Tennyson’s dream of universal peace and charity

_In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world._

The spiritual agitation now existing among Moslems, the aspirations
of so many of them for a purer and more elevating creed than that
of Mohammed would seem to offer a peculiarly favorable opportunity
for preaching to them the Gospel of the world’s Redeemer. But there
are, unfortunately, almost insuperable difficulties in the way. There
are, first and foremost, the selfish diplomacy and the unprincipled
aggressions of the European Powers, which nullify in advance all
projects of Christian propaganda. The frequent exhibitions of very
questionable morality on the part of certain European diplomatists
who have manifested a total disregard of the most solemn covenants;
the ruthless conquests of Christian nations which have at times
displayed an utter disregard of the most elementary rights of humanity
and have often had recourse to the most cruel and barbarous methods
of warfare--these things have not helped to commend to Moslems the
religion of their conquerors. The recent campaigns of Italy in Tripoli,
of England on the Gold Coast,[261] of Russia in the Transcaucasia
have but intensified the bitterness of Islam toward Christendom and
fanned the flame of fanaticism among millions who sullenly await an
opportunity for making reprisal.

Then, too, there is among many the pessimistic feeling which is
expressed in Kipling’s couplet:

_Oh, East is East, and West is West,_
_And never the twain shall meet_--

a feeling that has been engendered among them by a vague notion that
there is an impassable chasm between the peoples of Asia and Europe
and that any attempt to reconcile them will prove not only illusory
but impossible. Starting with such an assumption they still cling to
the detestable theory in politics of identifying power and right and
of enforcing the inexorable demands of an iniquitous diplomacy by the
satanic instrumentality of machine guns and trinitrotoluol.

_Non tali auxilio nec defensoribus istis_
_Tempus egit_....

Christian nations, if actuated by the altruism which they are
constantly preaching, if guided by the same law of charity which is
binding on individuals, need not such help or such defenders of their
prestige or national honor.

No, what is now needed more than ever before is a complete change
of attitude of the West towards the East. If we are to make the
brotherhood of man anything more than an idle phrase; if we are to
bring together in amity and comity the peoples of the Orient and the
Occident; if we are to heal the wounds which the followers of Mohammed
have suffered from centuries of cruel calumny and still crueler wars;
if we are to lead Islam to a knowledge of Christianity and to an
eventual acceptance of the Gospel of peace and love; we, the followers
of the Crucified, cannot too soon abjure our accursed theory that
might makes right nor can we too soon control that abiding lust of
conquest which has plunged the weak and the innocent into such untold
suffering and which has tended to perpetuate the deep hostility and the
fatal misunderstandings which for long centuries have separated the
God-created souls of the East from the God-created souls of the West.

The time has come for a new Crusade but a Crusade in which fire and
sword shall, in the words of good old Padre Marracci, be replaced by
_lingua et calamo_--by the voice of the evangelist and the pen of
the expositor of Christian teaching. It must be a Crusade which shall
be inspired by the ardent love of a Francis of Assisi; by the flaming
intelligence of a Raymond Lully; by the wisely tempered zeal of a Peter
the Venerable.[262] It must be a Crusade to win souls for Christ, our
Savior, and to make all men children of the same heavenly Father. And
that which in the Crusades of old was the war cry should, in the new
Crusade, be the peace cry--_Deus lo volt_--God wills it.

CHAPTER XI

ALONG THE TRADE ROUTES OF THE NEAR EAST

_Beautiful old stories,_
_Tales of angels, fairy legends,_
_Stilly histories of martyrs,_
_Festal songs and words of wisdom;_
_Hyperboles, most quaint it may be,_
_Yet replete with strength, and fire,_
_And faith--how they gleam,_
_And glow and glitter!_
HEINE.

Apart from its imposing monuments of the storied past, few things in
the Near East are of greater interest or suggest more subjects for
reflection to the serious traveler than do its trade routes which, for
the most part, follow the same course as they did when Abraham fared
forth from Ur of the Chaldees into the land of Canaan and when the
messengers of the Great King sped along the Royal Road from Susa to
Sardis.

Now as then the roadways follow the lines of least resistance. But,
owing to the peculiar topographical conditions of many parts of the
Near East, the traveler’s choice of direction is necessarily limited.
In the broad and inhospitable desert his course will necessarily depend
on the location of the few existing springs and wells and wadis, while
in the mountainous regions it will, in great measure, be governed by
a few and widely-separated passes. In many cases, too, where broad
and deep rivers are to be crossed, the direction taken, especially
during the season of rains and floods, will vary with the condition of
often-changing and frequently treacherous fords.

The celebrated Royal Road, of which Herodotus gives so graphic an
account, is a case in point. The student of ancient history is
surprised when he first observes its circuitous course between the
one-time capital of Persia and the famous emporium of Crœsus, but the
reason of it becomes evident when he learns something of the character
of the country through which it passed. He then discovers that the
prehistoric travelers--long centuries before the days of Cyrus and
Darius and Xerxes--who first selected this long and roundabout route
between the plains of Mesopotamia and the shore of the Ægean--a route
which took them over high mountains and pitiless deserts and dangerous
morasses--did simply what a modern railroad engineer would do under
similar circumstances--chose for their venturesome journey the line of
least resistance.[263]

It must, however, here be observed that the word “road,” as used in
the Orient, rarely has the same meaning which we attach to the term.
There a road is rarely anything more than the line of route marked by
the footprints of travelers or beasts of burden. Even the Royal Highway
between Susa and Sardis was nothing more than this. It was only when
the Romans--the great road builders of antiquity--became masters of
western Asia that its leading cities were connected by roads in our
conception of the word. Now, however, only traces of these splendid
highways constructed by the Cæsars exist, and roads available for
wheeled vehicles are still almost as rare in most parts of the Near
East as they were in the time of Tigranes or Tiglath-Pileser.

But, although the great majority of eastern roads have never felt a
spade or pick-ax, and are nothing more than evanescent footprints in
spongy swamp or shifting sand, nevertheless there hangs over most
of them an air of legend and romance and historic association which
stimulates the mind of the traveler in a preëminent degree and affords
as much food for thought as he can find in any of the great highways of
the more civilized regions of the modern world.

We had wished to go from Tarsus to Antakia, formerly the capital of
Syria, which in the days of its greatest splendor was known as “Antioch
the Beautiful,” “The Crown of the East,” “The Metropolis and Eye of
Christendom.” Here the followers of Christ were first called Christians
and here for a long time was one of the most influential seats of the
Christian Church. For generations it ranked next to Rome and Alexandria
as the most important emporium in the great empire of the Cæsars.
During a long period it was also the western terminus of the great
trade route over which was borne

_The wealth of Ormus and of Ind_

for distribution among the marts of Greece and Rome. But lack of time
prevented us from visiting the scattered remains of this once famous
city and we perforce boarded a train on the Bagdad Railway and started
for Aleppo, whose history is in some respects scarcely less eventful
than that of the erstwhile capital of the Seleucids.

We left the Cilician Plain by way of the Bagdad Railroad, which took
us over several well-constructed steel bridges and through a number
of tunnels in the Amanus Range. One of these tunnels, said to be the
longest in Turkey, is more than three miles in length. The roadbed,
bridges, tunnels, stations, and rolling stock of this noted line
compare favorably with those of the best railways in Europe and show,
better than words, what great trade development in the Near East
its projectors had in contemplation when they put their millions in
the Bagdad Railroad. Will they ever receive any return for their
stupendous investment? And, if so, when? Echo asks “When”?

The scenery along the railroad in the Amanus Range and in the plain
on the way to Aleppo is much like that of the Taurus Mountains and of
Cilicia Campestris, where one can truly say with the poet Bryant

_There is a smile on the fruit, and a smile on the flower,_
_And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea._

Everywhere one comes upon places that are famous in history, both
sacred and profane. Everywhere one passes through lands that during
thousands of years, witnessed the devastations of Assyrians and
Hittites, Persians and Greeks, Romans and Parthians, Mongols and
Saracens and Turks. And everywhere are ruins of Christian temples and
monasteries which recall the glories of the early Church, the triumphs
of her martyrs, and which serve as silent reminders of the days when
Roman governors persecuted the followers of the Crucified because they
were regarded as dangerous to the Empire and when Sassanian satraps
demanded their blood on the ground that they were the foes of the
religion of Zoroaster. Of many of these houses of worship but little
now remains except a few crumbling arches or disintegrating pillars and
doorways. Of others all that is left is buried under a brush-covered
tell where a half-famished goat is seeking a little sustenance or
whence a Turkoman shepherd is watching his nearby flock.

Notwithstanding, however, the fact that most of the churches and
monasteries have long ceased to be more than heaps of dusty rubbish,
there are still a few edifices of the long ago in a comparatively good
state of preservation. Among these one of the most notable is that
of Kal’at Sim’an to the northwest of Aleppo and but a short distance
from the railway. Kal’at Sim’an--which is the Arabic for the Castle of
Simon--is a monastery church which dates from the fifth century and is
unquestionably the most admirable group of ruins in northern Syria.
According to tradition this magnificent _mandra_, or monastery,
was erected about the pillar on which the noted St. Simeon Stylites
spent thirty-six years of his life and where, by his extraordinary
austerities and superior holiness of life, he was the edification of
countless thousands from far and near. Among these were the Emperor
Theodosius II and his consort, the Empress Eudocia, as well as other
distinguished personages of the Byzantine capital.

It may here be remarked that the Simeon Stylites here referred to was
not--as is often thought--unique in his strange mode of life. He was
but the first of the long line of stylitæ, or pillar saints, whose
peculiar asceticism and undoubted sanctity made so deep an impression
on their pleasure-loving contemporaries not only in Asia but in Europe
as well.

But more extraordinary than the ruins of churches and monasteries
which greet the traveler in every part of the Levant, are the imposing
monuments which are due to the Crusaders and which are found in
surprising numbers from southern Palestine to northern Mesopotamia.
Crowning precipice-encircled heights and protecting strategic passes,
they are marvels of architectural beauty and massive grandeur. Those,
particularly, which belonged to the great Military Orders vie in
vastness and solidity with the great strongholds which are the glory
of the Rhine and the Danube. They were not only highly fortified
strongholds with bastions, barbicans, and donjons which served as
places of refuge to the surrounding population in times of stress and
danger, but were also lordly palaces with spacious halls and noble
chapels and chapter houses worthy of the great castles of France and
England.

No less remarkable than the massiveness and grandeur of these venerable
ruins are the charming locations which they occupy. And then the
picturesque names which were given them by their Frankish builders!
Among them were such appellations as Blanchegarde, Chateau Pelerin, La
Pierre du Desert, and Castle Belvoir, to the last of which the Arabs
gave even a more poetical name when they called it Kokab el-Hawa--Star
of the Air. Built on the commanding flanks of snow-capped Hermon and
cedar-famed Lebanon these lordly strongholds of the Crusaders and of
the Knightly Orders of the mediæval times have about them all the
glamour and chivalry and romance which envelope the most noted castles
of the Tyrolean Alps or the Tuscan Apennines. As I contemplated these
fascinating ruins and the superb sites which they so adorn and recalled
the stirring scenes which they witnessed and that too, in one of the
most romantic epochs of the world, I often wondered that they had not
more frequently supplied themes for the poet and the novelist. Tasso
in his _Jerusalem Delivered_ gives us some idea of the marvelous
richness of material here awaiting the writer of fiction no less than
the literary artist in the domain of sober history and archæology.
Where, indeed, could a true romanticist find better locations for
the plots of his stories than in the wonderful old castles of Kal’at
el-Hosn, Kal’at-es-Subebeh, or Burj Safita--grandiose yet fairylike
in their lofty aeries--which have been the houses of the bravest
Knights who have ever couched a lance and which, despite their present
dilapidated condition, for centuries have been the admiration of
travelers from all parts of the world. And what land more readily lends
itself to tales of romance than that in which are found such famous
places as Antioch and Carmel, Tyre and Ascalon and Jerusalem--places
which witnessed the most brilliant exploits of the Crusaders and whose
names have so long been identified with the most glorious names of
Christian chivalry?

It is a long step from the superb monuments of the Crusades to the
highly revered tekkehs or mezars which abound in all Moslem countries.
In the Near East they are seen everywhere--along the public highway,
in the most crowded quarters of large cities and in almost deserted
sections of the country. These tekkehs, which frequently serve the
purpose of both tombs and shrines, are interesting for two reasons,
both of which show how certain religious practices of modern Islam
are totally at variance with the teachings of the Koran and with the
traditional doctrines of the Prophet.

According to strict Moslem law, the erection of tombs and monuments
over the graves of the followers of Islam is strictly forbidden.
The orders of the Prophet, as given in the “Traditions,” are “to
destroy all pictures and images and not to leave a single lofty tomb
without lowering it to within a span from the ground.”[264] And yet,
notwithstanding this ordinance which the reforming Wahabis have
strenuously endeavored to enforce, the Mohammedans are noted for the
magnificent monuments which they have erected to the memory of their
distinguished dead. Many of their mosque tombs are the most gorgeous
mortuary monuments in existence.

But building tombs over the graves of the dead, contrary as it is to
the spirit of Islam, is far less reprehensible than making them shrines
or places of pilgrimage. “May Allah’s wrath,” said Mohammed, “fall
heavy upon the people who make the tombs of their prophets places of
prayer.” This malediction seems, however, to have fallen upon deaf ears
for, as Hurgronje declares:

Almost every Moslem village has its patron saint; every country
has its national saints; every province of human life has its
own human rulers who are intermediate between the Creator and
common mortals. In no other particular has Islam more fully
accommodated itself to the religions it supplanted. The popular
practice was, to a great extent, favored by the theory of the
intercession of the pious dead, of whose friendly assistance
people might assure themselves by doing good deeds in their
names and to their eternal advantage.[265]

In Bagdad, the “City of the Saints,” the number of shrines is
particularly large. They are frequented by pilgrims from all parts,
who prostrate themselves before the tombs of the saints to whose
shrines they often make liberal offerings and where the more devout
pray and chant hymns for hours at a time. “The Moslem,” as Kuenen tells
us, “seeks what his faith withholds from him and seeks it where the
authority which he himself recognized forbids him to look for it.”[266]

According to a widespread opinion the bodies of the departed Moslem
saints are not supposed to undergo corruption. For it is a common
belief, confirmed by countless traditions, that when the tombs of
saints and martyrs are accidentally opened their remains have the
appearance of being freshly buried: “their faces are blooming,
their eyes are bright and blood would issue from their bodies, if
wounded.”[267]

Not only is the Moslem saint not dead, in our acceptation of the term,
but his tomb is his house in which he continues to live and in which
he receives the petitions of those who have recourse to him in their
difficulties. And yet more. According to the implicit belief of his
devotees he can leave his tomb, go on long journeys and return again.
Firmly believing in a great invisible organization of saints and in the
picturesque al-Khader, who is reputed to wander continuously through
the lands of Islam performing everywhere the will of Allah, and in
the countless deceased but still very active and ubiquitous saints,
the life of the pious Mussulman is indeed, as has truly been observed
“hedged around everywhere by the Unseen.”

Our journey from Tarsus to Aleppo was a rarely enjoyable one. At every
turn of the road we saw something of unique historic or legendary
interest. Everything--mountain crags, swirling rivers, foaming
torrents, moss-covered castles, crumbling churches, that would have
enraptured a Hobbema or a Ruysdael--held so much of glamour and
romance that we seemed all the while to be traveling in a veritable
fairyland. High above the dark gray crest of Amanus were motionless
masses of bright, cumulus clouds which, under some magic influence
seemingly, had grouped themselves into the forms of Norman donjons
and Saracen strongholds. And hovering near these fantastic shapes,
fashioned from the mountain vapor, was the figure of the giant rock
of eastern fable. “Verily,” I said to my companion, “we are in the
land of the jinn and they are here giving us an exhibition of their
power over inanimate nature.” Having the authority of Mohammed for
their belief in these supernatural beings of smokeless fire, is it
surprising to find the untutored Mussulman ascribing to their agency
what he cannot conceive as being done by human means? It is the jinn
“riding in the whirlwind,” that cause, he firmly believes, the gyrating
pillars of sand to sweep over the desert and the portentous waterspouts
to rise from the troubled sea, as it is the jinn that transform clouds
into countless forms of animate and inanimate nature, which oriental
fancy so readily discerns in a cloud-dappled sky. Should one then be
surprised at the exquisite pleasure which the wonder-loving followers
of the Prophet find in the recital of the famous stories of “A Thousand
Nights and a Night”--stories in which the marvelous is so conspicuous
and in which the jinn play so important a rôle?

While traveling this once densely populated region, we recalled a
saying of the Arabs that in the triangle comprised between Hama,
Antioch, and Aleppo are found the remains of no fewer than three
hundred and sixty-five cities. This statement is, doubtless, an
exaggeration but we were willing to accept the estimate of Reclus that
there are within this area “over a hundred Christian towns dating from
the fourth to the seventh century and still almost intact.”[268]

Then there are the countless dome-covered tekkehs which stud the
landscape--each with a Kiblah and frequently with a tomb and lighted
lamp. Around many of them we note small groups of women who have,
presumably, come to make offerings of oil and fruit and coin to the
guardian and to implore the aid, if not the intercession, of the local
saint.

Besides these ever-interesting objects there are humble homes of the
country folk, every one of which rejoices in its fig, plaintain, or
mulberry tree. Frequently the scene is sprinkled with nomad tents and
enlivened by flocks and herds which dot the green expanse, and by long
lines of swaying camels which slowly bear their heavy burdens along the
long-neglected highway, still continuing their service of thousands
of years, notwithstanding the arrival of their great competitor--the
iron horse. The increasing demands of trade and the need of rapid
communication make the construction of railways in Asia as necessary
as in other parts of the world, but the lover of the picturesque will
hope that the time will never come when the locomotive will entirely
displace the camel, which seems to be an essential feature in every
eastern landscape. This thought comes to me with special insistence
as the shriek of the railway whistle announces our arrival at Aleppo,
where a train of cars--in place of a caravan of camels--appears to be
as incongruous as at the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem.

While in Aleppo we were the fortunate guests of the Franciscan friars,
the best and most gentle of hosts. They received us with the same
cordial hospitality which they had so graciously extended to me in
Egypt and the Holy Land a third of a century before. Thanks to their
long residence in Aleppo and their thorough knowledge of the manners
and customs of its people, they enabled me to see more of the Aleppines
during my short sojourn among them than would otherwise have been
possible. I shall never forget the extreme kindness of the courteous
and learned Padre Agostino, whose knowledge of everything in and about
Aleppo continually reminded me of his learned confrère, Frère Lieven de
Hamme, who was my constant guide and friend during the happy weeks I
spent many years before in the holy city of Jerusalem and its environs.

There is, however, a great difference between the two cities. Jerusalem
is a city of sacred monuments and holy memories while Aleppo is noted
as Syria’s busiest interior mart. At present its population is about
one hundred and thirty thousand but in the heyday of its prosperity it
counted no fewer than three hundred thousand souls. It was then the
great _entrepôt_ of trade between the Orient and the Occident.
Then great caravans brought silks from China, carpets and tapestry from
Persia, spices, drugs, pearls, and precious stones from India and the
Spice Islands of the Malay Archipelago. It was then headquarters for a
large colony of Venetian, Dutch, French, and English merchants who here
exchanged the products of the West for the prized merchandise of the
East.

Pietro della Valle, the distinguished Roman traveler who visited Aleppo
in 616, was immensely impressed by the magnitude of its commercial
transactions. So great was the amount of money involved that, he
says, it was never counted but always weighed in boxes. And no one,
he assures us, ever spoke of sales or purchases that did not amount
to sums which ranged, at the lowest, from forty to a hundred thousand
scudi.[269]

For a long time Aleppo was one of the chief trade centers in the
East of the Levant and East India companies. During the period of
their greatest prosperity the amount of business transacted here
was enormous. For, in addition to these two great organizations, the
British Factory here counted no fewer than eighty firms, besides
which all the leading countries of Europe had here their factories or
organizations of factors or agents for the purpose of securing their
share of the great trade of the Orient.

At that time a great part of the commerce of the Far East came to
Aleppo by way of Basra and Bagdad. Then the population of Basra
exceeded two hundred thousand whereas it does not now count more
than one-fourth of that number. The number of Bagdad’s inhabitants
has diminished in proportion. The great decrease in the commercial
importance of these two cities was partly due to war and pestilence.
But the great discovery by Vasco da Gama of an all-sea route between
the West and the East and the opening of the Suez Canal reduced the
overland traffic between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf to a
small fraction of what it was in the palmy days of the great European
factories of Aleppo, Basra, and Bagdad. According to the plans of its
projectors, the Bagdad Railway is to restore this overland trade to its
former magnitude and even greatly add to its amount and value.

It is difficult for the modern traveler as he passes along the present
overland routes between Aleppo and Basra to form any true conception
of the stupendous scale on which the old caravan trade between the
two emporia was formerly conducted. Although the distance between
the two places is nearly eight hundred miles and most of the road
passes through the inhospitable Syrian and Arabian deserts and the
difficulties to be encountered, at the time of which we are speaking,
were as grave as they were manifold, the number of merchants and
capitalists who ventured fortune and life in this forbidding and
dangerous part of the world seems almost incredible. And the magnitude
of the caravans and the value of the merchandise they transported in a
single journey was yet more astonishing.

In the caravan with which Della Valle traveled there were, he informs
us,[270] fifteen hundred persons and forty or more large tents. That of
the celebrated French traveler, Tavernier, counted six hundred camels
and four hundred men. When in 1745 the Englishman, William Beawes,
crossed the desert there were two thousand camels! But this was far
less than the number that was in the caravan of his countryman, John
Eldred, when a century and a half earlier he made the journey from
Bagdad to Aleppo with four thousand camels “laden with spices and
other rich merchandise.” But the largest of these caravans was much
smaller than the one which in 1750 went from Bagdad to Aleppo and which
was composed of five thousand camels and eleven hundred men. When
trade between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean was most brisk,
caravans of from two to five thousand camels crossed the desert twice
a year between Aleppo and Bagdad. The Dutch traveler, John Huyghen Van
Linschoten, attributes the great prosperity of Ormuz to the fact that
it was located on the great trade route to India.[271]

The value of the merchandise carried by these caravans was often very
great. Thus we are told of the caravan of an English trader, one
Carmichael, which consisted of thirty mules, fifty horses, and twelve
hundred camels, “six hundred of which were laden with merchandise
valuing nearly 300,000 pounds. The caravans that carried on the trade
between Aleppo and Mocha were,” in the words of a writer of the time,
“esteemed indifferently rich if they carry less than two million
dollars or one hundred thousand ducats of gold either Hungarian,
Venetian, or Moorish.”

The foregoing statements are illuminating in the information supplied
respecting the size of the caravans and the amount of merchandise they
transported, but they give us no idea of the great fatigues and dangers
that were incurred in the long journeys through the cheerless deserts
which were inhabited for the most part by hostile and plunder-seeking
Bedouins. The Venetian traveler, Cæsar Frederick, throws some light
on the character of the country which the caravans had to traverse.
Returning in 1581 from his long wanderings of eighteen years in India
and beyond he tells us that:

From Babilon to Aleppo is forty days’ journey, in which they
make thirty-six days over the Wilderness, in which thirty-six
days they neither see houses, trees nor people that inhabit it,
but only a plaine and no signe of any way in the world.... I say
in thirty-six dayes we passe over the wildernesse. For when we
depart from Babilon two dayes wee passe by villages inhabited
until we have passed the river Euphrates. And then within two
dayes of Aleppo we have villages inhabited.[272]

As a precaution against attacks by Arab robbers, Pietro della Valle
informs us that it was always necessary to post at night a strong guard
around the caravan. “During the entire night this guard runs around the
camp shouting--as is their custom--to their friends to be on the alert
and their enemies to keep away.”[273] How conducive to sleep was all
this to the anxious and way-worn members of the caravan!

But

_While beasts and men together o’er the plain_
_Moved on--a mighty caravan of pain_,

they were not entirely cut off from the rest of the world. Although
it was long generations before the invention of the telegraph and
the telephone, they were able to keep up communication with their
friends by means of homing pigeons of which the caravan bashis released
one every other day of the journey through the desert. By means of
these pigeons, which had been used in the East since the days of the
Crusades, the leaders of caravans, Linschoten records, were able to
keep up regular communication not only with Bagdad, Basra, and Aleppo
but also with far distant Constantinople.

Although the great camel trains which were formerly so indispensable
to the merchant of the Levant have long given place to the lines of
steamships that now connect the East and the West by way of the Suez
Canal and the Cape of Good Hope, the Syrian and Arabian deserts still
witness as large caravans as were ever known in the most flourishing
period of overland traffic between Aleppo and Bagdad. Such caravans are
now, however, but little used for the purpose of commerce but rather
for transporting the countless thousands of pious pilgrims who annually
visit the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

Doughty in his _Travels in Arabia Deserta_ gives us a most
picturesque description of a pilgrim caravan which he was allowed to
accompany over what he calls “the old gold and frankincense caravan
path to Arabia the Happy.” This, he declares, “is the most considerable
desert caravan in the Eastern World.” The caravan with which he
journeyed was, he tells us, composed of “a slow-footed multitude” of
six thousand persons, ten thousand camels, mules, hackneys, asses, and
dromedaries, nearly two miles long with a breadth in the desert of
about one hundred yards.[274]

During the last few years, however, the Hedjaz Railroad has in great
measure taken the place of the large pilgrim caravans that formerly
went from Syria to the two sacred cities of Arabia. The northern
terminus of this road is at Aleppo. Although it is planned to extend
it to Mecca, it has so far been completed only to Medina. Its
construction is chiefly due to the late Sultan, Abdul Hamid II, who
saw in it a power-means of furthering the projects of Pan-Islamism.
The Shah of Persia, the Khedive of Egypt, and the Sherif and Ulema of
Mecca cordially joined in this great enterprise. Contribution from rich
and poor towards the work came in from all parts of the Moslem world.
Lucknow contributed $140,000; Madras and Rangoon, $300,000; while an
Indian Prince spent no less than $200,000 on the Medina station alone.
No fewer than seven thousand soldiers were engaged in the construction
of this railway which was to combine the two most holy cities of the
Mohammedan world more closely to the Osmanli Caliphate than ever before
and which was to further the cause of Pan-Islamism more effectively
than could anything else whatever.

One feature of the Hedjaz Railway trains, which strongly appeals to
the devout pilgrims, is its prayer car. For them it is virtually a
mosque on wheels. But the majority of the pilgrims appreciate the road
still more because it enables them to reach the sacred cities of their
heart’s desire without incurring the many fatigues and dangers that are
incident to the slow-moving caravans. For what with the plague, the
cholera, the treacherous Bedouins, and the exposure to the withering
desert sun the mortality of the pilgrims to Mecca is enormous.

To the observant traveler in the East few things are more interesting
than to contemplate the pilgrim caravan as it

_Winds slowly in one line interminable_
_Of camel after camel_,

or is more suggestive of serious thoughts regarding Moslem belief and
practice.

Many there are who account for the wide spread of Islam, which now
numbers two hundred and fifty million adherents, by declaring that it
is an easy and sensual religion. But even good Padre Marracci, who
was one of the first to make an exhaustive study of the religion of
Mohammed, saw that this explanation was not satisfactory.[275] The
obligation incumbent on every Mussulman to give liberal alms--which
is imposed both by the Koran and by tradition; to observe the strict
and very trying fast of Ramadan,--abstaining during the day from
water and tobacco even though engaged in the severest kinds of manual
labor, and to make at least once during his lifetime the arduous and
perilous pilgrimage to Medina and Mecca, would seem rather to act as an
effective deterrent to the acceptance of the religion of the Prophet.

To those who account for the success of Islam on the theory that
“it attracts by pandering to the self-indulgence of men,” Voltaire
addresses the pertinent question:

Were there imposed upon you a law that you should neither eat
nor drink from four in the morning until ten at night through
the whole month of July; ... that you should abstain from wine
and gaming under penalty of damnation; that you should make
a pilgrimage across burning deserts; that you should bestow
at least two and a half _per cent_ of your revenue on
the poor; and that having been accustomed to eighteen wives,
you should suddenly be limited to four--would you call this a
sensual religion?[276]

Those who lay such stress on self-indulgence as a factor in the success
of Mohammedanism forget that “a motive of sensuality could never, of
itself, make the fortune of a religion.” They forget what a strong
appeal the very simplicity of the Moslem creed makes to a man naturally
religious. For, reduced to its simplest expression, Mohammedanism
embraces but two fundamental dogmas--belief in God and belief in a
future life. “A creed so precise, so stripped of all theological
complexities and consequently so accessible to the ordinary
understanding, might be expected to possess and does indeed possess a
marvelous power of winning its way into the consciences of men.” They
forget that proselytism is to every Mussulman in a certain measure
innate; that every follower of Mohammed is by nature a missionary; that
in the pursuit of this avocation he spares neither labor nor expense;
that so intense is his conviction that one is forced to “notice and
admire the kind of chivalrous pride which the average Mohammedan takes
in his faith.”[277]

Nor is this all that will impress the candid observer. Leaving out of
consideration the lives of the more unworthy followers of Mohammed,
he will find much in Islam that he is forced to respect and admire.
Whatever he may think of Moslem teaching, he cannot help admire the
devotion, the zeal, the earnestness, the spirit of sacrifice which
characterize so large a number of Mussulmans. There are, for instance,
no poorhouses among them, for the indigent are abundantly provided for
otherwise.[278]

But more remarkable still is the importance which they attach to prayer
and the fidelity with which they, five times a day, recite the orisons
prescribed by their religion. Mohammed is said to have called prayer
the key to Paradise and to have declared it to be of more value in the
eyes of Allah than fasting, almsgiving, or a pilgrimage to Mecca. When
we see his followers regularly saying their daily prayers wherever they
may be, even before satisfying their cravings for much needed food and
drink, we must conclude that they take the reputed saying of their
Prophet very much to heart and have no doubt of its supreme moment and
efficacy.[279]

It is because of their profound religious earnestness, their abiding
charity towards the poor and suffering and their many natural virtues
that those who know them best have such good reports to give of
the Mohammedans,[280] and would fain see them better known among
our western people, and will welcome the day when the prejudices
and animosities of ages shall disappear and when every soul-loving
Christian shall constitute himself a missionary to assist the followers
of Islam towards becoming members of the One Fold and finding peace and
happiness under the One Shepherd.

Outside of her people, I can truthfully say with Della
Valle that I found very little in Aleppo that was specially
_riguardevole_--noteworthy. But the people, especially those I was
able to visit in their homes, were most charming. And of never-failing
interest were the representatives of many lands whom I met in the
streets and mosques and bazaars. In the last named places were
Asiatics and Africans of every race and sect and costume, “with
their expressive hands, with henna-tinted nails, with narrow cunning
wrists”--wild Bedouins, lordly Turks, grim-visaged Kurds and Turkomans,
handsome and athletic Persians and Circassians, artful Greeks, astute
Armenians,[281] crafty Jews--“all with eyes glittering with the yellow
fires of greed” and all, as in the days of the city’s former commercial
prosperity, bent on trade but in transactions far more limited.

I found an additional interest here in the reflection that Aleppo is on
the linguistic frontier--extending from Alexandretta to Biredjik on the
Euphrates--which separate the peoples of the flowery Arabic speech from
those of the more laconic but no less vigorous Turkish. South of this
line Turkish ceases to be heard except in the offices of the civil and
military administrations of the Ottoman government.

The Syrians, like the Arabs, are Semites, but of their ancient tongue,
the Aramaic, little now remains except a sort of dialect which is
now confined to only a few villages on the eastern declivities of
the Anti-Libanus.[282] Syriac, it is true, is still the liturgical
tongue of the Maronites and Jacobites as it was for centuries that of
other oriental Christians of Semitic origin. But, if a small number
of priests still understand Syriac, no one any longer speaks it. For
Syrians as well as for Arabs the language of conversation has for a
long time been the vulgar Arabic. The Christians, however, speak a less
pure form than the Moslems, for the adherents of Mohammed, by their
constant reading of the Koran, become familiar with the more literary
forms of classical Arabic.

During the Seleucid and Byzantine domination, the predominant language
of educated people in Syria and Asia Minor was Greek. But in these, as
well as in other regions formerly belonging to the Ottoman Empire, we
now find the most extraordinary anomalies of linguistic distribution.
Thus there are in Anatolia villages whose sole inhabitants are Greeks
who belong to the Orthodox Church and where the Greek language is so
little understood that the priests, in order to be understood by their
people, are obliged to preach and read the services of the church in
Turkish. In Cyprus, on the contrary, there are Turkish villages whose
inhabitants speak only Greek. But this is no more singular than to
find--a frequent occurrence--Turkish newspapers printed in Greek or
Armenian characters. These literary curiosities are, however, eclipsed
by a Jewish newspaper in Constantinople which is printed in Hebrew
characters although the language is Spanish.[283]

I have said that outside of her people I found very little in Aleppo
to attract attention. I, of course, visited the great mediæval
castle--called the Citadel--that dominates the city and from the summit
of which one has a magnificent view of the surrounding country. But
this impressed me far less than a small block of basalt which I saw in
the south wall of a mosque near the Citadel and which bears a curious
inscription like those which have, during the last few decades, been
brought to light in ever-increasing numbers throughout the greater part
of both Syria and Anatolia. By the superstitious natives it is held in
great veneration, for it is supposed to offer a sovereign remedy for
all ophthalmic affections. We were assured that the smoothness of the
stone’s surface was due to the frequent practice of the afflicted of
rubbing their eyes upon it.[284]

The character of this inscription was not new to me for I had seen
many similar ones in the Imperial Museum of Constantinople and
elsewhere, but its location in this commercial capital of the Near East
transported me in fancy back to a period antedating the time when the
Patriarch Abraham, according to tradition, was wont to milk his flocks
in a cave of the citadel and distribute the milk in alms among the
poor.[285] Then Aleppo was in the possession of a power that ranked
with Egypt and Assyria; a power which, nearly two thousand years B. C.,
overthrew the first Babylonian dynasty and made an alliance, on equal
terms, with Rameses II, the greatest of the Pharaohs; a power which, in
its palmy days, bore rule over the greater part of Syria and Asia Minor.

Until lately it was believed by scholars that there were only two
great civilizations in the ancient East--Egypt and Babylonia. But
recent discoveries in Sinjerli, Boghaz-Keui, and many other places
have proved conclusively that there was a third civilization which was
synchronous with those of the Nile and the Tigris and which, in the
days of its splendor, prevailed from Nineveh to Smyrna and Ephesus
and from the headwaters of the Orontes to the lower reaches of the
Halys. Far back in the Mycenean period, when the Cyclops, according to
legend, were building the massive acropolis of Tiryns, and when, as
far as “the first pale glimmer of Greek tradition” will enable us to
judge, the people of Greece “were awakening to intellectual life,” this
third civilization--until a half century ago entirely unsuspected--was
erecting monuments which are to-day the amazement of the learned world
and which have prepared it for revelations as startling as any of those
that followed the decipherment of the Rosetta stone by Champollion
or the unlocking of the secrets of the cuneiform inscriptions of
Mesopotamia by Grotefend and Rawlinson.

In this extended region lived an extraordinary people whose cultural
development may probably, according to Messerchmid,[286] “be dated
about the third millennium” before our era, and who were known by the
ancient Egyptians as the Kheta and by the Assyrians as the Khatti.
They were the same people who are spoken of in the Old Testament as
Hittites and who are supposed to have, at an early date, extended their
migrations as far south as northern Arabia. It was, in the opinion of
many investigators, from a Hittite--Ephron--that Abraham bought “the
double cave looking towards Mambre” near Hebron, as a family burial
place.[287] Referring, apparently to the foundation of Jerusalem the
prophet Ezekiel declares that her “father was an Armorite and her
mother a Hittite.”[288] There is also reason to believe that the
ill-fated “Uriah the Hittite,” the husband of Bethsabee, the mother of
Solomon, belonged to the same race.[289] And it was because she bore
a son to King David that Bethsabee, the wife of a Hittite, became an
ancestress of the Savior of the world.[290]

But these and other obscure references in Scripture to the Hittites
threw practically no light on the wonderful people who, during the
past half century have been engaging the attention of many of the
ablest archæologists and orientalists of Europe and America. In 1812
the famous Swiss traveler, Burckhardt, discovered in Hamath, Syria, a
black basaltic block on which were strange hieroglyphic signs.[291]
But it was not until sixty years later, when other similar monuments
were found in the same place, that scholars began to realize their
importance. Systematic investigations were then instituted by
individuals and learned societies and it was not long until their
labors were rewarded by the most extraordinary finds. Not only
hieroglyphic inscriptions, like those on the blocks found at Hamath,
were brought to light but also remains of cities with large palaces and
fortresses adorned with sculptures of the most surprising character.

Further research by such eminent orientalists as Halevy, in France;
Hrozny of Austria; Jensen and Winckler, in Germany; Sayce and Hogarth,
in England, showed that the builders of these forgotten cities and
the authors of the strange script which was written in boustrephedon
fashion were no other than the people of whom the Bible speaks of as
the Hettites or Hittites.[292] All our knowledge of this mysterious
people, outside of the brief references to them in the Sacred Text,
is what has been gained since the publication in this country of the
first Hittite inscriptions in 1872. We now know that as a power “The
Land of the Hittites” became a memory of the past when the Assyrians
took possession of Carchemish and when, following their capture of
this celebrated stronghold, they entered Asia Minor in 718 B. C.--but
a few years after the foundation of Rome. Thenceforward the region so
long inhabited by the Hittites was ruled in succession by Assyrians,
Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Ottoman Turks.

Notwithstanding, however, the fact that scholars now have at
their disposition many and valuable Hittite monuments they have,
nevertheless, thus far sought in vain for a bilingual inscription that
will serve as a key to the Hittite language and which will force the
Hittite sphinx to reveal her long-guarded secret. This much desired
key may any day be uncovered by the spade of the archæologist. What
the results of such a discovery will be can only be conjectured. Many
who are competent to judge think they will compare in importance with
those that followed the decipherment of the hieroglyphics of Egypt and
the cuneiform inscriptions of Assyria and Babylonia--that they will
disclose an intimate relation between the culture of the Hittites and
the earliest civilizations of Cyprus and Crete, Greece and Italy, and
that they will contribute immensely to our knowledge of the earliest
connection of the peoples of Western Asia with those of southeastern
Europe and of their influences on one another in the divers domains of
religion, art, literature, and politics.[293]

As I gazed on the mysterious block of basalt at Aleppo with its
soon--one hopes--to-be-deciphered inscription and thought of the
wonderful Hittite records that have been unearthed during the last few
years and the promise which they hold of priceless contributions to the
history of our race, I recalled what the distinguished French savant,
the late Vicomte E. M. de Voguë, once said of the East, “_L’Orient,
qui ne sait plus faire d’histoire, a le noble privilège de conserver
intacte celle d’autrefois_,” the Orient which no longer makes
history has the noble privilege of preserving intact that of former
times.

CHAPTER XII

FROM THE EUPHRATES TO THE TIGRIS

_We scrutinize the dates_
_Of long-past human things,_
_The bounds of effaced states,_
_The lines of deceased kings!_
_We search out dead men’s words and
works of dead men’s hands._
MATTHEW ARNOLD, “Empedocles on Etna.”

After a delightful but an all-too-short sojourn in Aleppo, made doubly
delightful by our amiable Franciscan hosts and by their charming and
hospitable friends whose number here, as everywhere else in Syria, is
legion, we were once more on the road with our faces turned toward
the mysterious and spell-weaving Orient. Although every hour that
we had spent under the genial Syrian sun had been replete with its
peculiar interest or pleasure, we longed to set foot on the land that
is bounded by the famed rivers of the Euphrates and the Tigris. Our
feeling, indeed, was somewhat akin to that expressed in Kipling’s
_Mandalay_, “If you’ve ’eard the East a-callin’, why, you won’t
’eed nothin’ else.”

Boarding a train of the Bagdad Railway at the station on the site of
the erstwhile camp of the Crusaders under Baldwin, we were soon on
our way towards our first objective, Jerablus on the Euphrates. Our
course lay through the heart of a fertile country strewn with ruins
and dotted with mud-built villages. The puffing locomotive made its
way alternately along fruitful valleys and over rolling uplands whose
state of cultivation showed that this region well deserved the name
of “granary of northern Syria.” And, notwithstanding the advent of
the iron horse, the winding caravans which we frequently passed or
overtook were proof conclusive that the service of the patient camel
is likely to continue for a long time to come.

It was but a few hours after leaving Aleppo that we caught the first
glimpse of the Euphrates as it flowed through arid wastes and washed
barren rocks and hills of sand. Although, like Ulysses, I

_Much had seen and known; cities of men_
_And manners, climates, councils, governments_,

I have seen few things that thrilled me more than my first view of
this famous waterway. For, notwithstanding the fact that I had spent
my early boyhood within a few hundred miles of the Mississippi, I was
familiar with the name of the Euphrates before I had heard of that of
our great “Father of Waters.” And when, after nearly three score years
of waiting, I at length found myself actually walking along the sandy
marge of this stately river--a river that my earliest reading told me
had its source in Paradise--and felt personal contact with it, it was
in very truth an event in my life. It was, indeed, like meeting again a
favorite friend of boyhood days. The emotions which I then experienced
and the memories that were evoked have been expressed in part in the
beautiful apostrophe of the poet Michel:

_All hail, Euphrates! stream of hoary time,_
_Fair as majestic, sacred as sublime!_
_What thoughts of earth’s young morning dost thou bring!_
_What hallowed memories to thy bright waves cling!--_
_The bowers are crushed where Eve in beauty shone,_
_Ages have whelmed, beneath their ruthless tide,_
_Assyria’s glory and Chaldæa’s pride:_
_But thou, exhaustless river! rollest still,_
_Raising thy lordly voice by vale and hill;_
_Sparkling through palm-groves, washing empires’ graves;_
_And gladdening thirsty deserts with thy waves;_
_Mirroring the heavens, that know no change, like thee,_
_A glittering dream, a bright-leaved history!_

No river in the world has played so prominent a rôle in the annals of
our race, and none, not even the Nile, can boast of nobler traditions
or a more illustrious history, or is richer in beautiful myths and
soul-stirring legends. On its fertile banks, it is believed, was
rocked the cradle of mankind and its glistening waters whisper secrets
of long-forgotten dynasties and murmurs the names of peoples of whom
history has no record. It was long the barrier between the contending
powers of the East and the West; between the forces of Persia and
Greece, of Parthia and Rome. Eastern poets never tired in singing its
praises and Arabian geographers loved to dilate on it as one of the
great rivers of the earth.

In the Bible the name of the Euphrates occurs as early as the second
chapter of Genesis. According to scholars of repute the patriarch
Abraham on his way to the Promised Land crossed it at Birejik, but a
few miles north of where it is now spanned by the great steel bridge
of the Bagdad Railway. In the Covenant which God had made with him the
dominions of his posterity were to extend “from the river of Egypt[294]
even to the great river Euphrates.” And, obedient to the command of
the Lord to “go forth from kindred and out of his father’s house ...
Abraham took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son and all the
substance which they had gathered and all the souls which they had
gotten in the land of Haran; and they went out to go into the land
of Canaan.”[295] Crossing, then, the Euphrates near the spot where
we crossed it ourselves they must, in order to find the necessary
sustenance for their flocks and herds, have traversed the same fertile
plain that had so engaged our attention on the way from Aleppo to
Djerabis and probably by one of the sinuous caravan tracks that we
noted from the car window.

But “The River,” “The Great River,” as the Jews called the Euphrates,
was more celebrated in profane than in sacred history. This is
particularly true of that stretch of the stream between the modern
towns of Bir and Rakka. It was at Carchemish, which adjoins Djerabis,
where the Hittites had the great capital and the powerful fortress
which enabled them so long to control the commerce between Assyria and
Babylonia on the east, and Phœnicia and Egypt on the west. It was at
the same famous stronghold that Nebuchadnezzar II won a signal victory
over Pharaoh-Necho and his Greek and Asiatic allies. It was here also
that Chosroes I crossed the river by building a bridge of boats at the
time of his third campaign against the Byzantines as he had crossed it
at Obbanes in his first expedition against Justinian. It was at Bir,
formerly known as Zeugma--the Bridge--that Crassus and Seleucus Nicator
passed into Mesopotamia, where the Roman general met such a tragic
fate. It was at Thapsacus that Xenophon and Cyrus the Younger crossed
the great waterway in the campaign that terminated so disastrously for
the Persian Monarch at Cunaxa. It was here also, nearly a hundred years
later, that Darius crossed “fleeing headlong eastwards with his broken
army after the battle of Issus, with Alexander headlong at his heels.”
It was in the waters of the same famed river that Trajan and Julian
the Apostate slaked their horses’ thirst. It was the same waters that
witnessed the brilliant campaigns of Heraclius, the splendid triumphs
of the Caliphs, and the devastating hordes of Timur and Jenghiz Khan.

Tradition informs us that it was down these tawny waters that a frail
craft carried Herodotus in his memorable visit to Babylon. And long
before this date it was up the Euphrates, that Gisdhubar, the mythical
hero of the great Babylonian epic, proceeded on his homeward voyage
after having “by a suitable sacrifice,” secured the good will of heaven
for his undertaking.[296] But, what has already been said is more than
enough to show that the rolling waters of the Euphrates are, in truth,
“charged with the history of the ancient world.” And, judging by the
railroads and steamer lines that are planned or in operation, and the
great irrigation works that are under construction for restoring to
the vast Babylonian plain its old-time fertility, the day is not far
distant when “The Great River” of the Jews will witness achievements
which shall rival the glories of Babylon and its hanging gardens in the
days of the city’s greatest splendor and power.

We had anticipated spending several days in Djerabis in order that we
might have an opportunity to examine the remains of Carchemish that
have recently been uncovered by the spade of the archæologist. The
great number of sculptures, both in relief and in the round, which
have been unearthed here are destined to throw a flood of light on the
cultural and political histories of the great Hittite empire, and, when
they shall have been thoroughly investigated, they will no doubt cause
us greatly to modify, if not essentially alter, many of the views we
have long entertained respecting one of the most powerful but least
known peoples of the ancient world. Excavators here are fondly hoping
that they may have the good fortune to turn up among these venerable
ruins the long desired bilingual inscription that shall enable them to
decipher the strange Hittite script that has so long baffled scholars.
Such an inscription would supply them with a key to the history of
a nation that was so long a rival of Egypt and Babylonia, and its
discovery would truly mark a red-letter day in the annals of oriental
research and scholarship.[297]

When I first set foot upon Mesopotamia my emotion was almost as great
as when I caught my first view of “The River,” “The Great River,” “The
River of the East,” “The River of Asia,” as the Euphrates is variously
designated in the Sacred Text. I was at last in the Aram-Naharaim
of the Jews--“The Syria of the Two Rivers,” known to the Arabs as
Al-Jezireh--The Island--because it is compassed by the Tigris and the
Euphrates. I was now actually treading the soil of the first country I
had ever read about, and surveying the land which first enchained my
youthful fancy. But it was not the Mesopotamia of my boyhood dreams
that I now beheld; a land of teeming millions of happy shepherds
and contented husbandmen; of smiling fields of grain and attractive
gardens of luscious fruits; of splendid cities with imposing temples
and magnificent palaces. Far from being, as I once pictured it, the
most attractive and flourishing region of the world, it was, as far as
the eye could reach, a land entirely bare of trees and almost devoid
of even the most humble village--a land of utter desolation which
exhibited on every side almost a complete cessation of that exuberant
life which was here once so dominant.

As I contemplated the sandy wilderness before me, it required a special
effort of the imagination to believe that it was once the home of a
powerful race which has long disappeared. It recalled, rather, scenes
I had witnessed in the arid Sahara or in the barren wastes of northern
Chile and southern Peru. The only traces now left here of their once
mighty empire are the numerous tells which dot the wide expanse of
the desert plain. Beneath the superincumbent earth of these frequent
mounds, are all that remains of the homes of the people who inhabited
these parts in the long, long ago. Some of these tells, which rise up
everywhere in this region like islands in the sea, may some day, under
the well-directed work of the archæologist, yield up long concealed
monuments that will be of priceless value to the historian and add
immensely to our rapidly increasing knowledge of the former inhabitants
of this once famous land. Recent discoveries in so many other parts of
Mesopotamia render such a conjecture eminently probable.

We interrupted our journey between the Euphrates and the Tigris by
making a short side trip to Urfa, formerly the great city of Edessa.
It, like Tarsus, was once a celebrated literary center and for that
reason, if for no other, it had, for at least one of our party, a very
special attraction.

Like all the old cities of the East, Urfa is rich in myths and legends
as well as in historic memories both sacred and profane. According
to a Jewish legend which identified it with the Arach of the Bible,
it was founded by Nimrod, “the mighty hunter before the Lord.”[298]
Another legend attributes the city’s foundation to Enoch, the Hermes
Trismegistes of the Orientals. Equally fabulous was the tradition about
the tent of the patriarch Jacob, which, it was averred, was preserved
in Edessa until it was destroyed by a thunderbolt in the reign of
Emperor Antoninus. But these and similar tales regarding the antiquity
of Edessa are all based on myths and fables, for its history dates only
from the beginning of the little Kingdom of Osrhoene, which was not
founded until 132 B. C.

There is, however, a legend--one of the most beautiful of the early
Christian Church--which is connected with Edessa and which deserves
more than a passing notice. It was supposed for a long time to explain
why Edessa became, at an early date, not only the first Christian city
of Mesopotamia but also its greatest religious center, and to account
for its preponderating influence in the spread of the Gospel throughout
the Orient. Humanly speaking, such good fortune could not have befallen
so humble a community as that of Osrhoene, which was at first composed
of but a small number of Christians, and which, in the natural course
of events, would have made but slow progress in a pagan or Jewish
environment which, if not openly hostile, was decidedly indifferent.

No, Edessa, it was fondly believed, had been from the beginning
marked by the seal of special privileges, and had been destined by
Our Lord to receive the saving truths of the Gospel directly from His
apostle.[299] This is the meaning of the legend usually known as “The
Legend of Abgar,” which was developed at Edessa towards the middle of
the third century and which for centuries had an extraordinary vogue
in the West as well as in the East, among Mohammedans as well as among
Christians.[300]

According to this legend, the report of the miracles of Our Lord,
having reached Edessa, Abgar, who was King of certain tribes beyond the
Euphrates and was afflicted by an incurable malady, sent to Jerusalem
a messenger with a letter addressed to Our Savior, begging Him to come
to cure him. But Jesus replied that He could not go to Edessa but that
He would, after executing His mission and ascending to heaven, send him
one of His disciples who would effect his cure and at the same time
announce to him the tidings of salvation.

Eusebius of Cæsarea, “The Father of Church History,” is our chief
authority concerning the letters which are said to have passed between
Abgar and Our Lord. They were, the historian assures us, long preserved
in the archives of Edessa.

The copy of the letter of the King to Our Lord reads:

Abgarus, ruler of Edessa, to Jesus the excellent Savior who has
appeared in the country of Jerusalem, greeting. I have heard the
reports of thee and of thy cures as performed by thee without
medicines or herbs. For it is said that thou makest the blind
to see and the lame to walk, that thou cleansest lepers and
castest out impure spirits and demons, and that thou healest
those afflicted with lingering disease and raisest the dead. And
having heard all these things concerning thee I have concluded
that one of two things must be true: either thou art God, and
having come down from heaven, thou doest these things, or
else thou, who doest these things, art the Son of God. I have
therefore written to thee to ask thee that thou wouldest take
the trouble to come to me and heal the disease which I have. For
I have heard that the Jews are murmuring against thee and are
plotting to injure thee. But I have a very small yet noble city
which is great enough for us both.

To this appealing letter of the King the Savior replied:

Blessed art thou who hast believed in me without having seen
me. For it is written concerning me, that they who have seen
me will not believe in me and that they who have not seen will
believe and be saved. But in regard to what thou hast written
me, that I should come to thee, it is necessary for me to
fulfill all things here for which I have been sent, and after I
have fulfilled them thus to be taken up again to him that sent
me. But after I have been taken up I will send to thee one of my
disciples, that he may heal thy disease and give salvation to
thee and to those who are with thee.[301]

The letter of Our Lord, as given by Eusebius, was subsequently
amplified as is seen in an apocryphal work known as “The Doctrine of
Addai.” I refer to it because of the concluding sentence of the letter
in which Jesus is made to say to Abgar regarding Edessa, “And thy city
shall be blessed and the enemy shall not prevail against it for ever.”

It was because of this promise of Our Lord, that His letter to Abgar
became doubly precious in the eyes of the King and of his people. For
they regarded it thenceforward as a palladium of their beloved city and
felt sure that they would never again be at the mercy of their foes.

Chosroes, resolved to show to the Edessenes the futility of the promise
on which they so confidently relied, and determined at the same time
to prove the falsity of the Savior’s words, proceeded in the year 544
to lay siege to the place. The besieging Persians pushed their work so
vigorously that the inhabitants of the beleaguered city were almost
in despair. In this extremity, according to the legend, the King of
Edessa went to the gate with the letter of Our Lord and, unfolding it
and holding it aloft, reminded the Savior of His promise, that no enemy
should ever prevail against it. Immediately an impenetrable darkness
enveloped the foe and prevented it from advancing further.

During several months Chosroes blockaded the city without, however,
being able to effect an entrance. In despair the discomfited and
exasperated Chosroes tried to reduce the city to submission by cutting
off its water supply. But no sooner did he achieve his purpose than a
number of magnificent fountains issued forth within the city and his
nefarious design was frustrated. The Persians were thus compelled to
raise the siege.

But this was not the only occasion on which the city was thus rescued
from its foes. For every time thereafter, the story continues, that
the Edessenes were beset by their enemies, it sufficed to produce the
letter of the Savior and read it before their enemies to compel them to
withdraw.

I have selected this as a type--probably the most beautiful type--of
many similar legends that were long current in the Orient. Indeed, not
a few of them retain their old-time popularity not only in the East but
in the West as well. This is particularly true respecting the legend of
Abgar. But what will appear more remarkable to readers of our critical
and skeptical age, is that in every century of the Church, from the
third to the nineteenth, there have been eminent scholars who have
maintained the authenticity of the correspondence between King Abgar
and Our Lord. Among them it suffices to mention such distinguished
authorities as Tillemont in the seventeenth century, Assemani in the
eighteenth and Rinck, Cave, and Cureton in the nineteenth.

It was because of the belief in the genuineness of the letter of Our
Lord to King Abgar that it was during the Middle Ages regarded as a
panacea for disease and as an amulet or talisman against all kinds of
dangers--“against lightning and hail and perils by sea and land, by
day and by night, and in dark places.”[302] It was doubtless because
of this widespread belief in the phylacteric efficiency of this letter
that the custom prevailed in England as late as the last century, and
traces of it still exist to-day, for people to hang up a copy of the
letter in their homes.[303]

Interesting, however, as is the correspondence in question, it is now
pronounced by the general consensus of scholars to be apocryphal and
must, therefore, be relegated to the limbo of many similar fictions
with which the mythopœic East has in every age supplied the credulous
and wonder-loving West.

But fascinating as one may find the myths and legends of Edessa, they
must prove but secondary to its long and eventful history. For, in the
days of its glory it ranked with Nisibis, Damascus, and Antioch as
one of the four great cities of Syria. As a center of trade it was the
rival of Palmyra which was then the great emporium of western Asia.
Through it passed the highly-prized products of India and China on
their way to the marts of Egypt and Rome.[304]

As a literary center, it was, as a recent writer observes, “admirably
situated between the Greek world and the Oriental world. Communicating
on the one hand with Antioch, on which it depended and on the other
with Persia, Greater Armenia, and even with India, the capital of
Osrhoene was well placed to profit both by the culture of Greece and
the powerful originality of the barbarous countries of the East. It
was, as it were, the confluence in which the ideas of two worlds
became intimately blended and where the various nationalities of its
inhabitants as well as the diversity of religious beliefs brought there
by strangers and merchants tended to give the city a physiognomy not
unlike that of Alexandria.”[305]

After suffering greatly from a destructive inundation in the early
part of the sixth century, Edessa was restored by Justinian on such a
magnificent scale that it was reputed to be one of the wonders of the
world. According to Arabian writers there were at one time no fewer
than three hundred convents and monasteries in and around Edessa.
These, like similar institutions in Asia Minor and Europe, were schools
of intellectual culture in which the lover of learning could devote
himself to the acquisition of knowledge in entire peace and security.

One of the most celebrated of Edessa’s homes of learning and culture
was that known as “The School of the Persians,” because its first
students and teachers were chiefly Christian refugees from Persia.
Its foundation was largely due to St. Ephrem, who so eclipsed all his
contemporaries in scholarship that their works soon fell into oblivion.
So voluminous were his works, so widely read were they, and so great
were their authority that their author was acclaimed the “Column of
the Church,” “The Prophet of the Syrians,” “The Harp of the Holy
Spirit.” And in so high esteem were his books held, that they were, as
St. Jerome informs us, publicly read in some churches after the Holy
Scriptures.

It was in the schools of Edessa that the Syriac language and literature
reached their highest degree of development. It was in them that
Syriac was molded into what subsequently became the classic speech of
the Syrians from the Tigris to the Mediterranean and which is seen at
its best in the works of Bardesanes and St. Ephrem, in the Peshito
and in Tatian’s “Diatesseron.” But neither in Edessa nor elsewhere
did the Syrian Church ever produce such eminent scholars and men of
so great literary genius as a Basil or a Eusebius, a Chrysostom or a
Gregory Nazianzus. We are, however, indebted to Syrian scholars for the
translation of many precious Greek works which otherwise would have
been lost, and for thus “having passed on the lore of ancient Greece to
the Arabs” who in their turn were so greatly instrumental in putting it
at the disposal of the scholars of the West.

There is but little in Urfa to-day to show what it was when it was
known as Edessa and when students and learned men flocked to it from
all parts of the East as to one of the greatest seats of learning
in Christendom. There is, it is true, a great castle standing, and
walls and towers that date back to the time when Edessa was a Latin
principality under Baldwin, and evidences of the city’s former
occupation by Romans and Persians and others, but there is little
which will long claim the attention of the serious visitor.

Like all travelers we visited the city’s chief lion--the great
reservoir which, as Pliny informs us, won for Edessa the name
Callirhoe--the city of the beautiful well--spring--_Callirhoen a
fonte nominatam_. From the earliest days to the present, this
reservoir has been held in great veneration. In pagan times it was
consecrated to the goddess Athagartis. To-day it is known as the Pool
of Abraham. The large number of fish with which it is always filled
are sacred in the eyes of the Mohammedans, who consider it a very
meritorious act to supply them with nourishment. The groups that are
sometimes gathered around this pool feeding the sacred fish seem quite
as preoccupied as the crowds that so generously distribute their
supplies of grain to the pampered pigeons of San Marco, Venice.

The only ecclesiastics in Urfa to-day to devote themselves to the work
of the Church which St. Ephrem and his associates served so well, whose
convent was our home during our visit to their famous city, are the
Capuchins. It is now more than two and a half centuries since these
zealous sons of St. Francis inaugurated their missionary labors in
Mesopotamia and the adjoining countries, and these have been centuries
of trial and sacrifice and persecution which would have forced less
heroic men to abandon an undertaking that often seemed impossible.
Everywhere they were confronted by the fanaticism of Mohammedanism,
which was naturally suspicious, and the jealousy of schism and heresy
which were quick to take umbrage at whatever was calculated in any way
to affect their age-long belief and practices.

During hundreds of years the torch of the faith which St. Ephrem had
preached had been extinct in the broad region which the Capuchins
had chosen for the field of their missionary activity. And during an
almost equally long period, all vestige of union between the churches
of Mesopotamia and those of the adjacent regions had completely
disappeared.

It was thus also at Urfa when in 1850 two Spanish Capuchins, Fra Joseph
of Burgos and Fra Angel de Villarubbia, took up their abode in this
city of noble memories and world-famed achievements. They had to face
the same difficulties and fanatical agencies that had been arrayed
against their brethren elsewhere. The old schismatic Greeks, Syrians,
and Armenians joined forces with the Mussulmans, the Jacobins, and the
Nestorians as against a common foe and left nothing undone to render
the undertaking of the new missionaries a failure and to compel them
to leave the country. But the admirable patience of the good fathers,
their great self-abnegation, their abounding charity towards the poor
and the distressed soon won all hearts, and churches, schools, and
asylums sprang into existence as if by magic. And it was not long until
large numbers belonging to the dissident Greek, Syrian, and Armenian
churches began to return to the Church of their forefathers and to
apply for union with the Church of Rome. Nor were the Mohammedans
less impressed than the Christians by the superior virtue of the
missionaries. Their veneration for Father Angel was so great that they
always called the Latin Church “The Church of Father Angel”--_Abuna
Angil Kilisesi_--a name which it still bears.

But the Capuchins were not the only agents of a new spiritual and
intellectual life in Urfa. For in all their works of mercy and reform
they were most ably seconded by the zealous Sisters of St. Francis from
Lons--le Saunier, France. Forbidden by the iniquitous “Association
Laws” from devoting their lives to the poor and the suffering and the
illiterate of their own country they, with rare self-denial, generously
offered to labor in the vineyard of the Lord in far-off Mesopotamia.
As I noted their cheerfulness and enthusiasm in their labors among
the poor and afflicted in Urfa, I could but compare them with some of
their sisters in religion whom I had seen in the leper hospitals of
Hawaii--who, although always in contact with the most repulsive form
of disease, were, I thought, the most buoyant and lighthearted beings I
had ever met--all enjoying an abounding happiness that could come only
from a heroic sacrifice in the service of God and humanity.

On our return to the railway we were greatly impressed by the fertility
of the soil in the vicinity of Urfa. Its orchards and gardens, gay with
flowers and fruit trees of all kinds--oranges and lemons, apricots and
mulberries, figs and pomegranates--were a delight to the eye and formed
a garland around the city, which gave it “the smiling appearance of a
grandiose villa.”

About an hour after boarding the train we found ourselves crossing
the dried-up bed of the Nahr Belikh, one of the most noted streams in
Mesopotamia. It was on its banks--and only a short distance to the
north of our course--that was located the once famous city of Haran. It
has long been in ruins and only a few Arab families now make their home
there.

Haran figures in the earliest chronicles of both the Assyrians and
the Hebrews. For a long time it was the focus of all the roadways of
northern Mesopotamia and a center of great wealth and prosperity.
But a single well-attested fact shows the great change that has come
over the face of the land round about Haran since its first mention
in history. For what is now a sandy desert was then a well-watered
region of remarkable fertility, with a rich flora and a notable fauna.
This is evidenced by undoubted records according to which this part of
Mesopotamia was a favorite hunting ground for the kings of Egypt and
Assyria, for here big game was once as varied and as abundant as it
is anywhere at present in equatorial Africa. Thus the Assyrian King,
Tiglath-Pileser I, 1120 B.C., declares, “Ten powerful bull-elephants
in the land of Haran and on the banks of the Habour I killed; four
elephants alive I took. Their skins, their tusks, with the living
elephants, I brought to my city of Asshur.”[306] To-day no elephants
are to be found in the wild state nearer than far-off India. Their
disappearance from Western Asia, where they formerly roamed as far
westward as the Lebanon range, has long been as complete as is that of
the American bison from the region east of the Mississippi.

According to a tradition based on the book of Genesis, this once
celebrated city was named after Haran, son of Thare, who was the father
of the Patriarch Abraham.

“And Thare took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his
son’s son and Sarai his daughter-in-law, the wife of Abram
his son and brought them out of Ur of the Chaldees to go into
the land of Canaan: and they came as far as Haran and dwelt
there.”[307]

It was here that Abram received from the Lord the command: “Go forth
out of the country and from thy kindred and out of thy father’s house.”
It was thence he went into the Promised Land which was to be the home
of his children and children’s children until the advent of the world’s
Redeemer.

It was to his kindred in or about Haran that Abraham sent his servant
from Canaan to get a wife for his son Isaac and it was in Haran that
he found the fair Rebecca as she was going to a spring with a pitcher
on her shoulder. It was this same region that witnessed that idyllic
episode in the early life of Jacob so beautifully described in the book
of Genesis. It was here that he spent twenty years in the service of
his uncle, Laban--six years for the flocks that his uncle gave him, and
fourteen years for his two daughters--“the tender-eyed Leah” and “the
beautiful and well-favored Rachel.”[308]

What a delight it was in this distant Mesopotamian plain, where
countless lambs still skip about their solicitous mothers, as they
did when Leah and Rachel tended their father’s flocks in the long ago,
to recall the noble fiction of Dante who, in his Terrestrial Paradise,
makes these charming women of humanity’s youth the symbols of the
active and the contemplative life as are Martha and Mary in the New
Testament! And what a pleasure it was to read on this romantic ground
in my well-thumbed _Divina Commedia_ the oft-conned verses:

_About the hour,_
_As I believe, when Venus from the east_
_First lighted on the mountain, she whose orb_
_Seems always glowing with the fire of love,_
_A lady young and beautiful, I dreamed,_
_Was passing o’er a lea and, as she came,_
_Methought I saw her ever and anon_
_Bending to cull the flowers; and thus she sang:_
_Know ye, whoever of my name would ask,_
_That I am Leah: for my brow to weave_
_A garland, these fair hands unwearied ply._
_To please me at the crystal mirror, here_
_I deck me. By my sister Rachel, she_
_Before her glass abides the live-long day,_
_Her radiant eyes beholding, charmed no less_
_Than I with this delightful task. Her joy_
_In contemplation, as in labor mine._[309]

I am loath to leave this patriarchal Arcady--the once happy home of
Rachel and Leah and Rebecca and those near and dear to them--without
referring to a fable associated with this region, in which oriental
fancy attains its loftiest flight. The thirty pieces of silver for
which Judas Iscariot betrayed his Master, were, it was fabled, coined
by Thare--Terah in the King James Version--and given to his son
Abraham, who gave them to Isaac; “Isaac bought a village with them;
the owner of the village carried them to Pharaoh; Pharaoh sent them to
Solomon, the son of David, for the building of his temple; and Solomon
took them and placed them round about the door of the altar.” They
were taken thence to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, who gave them to some
Persian youths who had been his hostages. These youths then gave the
coins to their fathers who were the three Magi. When Christ was born,
and they saw His star, they, taking the pieces of silver with them, set
out on their journey to Bethlehem. Arriving near Edessa they mislaid
the coins, which were found by some traveling merchants, who spent
them in the purchase of a seamless tunic which an angel had given to
some shepherds. Informed of these extraordinary facts, King Abgar got
possession of the tunic and the pieces of silver and sent them to Our
Lord in grateful recognition for the good He had done him in healing
his sickness. The Savior retained the tunic but sent the pieces of
silver to the Jewish treasury. These were the thirty pieces which Judas
received for delivering his Master into the hands of the chief priests
and which after the traitor had hanged himself, were used for the
purchase of a field for a burial place for strangers.[310]

After leaving what was once the home of the Patriarchs we saw little
of interest until we reached Nisibis. But Nisibis, like Haran, is
interesting rather for what it was in the distant past than for what
it is at present. Like Haran, it was once a busy and commanding mart
between the East and the West. Now, however, like Haran, it is little
more than a mass of ruins which are eloquent witnesses of ancient
power and splendor. This is evidenced by the remaining arches of a
great bridge across the Gargar on which the city was built and by
the crumbling walls and columns of a great cathedral whose florid
Corinthian ornaments remind one of those which so distinguish the
famous temples of Baalbec and Palmyra.

As I contemplated the three or four hundred hovels which make up modern
Nisibis, it seemed difficult to believe that it was once a city of
palaces and schools and the great bulwark of Rome in Mesopotamia
against Persians and Parthians, and that it was for centuries compelled
to endure a constant change of rulers. The Armenians, to begin with,
took it from its founders. Lucullus, after a long siege, captured
it from Tigranes. After the crushing defeat and death of Crassus at
Haran,[311] the Parthians wrested it from the Romans. It next fell into
the power of Trajan and under Septimus Severus became a stronghold of
the Roman colony established in these parts. Sapor I became master
of it in the year 242, but it was soon retaken by the Romans under
Gordianus III Diocletian and Maximian, recognizing the importance of
this strategic point and foreseeing that it would inevitably be subject
to the attacks of the enemy, had it strongly fortified. Ammianus
Marcellinus gives us some idea of the formidable character of its
fortifications when he declares that Nisibis had served the Orient as a
barrier against the invasion of the Persians.[312]

But Nisibis was not only a stronghold of the utmost importance to the
nation that controlled it; it was also a literary center whose fame
extended to Africa and Italy and whose schools were as celebrated
for certain of their courses of study as were those of Rome and
Alexandria.[313] When the famous school of Edessa was closed in 489
by Bishop Cyrus and the Emperor Zeno on account of its Nestorian
tendencies, its teachers and students repaired to Nisibis, where they
became the most zealous advocates of Nestorianism as they subsequently
became its most active propagators in Persia.

The ruins of this old metropolis show what an important city Nisibis
must have been when it was ranked with Edessa and Antioch and
Damascus at the period when they were at the zenith of their power
and greatness. And history tells us of what a fertile and densely
populated region it was once the capital. In the days of its splendor
it was surrounded by marvelously fruitful gardens and grain fields
while the valleys of the Gargar and the Khabur were famous for their
olive groves and their extensive plantations of cotton. Many cities and
towns on the Khabur, which have long been in ruins, were once noted
cotton markets whence this valuable staple was shipped to Mosul and
Chilat in southeastern Armenia, where it was converted into muslin. The
word _muslin_, as is known, is derived from Mosul because this
fabric had its origin there. But both the cultivation of cotton and the
manufacture of muslin have long ceased to be the important industries
they once were in this part of the Orient.

Another feature of this part of Mesopotamia, noted by historians, was
its forests. It was at Nisibis “where good timber was abundant,” that
the Emperor Trajan had a large fleet constructed to be used on the
Tigris.[314] Now the entire country is so treeless that anything larger
than a shrub is rarely seen. So uncommon, indeed, is a tree of any size
that when one occurs, it is deemed worthy of a special name, even as
was “The Oak of Weeping,” under which was buried Debora, the nurse of
Rebecca.[315]

Nor is the desolation which so characterizes the regions round about
Haran and Nisibis exceptional in northern Mesopotamia. It is typical
of the entire country extending from the Euphrates to the Tigris.
But according to the “Peuteringian Table” this vast belt of land
was once studded with cities and towns, of which there are now but
scattered traces. Crumbling walls, remnants of bridges and churches and
reservoirs are all that now remain to attest the prosperity of this
land in the days of Roman grandeur and Byzantine splendor.

At Nisibis we reached the present eastern terminus of the Bagdad
Railway. Thence to Mosul, about a hundred and fifty miles distant, we
journeyed on the backs of dromedaries. I did not, however, regret that
this slower means of locomotion necessitated our spending more time in
a region that recalled Libya’s solitary waste,

_Its barren rocks, parched earth and hills of sand_.

Not at all. I have always loved the desert, its solitude, its
tranquillity, its restfulness. In it,

_Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife_,

I have spent many of the most peaceful and enjoyable days of my life.
I love its diaphanous skies, which are as limpid as the crystal heaven
of Eden. I love its dry, ethereal, stimulating atmosphere which exalts
the spirits, restores the zest of youth, intensifies the joy of living.
Often, while within its quiet confines, I have exclaimed with St.
Bernard and St. Jerome, _O sancta solituto!_ Then I realized, as
never before, its attraction for the hermits of the Thebaid and the
anchorets of the Syrian Chalcis.

It matters not that the desert is as monotonous as the ocean; that
its silence is broken only by the muffled footsteps of our even-paced
camels; that there is a total absence of life--there is not a beast or
bird or insect visible in the broad expanse; that on all sides one sees
nothing but sterility, desolation, and death.

This is all true--very true. But if the desert has the monotony of
the ocean, it also holds within its mysterious solitudes all the awe
and solemnity; all the grandeur and sublimity of the ocean. This
is particularly true at the magic hour of refulgent sunset. Then
its shifting sands and fantastically formed rocks--black asphalts,
brown sandstones, gray and rose granites which are massed like groups
of antediluvian monsters--are illumined by splendors of color and
phantasmagorias of light which transform the most ordinary landscape
into a veritable fairyland.

The flanks and crest of Jebel Sinjar, a picturesque mountain range on
our right, exhibit the same riot of color, the same marvelous contrasts
of light and shade. At the base there is the delicate violet of the
iris, at the summit the glowing red of the poppy, and above all is the
soft, turquoise blue of the deep, steady empyrean.

Then there appears the wonderful, mystic afterglow which completely
transfigures everything on mountain and plain, and lights up the
scene with a light that rarely shines in our cloudy, mist-enveloped
clime. In the clear western sky, the evening star hangs like a
solitaire. Presently there flash-out in rapid succession the stars and
constellations which, in the long ago, were the wonder and the delight
of the shepherds and the priest astronomers of Assyria and Chaldea.

Near our tent the camels, relieved of their burdens, are quietly
browsing on the scanty broom and brushwood which in these parts
constitute their chief sustenance. Their Bedouin masters, seated
in a circle, around an odorous camp fire, entertain one another by
recounting past experiences and adventures and by singing their
favorite songs, most of which are in a minor key and characterized by
the frequent occurrence of the terrible name of Allah, which gives to
their doleful chant a note of sadness that once heard one can never
forget. Amid such scenes of nomadic life, we welcome the hour of sweet
repose, when, beguiled by gentle dreams, we, like the lotus-eaters of
old, soon become quite unconscious of the fleeting passage of time and
of all the world beside.[316]

On the last day of our journey between Djerabis and Mosul, while
contemplating at times the prevailing “abomination of desolation” of
a ruin-covered waste, we continually referred to the novel excitement
which had been ours as we gazed on the hallowed land of the patriarchs
about Haran and viewed in Nisibis the fate of a once splendid home
of letters and culture. Traversing a region of hoar antiquity, whose
annals and legends so captivate the fancy, where turbaned nomads, happy
in their felt tents, enjoy the unrestricted freedom of the desert, ours
was a sensation and a pleasure unknown in the rush and turmoil and
savage energy of our high-pressure civilization of Europe and America.
And while the eye delighted in the marvelous succession of contrasts in
the landscapes--where rugged mountains alternate with endless plains
and “spots of verdure lie strewn like islets amid shoreless seas of
sand”--the mind ever pondered on the whirlpool of vicissitudes which
has made Mesopotamia unique among the regions of the earth--where,
during its long and eventful history, civilization has been succeeded
by barbarism and grandeur by decay and death. But as one surveyed this
land of former glory and present desolation, one loved to think that
“before his eyes the sands of an expiring epoch were fast running out;
and the hour-glass of destiny was once again being turned on its
base.” It was with this reflection that we completed another lap of our
journey and that, travel-worn, we finally arrived at Mosul, the once
famous emporium on the arrow-swift Tigris.[317]

CHAPTER XIII

THE CHURCHES OF THE EAST

NESTORIAN, MONOPHYSITE AND OTHER EASTERN CHURCHES

Holy Father, keep them in Thy name whom Thou hast given me; that
they may be one, as we also are.
St. John, xvii: 11.

Our arrival at Mosul was to us a cause of gratification for many
reasons. Not the least of these was the very cordial reception tendered
us by the good Sons of St. Dominic whose hospitality to wayfarers like
ourselves has always been as proverbial as that of the Franciscans.
Indeed, the friars of both these venerable religious orders seem,
particularly in the Orient, to have made their own, the beautiful
Armenian saying “A guest comes from God.”

As for myself, I was specially glad to be in this famous old city,
for it is located on the Tigris which I was almost as eager to see as
the Euphrates. The names of both of these celebrated rivers had ever
been associated in my mind from my earliest youth and, seeing their
tawny waters for the first time, they evoked many pleasant memories of
boyhood days when I loved to picture to myself the remarkable peoples
who dwelt in the fertile land bounded by these two great waterways,
peoples whose marvelous achievements impressed me more then than did,
in maturer years, the matchless deeds of those incomparable men who
dwelt on the banks of the Nile and the Tiber.

But my chief reason for rejoicing on our arrival at Mosul was that I
there had a rare opportunity to complete observations which, during the
greater part of our journey, I had been making on the condition and
influence of what are known as the Eastern Churches. I do not speak of
an “Eastern Church,” about which so much has been written, for such
an organization, as contradistinguished from a Western Church, is mere
fiction.

The noted Venetian traveler, Marco Polo, in writing of the inhabitants
of Mosul, declares:

There is a kind of people called Arabi and these worship
Mohammed.[318] Then there is another description of people who
are called Nestorian and Jacobite Christians. These have a
Patriarch whom they call the Jatolic [he means Catholic] and
this Patriarch creates Archbishops and Abbots and Prelates of
all other degrees and sends them into every quarter, as to
India, to Baudas [Bagdad] or to Cathay, just as the Pope of Rome
does in Latin countries. For you must know that though there is
a very great number of Christians in those countries, they are
all Jacobites and Nestorians; Christians, indeed, but not in the
fashion enjoined by the Pope of Rome, for they come short in
several points of the faith.[319]

Nearly five and a half centuries after the illustrious Venetian
traveler had dictated these lines, the erudite historian and
Orientalist, von Hammer-Purgstall, referring to the inhabitants of
the terraced city of Mardin, located between Edessa and Mosul, wrote:
“There Sunnis and Shias, Catholic and Schismatic Armenians, Jacobites,
Nestorians, Chaldæans, Sun, Fire, Calf and Devil worshipers dwell one
over the head of the other.”[320]

These two quotations from writers who lived in such widely separated
periods give one a fair idea of what has long been the religious
affiliations of the greater part of the population of Mesopotamia and
what, with slight changes, they are still to-day.

Dismissing the Moslems and Pagans just mentioned as without the purview
of this chapter, a few pages on the different Christian bodies
above-mentioned will aid the reader to form an intelligent estimate
of the present condition of some of these Churches of the East and of
their relations to one another.

We begin with the Nestorians as they constitute the oldest of the
existing dissident Churches. The Arians, Novatians, Paulinists, and
scores of other heretics who gave such trouble to the early Christian
Church have long disappeared and only students of heresiology now know
what doctrines they really professed.

The distinguishing tenet of Nestorianism, which owes its origin
to Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople from 428 to 431, is the
assertion that in Christ there are two persons--the human and the
divine--and the denial that the Mother of Christ is the Mother of God.
The Catholic doctrine, as defined by the third Œcumenical Council held
at Ephesus in 431, is that in Christ there is but one person--the
person of the Son of God--and that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the
Mother of God--Θεοτόκος.

From its beginning Nestorianism has been essentially an eastern
organization and was early adopted by the successors of the “Parthians,
Medes, Elamites, and inhabitants of Mesopotamia,” who, on the first
Pentecost, were so amazed to hear the Apostles in Jerusalem speaking in
divers tongues the wonderful works of God.[321]

On account of political and other reasons, the Nestorians soon became
separated from the rest of Christendom. Banished from Edessa in 489
by the Emperor Zeno, they fled to Nisibis which then belonged to
Persia. The Persian King, learning that they did not profess the same
creed as that held by the Byzantines, with whom he was always at war,
took them under his protection. From that time the Nestorian Church,
which eventually became almost forgotten west of Mesopotamia, had an
extraordinary development in the East. For, although from his palace,
in the twin city of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the Nestorian Katholicos sent
missionaries to Arabia and Syria and Egypt, by far the larger number
went to far-off India and China. In the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, when the Nestorian Church attained its greatest development,
the jurisdiction of the Nestorian Katholicos rivaled in extent that of
the greatest of the Byzantine Patriarchs. For then the supreme head of
the Nestorians ruled over a vast number of bishops who were stationed
at important points in Asia from Mosul to Malabar and from Jerusalem to
Java and Peking.[322]

But from this period, the Nestorian Church, which had then reached
the zenith of its greatness and power, began rapidly to decline. Its
downfall was hastened by the Moslem hordes of Timur which then swept
over the greater part of middle and western Asia and subjected to the
fiercest persecution all who did not profess the religion of Mohammed.
In addition to the disasters which followed in the footsteps of the
Tartars from Delhi to Damascus and from the Aral Sea to the Persian
Gulf, the Nestorians suffered greatly from schisms and internal
quarrels. These, coupled with the devastations of the Tartars, from
which they never recovered, eventually reduced what was the greatest
Christian organization in Asia to a poor and insignificant community in
the bleak region of Kurdistan on the frontier between Persia and Turkey.

The Nestorian Patriarch now lives at Kochanes between Lake Van and
Lake Urmia and always assumes the title Mar Shimum--Lord Simon.[323] A
striking peculiarity of the Patriarchy is that it has been hereditary
since 1450 and passes from uncle to nephew. Realizing their miserable
condition in the spiritual as well as in the material order, many of
the Patriarchs during the last two centuries have sought reunion with
Rome. Thanks to the untiring missionary labors of the Dominicans of
Mosul the majority of the Nestorians, after fourteen centuries of
separation, have returned to the faith of their forefathers. Sometimes
the inhabitants of several villages returned together. All those in
and around Mosul who formerly professed the faith of Nestorians are
now members of what is known as the Chaldean Church, which is in
communion with Rome. And according to the latest reports from the
Dominican missionaries of Mosul, there is reason to believe that all
the remaining Nestorians will soon--if they have not already done
so--accept the teaching of the Council of Ephesus; and the schism,
which for more than fourteen centuries has kept countless myriads
outside the pale of the Mother Church, will, like many other schisms,
be but a matter of history.

Those who may still cling to Nestorianism--if there yet be any--have
long practically forgotten the great questions that so distracted
the Church in the East in the days of Nestorius, Diodore of Tarsus,
and Theodore of Mopsuestia. Few of them know why they have ever been
separated from the Church of Rome, and, when questioned about it,
are able to give no better reason than “Because we have always been
separated.” With the exception of the heresy of Nestorius which was
condemned at Ephesus, the faith of the Nestorians is virtually the same
as that taught by the Church of Rome. Like other Eastern Churches,
the Nestorian has its peculiar liturgy, rites, laws, customs, but
these are so far from affecting the truths of faith, that converts
from Nestorianism are allowed by Rome to retain all its peculiarities
of worship and religious observance, except in the rare cases in
which they actually conflict with Catholic dogma. This is evidenced
in the rites and liturgy of the Chaldeans--the Uniates, or converted
Nestorians--which are exactly the same as the schismatic Nestorians
have used from time immemorial.

When in 1750 the Dominican missionaries took up their abode in Mosul,
they found there but one Catholic family and that was one of the
Chaldean rite. But so fruitful was their work of conversion that the
Patriarch of Mesopotamia and Lower Kurdistan soon afterwards resigned
his position and his nephew and successor Mar Yohannan applied for
admission into the Church of Rome. He was followed almost immediately
by five of his bishops and by the greater part of his people in and
around Mosul.

This rapid movement Romeward of the Nestorian pastors and their flocks
is partly explained by the fact that they saw no valid reason for
remaining separated from a Church which taught the same doctrines as
they themselves had always believed and which, during long centuries of
persecution, they had preserved intact. But their reunion with Rome was
hastened by the tact and zeal of the learned and sympathetic Dominicans
whom all soon learned to revere and love. For these devoted priests not
only aided these poor but earnest people in becoming reconciled with
the Mother Church on the most lenient terms, but they also established
for them schools and asylums and hospitals where both souls and bodies
could receive much needed care.

In Mosul an up-to-date printing establishment was installed in which
were printed the Scriptures and other books in Arabic, Syriac, and
other languages. A seminary was founded for the benefit of Chaldean
students destined for the priesthood. The education of girls was
entrusted to the highly cultured Dominican Sisters of the Presentation
of Tours, France. Not only did they assume charge of preparatory and
normal schools but they also opened industrial schools for girls,
especially for the working girls of the city. They also took charge of
dispensaries where thousands of poor and sick people received free of
charge the medicine and treatment which their condition required and
which, before the arrival of these ministering angels of mercy, were
not available.

In view of all these facts is there anything surprising in the final
return of the followers of Nestorius to communion with Rome?[324]

The history of the Jacobites, of whom Marco Polo found many in
Mosul--“Christians indeed, but not in the fashion enjoined by the
Pope of Rome”--differs but little, except in one point of doctrine,
from that of the Nestorians. This point of doctrine is in one respect
the very opposite of the distinguishing dogma of the Nestorians. For,
whereas the Nestorians divided Christ into two persons against the
Catholic doctrine which maintained His unity, the Jacobites, contrary
to Catholic teaching, asserted that there is in Christ but one nature
and not two, the human and the divine, as decreed in 451, by the
Œcumenical Council of Chalcedon.[325] It is because this heresy teaches
the fusion of Our Lord’s humanity and divinity that it is called
Monophysitism. And because, in its early stages, it was so ardently
championed by Eutyches, an archimandrite of a monastery outside the
walls of Constantinople, it is also known as Eutychianism. The Syrian
Monophysites are usually called Jacobites, after Jacob Zanzalos, who
was an early and zealous propagator of the heresy.

So far as statistics are available the number of Jacobites is somewhat
larger than was that of the Nestorians when the Dominicans began to
lead them back to obedience to Rome. They are scattered throughout
Syria and Mesopotamia and Malabar. Their Patriarch, who always takes
the name Ignatius with the title of Antioch, resides at Mardin or
Diarbekir on the Upper Tigris to the northwest of Mosul. Although they
all talk Arabic, the Jacobites use the Syrian liturgy of St. James.

In consequence of the missionary labors of the Franciscans, Dominicans,
and Capuchins the majority of the Jacobites are again in communion with
Rome under the name of Melchites or Syrian Uniates. Their Patriarch
with the title of Antioch usually resides at Beirut. He has eight
suffragans, most of whom live in Mesopotamia. From present indications
the day does not seem distant when the Jacobites, like the Nestorians,
shall once more be reunited with the See of Peter, from which they have
so long been separated.

Another Eastern Church which has long been cut off from the rest of
Christendom is that of the Armenians. Like the Jacobites, the Armenians
early adopted Monophysitism, a doctrine which they still retain.
Although many of them have returned to Rome, the majority, known as
Gregorians from St. Gregory the Illuminator, the apostle of Armenia,
are still Monophysites. They have on various occasions sought corporate
reunion with the Church of their fathers, and, judging by their
friendly attitude towards Catholics, this union may take place at any
time.

A peculiarity about the Armenian Church is its intensely national
character. It is indeed the most national church in the world, for
its only members--whether Gregorians or Uniates--are Armenians. It
is their religion which has held the Armenians together in spite of
centuries of persecution by Persian satraps; in spite of the tyranny
of Seljuk sultans; in spite of the pogroms of Russian autocrats. To
no other people in the world, save only those of the real “Niobe of
nations”--the long-suffering but invincible sons and daughters of
Erin--has their religion served as a stronger bond of union than
it has to the cruelly harassed and down-trodden Armenians. It has
enabled them with unparalleled tenacity to preserve their language and
literature and live ever in the hope that they may one day--God grant
it may be soon!--achieve their national independence.

Statistics regarding the number of Armenians are very unsatisfactory.
If one were to believe all the horrible tales circulated during the
last few decades about wholesale massacres of Armenians by Turks and
Kurds and Russians, one would have to conclude that the brave and
patriotic race is now extinct. Fortunately we have positive evidence
that these bloodcurdling reports have, for political and other
un-altruistic motives, been greatly exaggerated and that there is
reason to believe that the number of Armenians still living in what was
once the Ottoman Empire is not far from three millions.

The Katholikos of the Gregorian Church, who is the successor of the old
line of Armenian Patriarchs descended from St. Gregory the Illuminator,
resides in the famous monastery of Etchimiadzin near Erivan in Russian
Armenia. This monastery, which has been the seat of the Patriarchs
for nearly five centuries, was formally ceded to Russia, after the
Russo-Persian War, in 1828, and since that time the Katholikos has been
subject to a Muscovite process of Russianization which has left him so
little liberty of action that his patriarchate has been reduced to what
is virtually only a primacy of honor.

In Turkey the Armenian Church is largely under the control of the
government. For, as far back as 1461, the Sultan Mohammed II, in order
to have the Primate of this Church under his direction, raised the
bishop of Constantinople to the dignity of Patriarch. As a result of
this arbitrary action of the Sultan the Patriarch of Constantinople and
not the Katholikos of Etchimiadzin has ever since been the real primate
of all the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

In addition to the two Patriarchs just named, the Armenian Church
counts two others. For some centuries ago, as the result of schism
and usurpation, it was forced to recognize the self-styled Patriarchs
of Jerusalem, and Sis in Cilicia. But, although the schism has been
healed, the Patriarchs are still tolerated. They are, however, only
titular and have no jurisdiction as such.

Monophysitism was embraced not only by the Jacobites and Armenians but
also by a large part of the people of Egypt. It was these Egyptian
Monophysites who constituted what has since been known as the Coptic
Church. Like the Jacobites and Armenians, the Copts,[326] since their
schism has been out of communion with the rest of Christendom, have
suffered all the persecutions and been involved in all the internal
dissensions that have been the lot of the other schismatics of the East.

The Copts of Egypt now number about half a million souls. Their chief
ecclesiastical ruler, who usually resides in Cairo, is the Patriarch of
Alexandria. He pretends to be the direct successor of the Evangelist
St. Mark, the first bishop of Alexandria, and claims jurisdiction not
only over Egypt but over Abyssinia as well. Like the other Eastern
Churches, that of the Copts has its own peculiar rites and customs.
She uses old Coptic in her liturgy although it has for centuries been
a dead language and is no longer understood by any of her priests. As
is the case with most of the Nestorians and Jacobites, the language of
the Copts is Arabic. And like the sparsely scattered schismatics of
Syria and Mesopotamia, the great majority of the Copts and Abyssinians
live in a state of extreme poverty and ignorance, although their more
fortunate countrymen and coreligionists are now making efforts to
elevate them in the social scale and give them some of the benefits of
an elementary education.

In consequence of the missionary activities of Franciscans, Capuchins,
Jesuits, and Lazarists there are now many Uniate Copts and Abyssinians
and their number is gradually increasing. Like the Uniate Syrians, the
Uniate Copts are called Melchites.[327] The Primate of the Melchites
bears the title of “Patriarch of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem and
all the East.” On specially solemn occasions he is called “Father
of Fathers, Shepherd of Shepherds, High Priest of High Priests and
Thirteenth Apostle.” Although he spends some weeks annually at
Jerusalem and Alexandria, where he administers the affairs of his
flock through vicars, he resides during the greater part of the year
in Damascus. The liturgy used by the Melchites is the Byzantine which
is usually celebrated in the Arabic language. On certain very solemn
occasions, however, the language of the liturgy is Greek.

Unique among all Eastern Churches is that of the Maronites. The members
of this interesting and flourishing communion are all Catholics and
it is their proud boast that their Church has never been tainted by
heresy. It is certain, however, that they were once Monothelites and
taught a doctrine which was but a veiled form of Monophysitism. But
this heresy they abandoned at the time of the Crusades when their
Patriarch made his submission to Rome. Since then, despite partial
defections and centuries of oppression on the part of their schismatic
and Mohammedan neighbors, their faith has been of practically
uninterrupted orthodoxy.

The Maronites constitute almost the entire population of the Lebanon.
There is besides a considerable number in Western Syria, Cyprus, Egypt,
and Palestine. According to the most reliable estimates available their
total number is about three hundred thousand.[328] The usual place of
residence of their Patriarch is the great monastery of St. Mary of
Kanobin in the Lebanon where for centuries the Maronite Patriarchs have
found their last resting place. The title of the Maronite Patriarch
is _Patriarchus Antiochenus Maronitarum_, but, curiously enough,
this Antiochene title is shared with him by no fewer than five other
Patriarchs, two of whom are schismatical and three Catholic. These are
the schismatic Patriarchs of the Jacobite and Orthodox Churches and
the Melchite, Syrian Catholic, and Latin Patriarchs, the last named
of whom is only titular. And strange to say, not one of these six
Patriarchs lives in Antioch. The language used in the Maronite liturgy
is ordinarily Syriac. But to priests who are not sufficiently familiar
with Syriac, permission is given to perform the liturgy in Arabic--but
Arabic written Syriac characters.

But a word needs to be said about the so-called Church of St. Thomas in
Malabar. Although Malabar Christians love to trace the origin of their
Church to St. Thomas the Apostle, it seems more probable that it was
founded by Nestorian missionaries when their activities extended over a
great part of Asia. At any rate, they were once Nestorians. At a later
period most of them became Monophysites. Now, however, the majority of
them are in communion with Rome under the name “Uniates of Malabar,”
with a peculiar rite of their own called the “Rite of Malabar.”

The different Churches which have engaged our attention in the
preceding pages and which cannot fail to enlist the interest of the
observant traveler in the Orient, suggest at least two questions
which demand an answer. What was originally the real cause of these
schismatic organizations which have no communion with one another? And
how explain the tenacity with which each of them, during more than
fourteen centuries, has clung to its peculiar rites and customs and
liturgies, and despite all the vicissitudes of war and conquest, has
preserved them intact to the present day?

In answer to the first part of the question it is usually asserted
that the cause of each of the dissident Churches in question was some
specific heresy. This is the truth but, as history proves, it is not
the whole truth. Misunderstanding, deception, national jealousies
and aspirations had probably as much--if not more--to do with the
separation of these Churches from Rome as the particular heresies with
which they are usually associated.

A striking proof of this assertion is the peculiar manner in which
Monophysitism was introduced into Egypt. The people of the Nile Land
readily embraced it because they were under the impression that it was
the teaching of St. Cyril, the Patriarch of Alexandria. As the chief
opponent of Nestorius and the valiant champion of Our Lady’s title
of Mother of God at the Council of Ephesus, he was regarded by the
Egyptians as their national hero and acclaimed their Christian Pharaoh.
They were confirmed in this view because Dioscur, Cyril’s successor
as Patriarch of Alexandria, was an avowed advocate of Monophysitism.
When his teaching was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon and he
was deposed from the office of bishop, the people of Egypt, who were
always loyal to their ecclesiastical Pharaoh, rallied to his support.
They did not stop to examine the merits of the case. The fact that
the doctrine, for which their Patriarch was deposed, was known to be
opposed to “the faith of the tyrant of the Bosphorus”--as the Byzantine
Emperor was called--was an additional reason why it approved itself
to the ever patriotic Egyptians. “Lurking under the dispute about one
or two natures in Christ was the old national feeling, the old hatred
of the Roman power.”[329] The decree of Chalcedon and the consequent
deposition of their Patriarch gave occasion for a recrudescence of this
hatred of Cæsar and Cæsar’s religion and for an anti-imperialistic
outbreak in Alexandria such as this great city had never before
witnessed. Thenceforth Monophysitism in its opposition to Byzantine
imperialism was identified with Egyptian nationalism. And when the
Mohammedans under Amru swept over Egypt, so great was the hatred of
the Copts for the Melkites that they sided with the Arabs against the
forces of Byzantium. But this with Monophysitism was the cause of their
downfall. “The great days when the Christian Pharaoh was the chief
bishop of the East have gone forever.”[330] And by a strange irony
of fate it was Constantinople, Alexandria’s detested rival, that was
eventually to hold the second place among the patriarchates of the
Church--a position which, since the days of St. Mark, had been held by
the world-famous metropolis of Egypt.

The events which attended the introduction of Monophysitism into Syria
were almost a repetition of those which occurred on the entrance of
this heresy into Egypt. And the causes which led to the introduction
of Monophysitism into the two countries and favored its development
there were practically the same. For Antioch, the capital of the
Seleucids, as well as Alexandria, the capital of the Ptolemies, was
a Greek city and each from the disruption of Alexander’s Empire had
been a center of Greek civilization and culture. But neither the
Syrians nor the Egyptians had ever become reconciled to the intrusion
of the Macedonians or other Greek-speaking peoples into their native
lands. Nor was their antagonism to foreign domination diminished when
their countries became appanages of Rome and Byzantium. They clung as
tenaciously as ever to the laws and customs and languages of their
fathers and welcomed an opportunity of concealing under the guise of
heresy their hatred of Cæsar’s religion as well as their ill-concealed
disloyalty to Cæsar’s empire.

In spite of the repeated efforts of the Emperors of Constantinople
to conciliate their disaffected subjects in Egypt and Syria and to
suppress a heresy that was a constant menace to the State, all their
endeavors proved abortive. And when the Moslems invaded Syria it was
in Monophysitism that its inhabitants found an outlash of their long
pent-up national and anti-imperial feelings which made the conquest
of Islam as easy in the Levant as it had been in the Delta of the
Nile. But the penalty paid by Syria for its disloyalty and schism
was no less terrific than that which reduced Egypt from its high
estate and degraded it to the rank of a dishonored province in the
ever-extending dominion of the Saracens. For just as it was schism that
led to the downfall of Alexandria--the seat of the greatest and most
celebrated patriarchate in the East--so was it schism that heralded the
inglorious collapse of her great rival--Antioch, the third city of the
empire--Antioch, where the followers of the Crucified were first called
Christians.

What has been said of Monophysitism as an outlet of national feeling in
Egypt and Syria holds equally true of it in Armenia. Its introduction
and rapid diffusion was in great measure due to jealousy of the
Orthodox Church and hatred of the Byzantine government. But far more
than in the case of other Eastern Churches, Monophysitism is the
religious bond that during long centuries of oppression and persecution
held the Armenians together as a nation and that, especially during
recent times, has won for this long-suffering people the sympathy of
the entire civilized world.

Only those who have traveled in the Near East and studied there the
aspirations of its peoples can fully realize the intense national
feeling of the Eastern Churches. Similarly only those who have
carefully studied the history of these various ecclesiastical bodies
can duly appreciate their present attitude toward the great Latin
Church of the West and understand that remarkable conservatism which
has ever been one of their most striking characteristics.

The truth is that in all the Eastern Churches--especially the
Armenian--national loyalty and national pride count for more than
religious conviction or dogmatic teaching. This, strange as it may
appear, means that the nation comes before the Church; that politics
takes precedence of theology.

To envisage the State as separated from the Church, politics as
distinct from religion, as we do in the West, is as alien to a Syrian
or an Armenian patriot as it is to a Persian mollah or an Ottoman grand
vizier. For this reason the Eastern Churches, like the theocratic
government of Islam to which they have so long been subject, have
always attributed so paramount an importance to everything that
specially bears on their national life and character. And they have
been confirmed in this view by their age-long treatment by the Sublime
Porte which, in organizing its Christian subjects, made religion the
basis of their nationality. Thus the Armenian Church was made _Ermeni
Millet_--the Armenian Nation; the Orthodox Church, regarded as
inheriting the name of the Roman Empire, became _Rum Millet_--the
Roman nation--while Catholics of the Latin rite are known as _Latin
Millet_--the Latin Nation. And so it was with the Churches of Egypt,
Syria, Mount Lebanon, and the various other Christian Churches in the
vast dominions of the Ottoman Sultan.[331]

From the foregoing it is seen that among Eastern Christians it is not
their particular church that counts so much as their _millet_.
This, although quite an artificial nation, is as dear to them as our
fatherland is to us, while in comparison all matters of dogma and
theology are quite secondary. For this reason it is that there are
rarely any conversions from one Eastern Church to another. And for this
reason, too, it is that--as has well been observed--“for a Jacobite to
turn Orthodox would be like a Frenchman turning German.”

This loyalty of the schismatic Christians in the East to the
traditions and national spirit of their forebears explains the
exceptional conservatism of the divers Churches to which they
belong--the tenacity with which through the ages they have clung to
their particular rites and customs and retained unchanged their special
liturgies since schism first separated them from their mother Church.
And it is this intense conservatism, this undying loyalty to their
_millet_ that constitutes the greatest barrier to the reunion of
the Eastern Churches with the primatial Church of Rome.

Then, too, there is ever before them the terror-inspiring specter of
Fragistan--Europe--which portends disasters innumerable. It is the
horrid old phantom of the land of mists and shadows which has been
haunting the East since the Trojan War--which reappeared with all
its horrid accompaniments of rapine and death during the invasion
of Alexander the Great and still again during the repeated and
long-continued campaigns of the Crusaders. These days of unalterable
woe have so seared the hearts and memories of the peoples of Western
Asia that, like the Trojans who feared the Greeks even when bearing
gifts, they have an inborn distrust of the Feringees,[332] of their
Churches, their schools, their laws, their governments.

It is because the Holy See is so thoroughly cognizant of all the
fears and jealousies and animosities of the divers Eastern Churches
and because she fully realizes the importance which they severally
attach to their _millet_ that she has always been so prudent and
considerate in her dealings with them and so disposed to conciliate
them and remove everything that might excite suspicion or distrust.
Always yearning for a return of the misguided children who so long ago
left her fold, she is ever ready to make any reasonable concession, so
long as it does not affect the deposit of faith of which she is the
divinely appointed custodian. Hence it is that, in her eagerness to
further the cause of the reunion for which she has always so ardently
longed, she has, in her supreme wisdom, ever been ready to allow each
Church and each _millet_ to retain its own laws and customs, rites
and liturgy, language and hierarchy. And it is because of this wise and
benevolent policy that recent years have witnessed the return to Rome
of so many thousands of Eastern schismatics--often whole dioceses at
a time--to the venerable Mother Church from which they had been lured
by heresy and schism in the long ago. So far, then, as the Eastern
Churches mentioned are concerned, it would appear from the foregoing
pages that the day is not very distant when, in great measure, heresy
shall be adjured and schism healed.

THE ORTHODOX CHURCHES

Just as it is not true to speak of an Eastern Church, so it is still
less true to speak of an Orthodox Church. For, whereas the Eastern
Churches we have considered are only seven in number, the Orthodox
Churches are no fewer than sixteen. But in their origin a very marked
difference is to be noted between the Orthodox and other Churches of
the East.

The Nestorian and Monophysite Churches, as we have noted, originated
in certain specific heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches. But the false
doctrines of these heresiarchs, as has been observed, contributed less
towards the separation of the Copts, Syrians, and others than did the
intense nationalism of these peoples who wanted only a pretext under
the guise of heresy for concealing their disloyalty to the Byzantine
Empire. Few of the rank and file knew anything about the theological
issues involved in the false doctrines of their leaders. The majority
of them were almost as ignorant of their real bearing on Catholic dogma
when the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon issued their famous decrees
as they are to-day. With possibly a few exceptions not even the clergy
or the bishops of the Eastern Churches are now aware of what was the
cardinal issue of their schism or are able to give anything more than
the vaguest and most shadowy reason for their continued separation from
the Church of Rome.

The Orthodox Churches--which embrace those Christians who use
the Byzantine rite but are not in communion with the Catholic
Church--unlike the Eastern Churches of which we have spoken, had
their origin not in heresy but in schism, pure and simple. Many
and various were the causes of this schism but the chief of them
were the jealousies and ambitions of the Emperors and Patriarchs of
Constantinople. And these jealousies and ambitions began at an early
date and gradually developed until they eventually culminated in the
fatal schism precipitated by Photius and Cerularius. For

_After that Constantine the Eagle turned_
_Against the course of heaven which it had followed_,[333]

there was ever-increasing friction between the East and the West.
Constantine, fully occupied with the affairs of his vast empire,
had wisely allowed the Church to govern herself[334] but such,
unfortunately, was not the policy of his successors. Continually
interfering in ecclesiastical affairs and determining questions of
doctrine by imperial decrees, they soon proved themselves the worst
enemies of the Church’s freedom of action. This was particularly true
during the Byzantine period which extended from the accession of
Justinian to the throne to the fall of Constantinople under Mohammed
II. During all this time the Emperors were unremitting in their
efforts to make the Church a subject of the State. In this they had
the ever-ready cooperation of the court bishops, whose subservience is
easily explained. Their ambitions were great and they counted on their
imperial masters to help them to realize their unholy aspirations. Nor
were they disappointed.

When in 330 Constantine established his new capital on the banks of
the Bosphorus and beautified it with all the artistic treasures he was
able to remove from the old capital on the Tiber, the ecclesiastical
head of Constantinople was but a simple bishop under the metropolitan
of Heraclea in Thrace. But this position was far from satisfying
the vaulting ambition of one who suddenly found himself the honored
chaplain of the Emperor and his court, the bishop of the magnificent
metropolis that was thenceforth to be the center of the Roman world.
What was now to prevent his becoming a Patriarch--the rival even of the
greatest of Patriarchs--of the successor of the Galilean Fisherman who
ruled the Universal Church from his palace in the old capital of the
Cæsars?

What indeed was to prevent him from making his dream a glorious
reality? The Emperor, he felt sure, would not thwart his ambitious
schemes. Nor did he. For it was in harmony with his policy of
centralization to have his court bishop raised to the highest
hierarchical position possible. It would add to his own prestige,
it would stimulate the loyalty of his subjects, and would augment
his power and influence in his dealings with the Church. Nor was he
mistaken. For history does not furnish more glaring examples of the
tyranny of Cæsar in the things of God nor of more ignoble subjection
of bishops to civil power than were exhibited in the Emperor’s
arbitrary and contemptuous treatment of those ecclesiastics--even the
highest--who, in return for the encouragement he had given to their
unholy ambitions, had become the willing vassals of the imperial
government.

In the evolution of the See of Constantinople, barely fifty years
were required for achieving the joint plan of Bishop and Emperor.
For as early as the year 381 it was decreed by a council summoned by
the Emperor Theodosius I, which was composed of only a comparatively
small number of Eastern bishops, and at which the Holy See had no
representative, that thenceforth the Bishop of Constantinople should
have the primacy of honor after the Bishop of Rome, because that
city--Constantinople--was New Rome. Thus, by a stroke of the pen, the
Patriarch of Alexandria, who had previously held precedence after the
Pope of Rome, was supplanted by the Bishop of Byzantium. The Pope and
the Alexandrian Patriarch protested against this outrageous proceeding,
but it was of no avail. The Emperor and his subservient bishops had
achieved their ambitious purpose and had virtually divided Christendom
into two dominant Patriarchates--that of the West, under Rome, and that
of the East, under Constantinople.

It was this realization by the bishops of New Rome of their most
cherished aspiration--the separation of the Church into two great
Patriarchates--that engendered and fostered that jealousy and friction
that ever afterwards existed between Rome and Constantinople and which,
more than anything else, led to that ever-regrettable schism that still
separates the East from the West. For the position of the Church of
New Rome, as that of the “first Church of all Eastern Christendom,
was so exalted that her bishops even ventured to think themselves the
rivals of the Roman Pope, so influential that when at last they”--her
bishops--“fell into formal schism, they dragged all the other eastern
bishops with them.”[335]

Besides the jealousy and overweening ambition of sycophantic bishops
and tyrannical Emperors, there were other determining causes of the
estrangement between the Eastern and Western halves of Christendom and
of the ultimate establishment of an autonomous Byzantine episcopate.

Not the least of these was the difference of language. For after
Constantinople had become the capital of the Empire, the Roman Court
became so completely Hellenized that the language of Virgil and Cicero
was no longer heard and was understood by but few. Even Photius, the
most eminent scholar of his time, was ignorant of Latin. For this
reason, it is quite possible that, aside from Byzantine ambitions and
aspirations, “the divergence of tongues, combined with the Hellenic
contempt of the Latin race might have contributed to ... a grouping of
the Eastern Churches around the See of Constantinople, and thus have
brought about, more or less rapidly, the formation of a Greek autonomy.
The Roman Empire had succeeded in overpowering and even in suppressing
the tongues of all the other conquered nations--such as the Syriac,
Coptic, Celtic, Iberian, Phœnician, Etruscan, and many others--but it
had never attempted anything in the direction of the Greek language.
The result was that Greek ranked side by side with Latin as a second
official tongue and this cause brought about the division of the
Empire. Nor was it merely a question of tongues. Latins as well as
Greeks knew and recognized that all intellectual culture in the West
had its origin in Greek antiquity; hence arose a superiority that,
when once the Empire was divided, promptly gave to the Greek portion a
preponderance over the Latin.”[336]

Nothing, however, was so calculated to stir up the rancor of the Greeks
against the Latins as the Pope’s coronation of Charlemagne as Emperor
of territory that was regarded as an integral part of the Byzantine
Empire. For the Greeks then held the theory, which was subsequently
so elaborated by Dante in his _De Monarchia_, that the cause of
Cæsar was the cause of Christ and that the perfection of the Church
presupposed the integrity of the Empire and harmonious relations
between Pope and Emperor. When, therefore, the Roman Patriarch set up
a rival Augustus in the person of Charlemagne and divided the Roman
Empire, which, under Justinian, extended from the Euphrates to the
Pillars of Hercules, he was in the estimation of the Byzantines guilty
of high treason. Claiming that they alone had the direct line of
imperial continuity they would never recognize Charlemagne as anything
more than “a barbarian King of a barbarian people.”[337] To what extent
the establishment of the Empire in the West contributed to existing
friction and to the fatal rupture between New Rome and Old Rome, which
occurred seventy years later, is a matter of speculation, but it can
scarcely be doubted that its effect on the exacerbated temper of the
Greeks was far greater than is usually imagined.

Although, during the first five centuries of its existence, the See of
Constantinople had several times been out of communion with Rome, the
“Great Schism,” as it is called, was not inaugurated until Photius,
with the connivance of the Byzantine Emperor, iniquitously usurped
the Patriarchate of New Rome. After the death of this intruder in 891
peace was again restored between the Eastern and Western Churches.
But the schism that had been engendered by the misunderstandings
and animosities, jealousies and ambitions, of centuries was healed
only temporarily. For but a little more than a century and a half
had elapsed after the mortal remains of Photius--who has been called
“the Luther of the Orthodox Church”--had been moldering in an unknown
grave when the Byzantine Church was again, in 1050, thrown into schism
by the overweening ambition of Michael Cerularius, whom the Emperor
Constantine IX had, in violation of the most sacred laws of the
Church, foisted into the See of Constantinople as its Patriarch.

Neither Photius nor Cerularius, it must here be observed, instigated
schism because of controverted questions of dogma. Photius caused it
by his shameless usurpation of the See of the lawful Patriarch of
Constantinople. Cerularius, in his opposition to Rome, was actuated
by similar motives. But he was not, like his schismatic predecessor,
satisfied to be Primate of the Byzantine Church. His pride and ambition
led him to aim at something far higher. This was nothing less than
the founding of a theocracy of which he was to be supreme head and in
which the State was to be subservient to the Church. This theocracy
was to be the antithesis of the Cæsaropapism which had flourished
almost uninterruptedly since the death of Constantine. At one time,
indeed, Cerularius thought seriously of uniting the imperial and the
patriarchal functions and proclaiming himself the Emperor-Patriarch of
the Roman Empire....[338] He began to wear purple shoes, one of the
Emperor’s prerogatives, and to join royalty and the priesthood in his
own person. Michael Prellos, who knew him well and who wrote a valuable
history of this period, informs us in referring to Cerularius: “In his
hands he held the cross while from his mouth issued imperial laws.”

But Cerularius’ ambition was the cause of his undoing. Like Photius he
was made Patriarch by the Emperor. Like Photius he was deposed from
his exalted position by imperial authority and sent into exile on the
charge of high treason. But, although he failed in his stupendous
scheme to make himself the Emperor-Patriarch of the East, he was
successful where Photius fell short--in definitively separating the
Greek from the Latin Church and by perpetuating the most disastrous
schism which has ever befallen the Church of Christ. It was for
this “unheard of offence and injury done to the Holy Apostolic and
First See” that the Papal Legates in Constantinople, who tried to
the last to prevent schism, pronounced Cerularius and his adherents
Anathema Maran-atha.[339] Their last words after laying the bull of
excommunication on the altar of Santa Sophia were _Videat Deus et
judicet_.

These words in which they called upon God to witness and judge were
uttered at nine o’clock in the morning, July 16, 1054. The Great Schism
which--aside from a brief interval--has ever since continued unbroken
was then a _fait accompli_.

No sooner had the schism of Cerularius become an accomplished fact,
than God-fearing men of both the Eastern and the Western Church set to
work to devise ways and means of closing the deplorable breach. The
Popes especially never lost sight of their erring children to the east
of the Adriatic. From the fateful sixteenth of July, 1054, until the
present, they have made efforts innumerable to bring about a reunion
between the tragically separated churches. With this object in view,
two General Councils were convened, the Second Council of Lyons in 1274
and the Council of Florence in 1439.

But since the outbreak of the schism, a new barrier had been erected
between the East and the West, which seemed almost insurmountable.
This was the result of the horrible sack of Constantinople by the
soldiers of the Fourth Crusade. The cruelties, massacres, and
wholesale destruction of the choicest works of art which attended this
unpardonable outrage made it one of the most shocking events in the
history of the capital.[340] Then, too, there was the establishment of
the Latin Empire in Constantinople and the erection of Frankish States
in Syria and Palestine. This ruthless ignoring by the Latins of the
sovereign rights of a Christian power and all the wanton cruelty that
accompanied it was still fresh in the minds of the Greek delegates when
they convened at Lyons and Florence and this, added to all the causes
of friction that had so long rankled in the hearts of the Byzantines,
made a successful issue of the deliberations of the assembled fathers
almost hopeless.

Notwithstanding, however, all the causes of rancor that existed, a
reunion was effected by each of the Councils but in each case it lasted
only a very short time. For no sooner did the people of Constantinople
hear of the action of the Council of Lyons than, exercising what should
now be called the right of referendum, they rose in insurrection
against it. As a result, however, of the reunion brought about by the
Council of Florence, the Byzantine Church remained, at least nominally,
in communion with the Holy See for a period of thirty-three years--from
1439 to 1472. It was during this fateful time that Constantinople was
taken by the Turks under Mohammed II.

The Conquest of Constantinople was almost as great a turning point
in the history of the Byzantine Church as was the Great Schism of
Photius and Cerularius. For the Sultan had scarcely taken possession
of the city when he sent for the leader of the anti-Papal party, one
George Scholarios, and, with a view of winning him together with the
schismatic Byzantines over to his rule as against that of the Catholic
Powers of the West, he had him made Patriarch, although at the time of
his appointment Scholarios seems to have been a layman.

No sooner had the Sultan championed the cause of the Greeks against
Rome than they at once exultingly rallied around their Patriarch and,
in words of deepest hatred and wildest fanaticism, shouted: “Rather the
Sultan’s turban than the Pope’s tiara.” They have had their choice but
with what long centuries of degradation and ignominy!

Neither the Patriarch nor his followers had to wait long before
the scales fell from their eyes. For no sooner had Scholarios,
under the direction of the Sultan, been appointed to the See of
Constantinople than Mohammed sent for him and handed him the
_berat_-diploma[341]--which defined what were his duties and
prerogatives as Patriarch under the Moslem Government. But this was not
all. For scarcely had he been invested with the signs of his spiritual
jurisdiction than the unfortunate Patriarch was given to understand
that he was nothing more than a puppet in the hands of his Moslem
master who could depose him at will. Each of his successors since that
time in the See of Constantinople has been obliged to submit to the
same humiliating ceremony of investiture.

To their intense chagrin the Patriarchs soon learned furthermore that
their appointment had to be followed by a gift to the Sultan of a large
sum of money; that their tenure of office would rarely exceed two
years;[342] that they could be deposed to make room for others who were
forced to pay similar exorbitant sums for their appointment; that they
might be deposed and reappointed no fewer than five times and at each
appointment to the office from which they had been deposed, they would
be obliged to renew the enormous bribe to their arbitrary and rapacious
overlord.

The result was simony of the worst kind, for, in order to obtain
the money required by the Moslem tyrant for their appointment, the
subservient Patriarchs resorted to the selling of benefices to priests
and bishops and metropolitans. To such an extent had this sacrilegious
traffic in the things of God been carried on that simony has long
made the Orthodox Church “a reproach and a scoff, an example and an
astonishment among the nations that are round about her.”

But the troubles and humiliations of the Œcumenical Patriarch--as
the Primate of the Byzantine Church is called--did not end with his
degrading investiture by the Sultan, or, as was more frequently the
case, by his Grand Vizier and by the payment of an enormous bribe for
his appointment. Owing to his subjugation to the Sublime Porte, he
soon found himself confronted with untold difficulties based on racial
jealousies and antagonisms. These were augmented by the subserviency of
the Phanar--the Vatican of the Orthodox Church--and the readiness which
Phanariote Greeks always exhibited to become the agents of Turkish
oppression of their fellow Christians--especially those in the Balkans.
It was because the policy of the Phanar was identical with that of the
Porte that the enemies of the Sultan were unwilling to acknowledge any
kind of dependence on the Byzantine Patriarch. This was strikingly
evinced in the war of Greek Independence, as one of the first acts
of the Greek Parliament was to declare the Church in Greece to be
autocephalous.

The example of Greece was subsequently followed by the different
states in the Balkans. For no sooner had they freed themselves from
Turkish rule than they proclaimed their independence of the Œcumenical
Patriarch.

This Philetism--love of one’s race--in things ecclesiastical, which
the various nations of southeastern Europe so conspicuously exhibited
during the last century was a great blow to the Phanar, but it was
this same kind of nationalism that was the chief cause of the Great
Schism. Greece and Roumania, Serbia and Bulgaria, and Russia, long
before any of them, had done nothing more than had the Orthodox Church
when it separated itself from communion with Rome. It was in vain that
the Phanar announced Philetism as a heresy. It was but the reassertion
of the national idea which had led the Œcumenical Patriarch to rebel
against the Pope--the construing of it into the principle _cujus
regio ejus religio_ which met with such favor in the seventeenth
century in Germany, according to which “each politically independent
state should have an ecclesiastically independent church.” As a result
of the frequent application of this principle the Orthodox Church has
shared the fate that never fails to overtake schism and heresy. In
consequence of political and ecclesiastical jealousies and antagonism;
of excommunications and counter-excommunications by rival bishops;
of divisions and subdivisions, the once great and powerful Orthodox
Communion now finds itself divided into sixteen independent Churches
whose jurisdiction ranges in extent from that of the Independent Church
of the monastery of Mount Sinai to that of the once great Empire of
Russia. There is now little left to the Patriarch of Constantinople but
the primacy of honor, for he has no jurisdiction outside of his rapidly
diminishing Patriarchate. Is there in all history a more striking case
of poetic justice than that afforded by the gradual disintegration of
the proud and ambitious Patriarchate of Constantinople?

Although the retribution which has visited Cerularius and his
successors is fearful to contemplate, stern Nemesis still pursues
the Œcumenical Patriarchs with unrelenting severity. For now these
unfortunate hierarchs are trembling under the Damoclean sword, which
the vengeful goddess has put into the hands of Russia.

In 1721 Peter the Great placed the Church of Russia under the Holy
Directing Synod, where it has since remained. As this Synod was never
more than the shadow of the Czar, the Church of Holy Russia was for
two centuries the most Erastian Christian organization that has ever
existed. For during all this time the Holy Synod was as much under the
domination of the Czar as any department of the imperial government.
Added to this is the portentous fact that the Russian Church counts
eight times as many communicants as all the other Orthodox Churches
together. Even in the famous monastic republic of Mount Athos--a
supposedly Greek community--where in 1902 there were seven thousand
and five hundred monks, the majority were Slavs and nearly one-half
were Russians.

All this being the case, the Russians, who are fully as ambitious as
were the Greeks in the time of Photius and Cerularius, are beginning to
ask themselves whether the time has not arrived for the Holy Synod to
assume the supreme headship of the entire Orthodox Church. Nor is the
Phanar ignorant of the aspirations and purposes of the Holy Synod. It
has read the writing on the wall and knows that as soon as the Russian
Church shall find a leader with the towering ambition and intense
national spirit of Photius, the fondly-entertained project of the Holy
Synod will be quickly realized, that the primacy of the Orthodox Church
will be transferred to Moscow or Petrograd, and that the power and the
prestige of the Œcumenical Patriarch will then be little more than were
those of his first predecessor when he was the humble suffragan of the
Metropolitan of Heraclea. The Great Church--the official designation
of the Patriarchate of Constantinople--will then have shared the fate
of the Churches of Antioch and Alexandria which, in the days of their
glory, were the rivals of the Mother Church of Imperial Rome. And then,
too, will the aspiring Greeks be rudely wakened from the fantastic
dream of their “Great Idea”--the idea of a great and reconstructed
Hellas that shall embrace the Balkans and have as its capital the Queen
City of the Bosphorus.

There are few things in the history of the Church, which the lover of
Christian Unity and peace finds more saddening than the clandestine
intrigues and open antagonism that led to the Great Schism; few things
that are more discreditable than the incessant machinations of those
politicians and ecclesiastics who were the cause of all those fatal
dissensions which were so characteristic of the Orthodox Church during
the nineteenth century and have led to that widespread disintegration
which, there is reason to fear, is just beginning. While one can have
no sympathy with the authors of these disastrous schisms in the just
retribution which has been meted out to them, one cannot help pitying
the countless thousands among the clergy and laity who, in spite of the
unpardonable scandals caused by Church and State are, nevertheless,
earnestly striving to further the cause of Christ and to reflect in
their lives the teaching of the gospel of their Redeemer. In Russia,
in Greece, in Asia Minor--wherever the Orthodox Church still retains
a hold on her children--one cannot help being edified by the piety,
the zeal, the deep religious spirit of innumerable thousands who are
not only ignorant of the cause of the schism that separates them from
the Church of Rome but are also ignorant that they have even been in
schism. Of those, however, who are acquainted with the origin of the
Great Schism there are many who ardently hope and pray that it may soon
be healed. For they have learned by long and sad experience the truth
of the words of St. John Chrysostom who--with the possible exception of
St. Gregory Nazienzen--was the most illustrious prelate who ever ruled
the See of Constantinople: “Nothing can hurt the Church so much as love
of power.”[343]

REUNION OF THE EASTERN CHURCHES WITH THE HOLY SEE

During my wanderings in the Near East, as during previous travels in
Greece and Russia, a question of ever-absorbing interest to me was
that of the long-desired and often-attempted reunion of the Eastern
Churches with the Church of Rome. When I contemplated the majestic
temples of Petrograd with their surging multitudes of pious worshipers
and examined the stately convents and monasteries of Moscow with their
vast number of devoted, God-fearing inmates; when I marveled at the
shiploads of Russian pilgrims who at great expense and with great
discomfort annually visited the Holy Land and noted the sumptuous
hospices and shrines that their government has there erected for
them; when I beheld the desecrated temples of Hellas and Anatolia and
recalled how the Greeks, during long centuries of oppression and
degradation--when they had everything to gain by apostasy--preserved
intact the faith of the Orthodox Church and augmented that vast army of
martyrs who sealed their belief in Christ with their blood--when I saw
and recollected all this, there was the ever-recurrent question, “Will
the fateful schism of a thousand years ever be healed?”

As we have already seen, the last reconciliation of the Orthodox Church
with the Holy See took place at the Council of Florence in 1439. On
this occasion, also, the Coptic, Abyssinian, Jacobite, Maronite, and
Armenian Churches were wholly or partially united with the great Mother
Church, from which they had so long been separated. It was then that
the Uniate Churches already referred to had their origin. But as the
reunion of the Orthodox Church had been based on political rather
than ecclesiastical grounds it was of short duration, for it was
formally repudiated by the Byzantines in 1472, nineteen years after the
occupation of Constantinople by the Ottoman army under Mohammed the
Conqueror.

But, although the reunions effected at the Councils of Lyons and
Florence were so short-lived, the hope of an eventual and enduring
reunion has always been cherished not only by the Latins but by an
influential body of the Orthodox Church as well. It will suffice here
to refer to two recent efforts to secure reunion--one of which was
made by the Œcumenical Patriarch, Joachim III, a little less than two
decades ago, and one made by Pope Leo XIII a few years earlier.

In a noted encyclical addressed to the divers Orthodox Churches, the
Œcumenical Patriarch requested them to consider the question of reunion
of Christendom. His courteous and charitable references in this letter
to the Latin Church and his expressed hope that it and the Orthodox may
again be reunited evince a man of a deeply religious spirit, whose sole
object was the cause of Christ, which, as he conceived it, would be
immensely advanced by the restoration of Church unity. But the replies
which he received from the sister Church--those in communion with the
Patriarch of Constantinople--soon convinced him that his efforts in the
direction of the proposed reunion were doomed to failure.

In his famous encyclical _Præclara_--aptly called the “Testament
of Leo XIII.”--which was addressed on June 20, 1894, to “Princes and
Peoples,” His Holiness speaks to his wayward and error-bound children
in words of surpassing tenderness and deepest paternal solicitude.
There is not a word of reproach, not a single expression to wound
even the most sensitive.[344] He refers lovingly to the East, “whence
salvation spread over the whole world”; to the resplendent history of
their venerable sees; to the Greeks who had occupied the Chair of Peter
and had edified the Church by their learning and virtue. In his plea
for reunion he declares: “No great gulf separates us; except for a
few smaller points we agree so entirely with you that it is from your
teaching, your customs and rites that we often take proofs for Catholic
dogma.”[345] And referring to certain unfounded charges that had often
been made against the Holy See, he declares in the most positive terms
that no Pope has the slightest desire to diminish the dignity and
rights of any of the great Patriarchates of the East. And as for their
venerable customs “we shall,” he assures them, “provide in a broad and
generous spirit.”

Had the occupant of the Patriarchal See of Constantinople been imbued
with the spirit of his illustrious countryman, Cardinal Bessarion,
who labored so strenuously for Church reunion at the Council of
Florence, and had he been actuated by a tithe of the zeal and charity
and love of peace that so distinguished the great St. Athanasius of
Alexandria, there is reason to believe that the Sovereign Pontiff’s
gentle and noble letter would have met a very different reception and
that measures would have been taken ere this to terminate a schism
which during ten long centuries has been so prolific of evil to untold
millions of souls redeemed at an infinite price.

But, unfortunately for the Eastern Churches, as well as for the Church
of Rome, Anthimos VII was then Œcumenical Patriarch. His offensive
and abusive reply to the gracious and generous appeal of the renowned
successor of the Fisherman shows that in character and zeal for souls
and ardent love of the Church of Christ he was the very opposite of the
great Pontiff whose overtures he so disdainfully and so ignominiously
rejected.

Although the efforts to restore union which were made by Joachim III
and Leo XIII were, apparently, completely ineffectual, there can be
no doubt that they set people--both clergy and laity--to thinking,
and that Church unity is now nearer realization than it has been for
centuries. Thanks to more frequent communication between the East
and the West, as well as to the all-powerful agency of the press,
the people of the Eastern Churches are beginning to realize as never
before the extent and magnitude of the frightful evils that have been
engendered by the Erastianism and the Philetism which so dominate the
Churches of Russia and the Balkans. They have learned that most of the
hatred, dissensions, and race antagonisms which have so grieved and
afflicted them may be traced to their lack of a central ecclesiastical
authority and to the fact that their clergy have been forced to become
mere tools of the government. Comparing their condition before the
Great Schism with what it is now, they find to their sorrow that
they are suffering from arrested development; that their boasted
conservatism is but an euphemism for fossilization; that they have
long ceased to be a living, active force, and that their only hope of
regaining their erstwhile power and prestige is to become reunited with
the Apostolic See.

Those who were familiar with the history of the past will recall the
days when the eminent saints and scholars Athanasius, Clement, and
Cyril of Alexandria reflected such honor on the Church in Egypt;
when St. John Damascene and St. Ephrem were the glory of Syria and
Mesopotamia; when St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, St. Gregory of Nyssa,
and St. Gregory Nazianzen were the great intellectual luminaries of
Asia Minor and the revered doctors of the entire Church of Christ. And
pondering these facts it may occur to them that had Photius been less
ambitious and more religious he might now be numbered not among sowers
of scandal and schism--

_Seminator di scandalo e di scisma_[346]

but among the great Fathers who were ever-zealous promoters of the good
name and the sacred union of the Church Universal.

They will also recall the disillusioning and disconcerting fact that
since the very beginning of schism, the Eastern Church, to quote
the words of Dean Stanley, “has produced hardly any permanent works
of practical Christian benevolence. With very few exceptions, its
celebrated names are invested with no stirring associations. It seems
to open a field of interest to travelers and antiquarians, not to
philosophers or historians.... As a rule there has arisen in the East
no society like the Benedictines, held in honor wherever literature
or civilization has spread; no charitable orders like the Sisters of
Mercy, which carry light and peace into the darkest haunts of suffering
humanity.”[347]

So far as intellectual life is concerned they will find that the above
words apply with equal truth even to the great monastic republic of
Mount Athos, which, during the Middle Ages, was so noted a center of
Greek learning. For, sad to relate, one finds even there the same
intellectual apathy and decay as elsewhere, and its seven and more
thousand monks are to-day as dead set against scholarship as when they
indignantly razed the school which Eugenius Bulgaris, the greatest
Greek scholar of the eighteenth century, had there established in their
own behoof.

It is the recollection of all these things--“the remembering in misery
the happy time”--combined with the kind and generous invitation of Leo
XIII to return to the Church of their fathers, that has swelled the
ranks of that long-existent party in the Orthodox Church known as the
λατεινόφοροντες--Latin-favorers--who have always deplored schism and
who would use all their influence to bring it to an early termination.
This party, which has long groaned under the Erastianism of the Czar
and the absolutism of the Sublime Porte, is only biding its time to
seize an opportunity to return to its allegiance to the Pope. Professor
Harnack, whose competency to express an opinion in this matter no one
will question, declared in a notable pronouncement on the encyclical
Præcala of Leo XIII that:

People who understand Russia know that there is a patriotic
Russian party--or rather tendency--in the heart of the country,
in Moscow and among the most educated people, that hopes for
a movement of their Church in the direction of the Western
Church--that is of the Roman, not the Evangelical Communion--who
work for this and who see in it the only hope of Russia. This
party manifests its ideas in writing, so far as circumstances
in Russia allow, and has already shown that it possesses men
of unusual talent, warm love of their country and undoubted
devotion to the Greek Church. They have also considered how they
shall reconcile Russia’s traditions and world-power with a
change in her Church affairs that shall harmonize with the views
of Rome and they believe in its possibility.[348]

If the Latin-favorers could now find a leader of commanding personality
there is good reason to believe that the reunion of the Eastern and
Western Churches would not be far distant. Had Russia a pious and
forceful monarch like her saintly Apostle, King Vladimir, or had
Constantinople a Patriarch of the zeal and influence of St. Theodore of
Studium, the great majority of the Orthodox Church, who know nothing
about the origin of the existing schism, would follow such a leader
without hesitation. And so slight would be the change in faith, in
consequence of reunion, that the great mass of the faithful would
scarcely be conscious of it. Their faith would remain exactly the same
as it was before the schism.

And this holds true not only of the Orthodox Church but of all the
other schismatic churches as well. They would, all of them, retain
their peculiar rites and customs; they would hear the same language in
the liturgy that has been consecrated by long centuries of use. The
Copts would retain the presanctified liturgy of St. Mark and continue
to use the venerable Alexandrine rite in the Coptic language. The
Jacobites would celebrate the sacred mysteries in Syriac according to
the age-old ritual of St. James. The adherents of the Orthodox Church
would still hear their strange chant echoing “backwards and forwards
through the gleaming inconostasis, while the deacon waves his ripidion
over the holy gifts and the clouds of incense are borne through the
royal doors. Still the people would crowd up for the antidoron and the
kolybas, dive for the cross at the holy lights, kiss each other on
Easter Day and dance for the Forerunner’s birth, while the psalms from
the Holy Mountain would still sound across the Ægean Sea.”[349]

It is because the venerable eastern rituals and liturgies, in their
several ancient languages, represent some of the most sacred traditions
of the Church that Pope Leo XIII in his noted encyclical _Orientalium
Dignitas Ecclesiarum_ praises them so highly and applies to
the bride of Christ the words of the Psalmist: “The queen”--the
Church--“stood on Thy right hand in gilded clothing; surrounded with
variety.”[350]

As I observed, during my travels in the Near East, the frightful
ravages that schism has everywhere caused, and noted the growing
tendency of many to return to “the unity of faith and the knowledge
of the Son of God,”[351] I repeated with ever renewed fervor
the supplication in St. Basil’s liturgy: Πãνσον τα σχίσματα των
ἐκκλησιῶν--“Grant that Church schisms may cease.” And never did I in
fancy more frequently hear reëchoed the touching words of Our Saviour
before his passion: “I pray ... that they all may be one, as Thou,
Father, in Me, and I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us.”[352]

CHAPTER XIV

NINEVEH AND ITS WONDERS

_Here thou behold’st_
_Assyria, and her empire’s ancient bounds,_
_Araxes and the Caspian Lake; thence on_
_As far as Indus east, Euphrates west,_
_And oft beyond; to south the Persian bay_
_And, inaccessible, the Arabian drouth;_
_Here, Nineveh, of length within her wall_
_Several days’ journey, built by Ninus old,_
_Of that first golden monarchy the seat,_
_And seat of Salmanassar, whose success_
_Israel in long captivity still mourns._
MILTON, “Paradise Regained.”

Wrapt in the crispy air of a bright October morning, we found ourselves
on the shaky and crowded pontoon bridge that connects Mosul with
the long-buried city of Nineveh. Horses and camels jostled heaving,
shouting, unwashed Turks and Kurds and Arabs, who seemed to be
constantly in imminent danger of being shoved into the swift-flowing
Tigris. The variety of garb and multiplicity of tongues of the motley
and vociferous throng on the swaying and creaking bridge strikingly
recalled the clamorous and varicolored multitude that always crams the
outer bridge between Galata and Stamboul.

How often, during our delightful sojourn in Mosul, had we gazed on
the mysterious mounds on the eastern bank of the Tigris which were
insistently beckoning us to visit them! And how eager were we to
respond to the silent invitation and to explore the site of the once
proud capital of Assyria! But we resisted the persistent temptation
to interrupt our work in Mosul. We had there, with the assistance
of the scholarly sons of St. Dominic, a rare opportunity of getting
first-hand information regarding the social and economical condition of
the people of this part of Asia and of completing our investigations,
begun almost at the inception of our journey, respecting the various
schismatic churches of the East. Not, then, until we had completed
our observations in Mosul and coördinated our impressions, could we
be induced to suspend our self-imposed task. We wished to have it
completely off our hands in order that, once on the historic soil of
Nineveh, we might indulge in reverie without let or hindrance.

When, finally, we were ready to visit the ruins of Nineveh, ours was
the good fortune to have with us a learned Dominican of Mosul, who
was as familiar with the early history of the famous old Assyrian
metropolis as he was with the excavations which during the last two
generations have revealed artistic and literary treasures that have
been the marvel and the delight of the world. We could not have had a
more intelligent or a more enthusiastic guide among the devious ways
which led to the sites of ancient temples and palaces, whose existence
was absolutely unknown until uncovered by the pick and spade of the
archæologist but a few decades ago.

How strange it seemed to me, as we threaded our way through the maze of
passages that led to the locations of once famous palaces and temples,
that it was also a Dominican--a brother in religion of our guide--who
first awakened my interest in Nineveh! That was more than three score
years ago. And yet, so vivid was the impression then made on my
youthful mind that it seems but yesterday when I first came under the
spell of the famed lands of Assyria and Babylonia.

It came about in a very simple way. The Dominican in question--a dear,
venerable man--had visited the Holy Land shortly before I met him,
and took great pleasure in telling me his experiences in the East.
Seeing that I was greatly interested in his narrative he gave me a
large history of the Bible. It was not such a book, I have often since
thought, as the average boy would have cared to read. But the good
priest could not have selected a work that would have given me more
pleasure--certainly not one that would have benefited me more deeply
or influenced more profoundly all my subsequent reading and study. It
was, too, I must add, the first book I ever had in my hands outside
of my elementary school readers. But how I prized that book! And how
I read it again and again, and always with ever-increasing interest
and delight! I do not know how often I read it carefully from cover to
cover, but I do know that there is only one other volume that I have
read more frequently, and that, after the Bible, is my favorite of all
books--_The Divina Commedia_.

How often I have had reason to be grateful to the good old Dominican
who unconsciously directed my studies in such wise as to afford me
life-long pleasure and profit! As a consequence of the repeated
reading of the book which he placed in my hands I became familiar with
the history of the cradle of our race long before I had entered my
teens, and I felt quite well acquainted with Nineveh and Babylon when
Athens and Rome were yet to me but little more than mere names without
significance. And, although as I grew older, I became interested in
many other subjects, I never lost my early love of sacred history or of
the history and geography of the Near East. For no matter how occupied
I might be, I always contrived to find time to continue the studies
which had such a fascination for me in my early boyhood.

To the student of Assyrian or Babylonian history, nothing is more
impressive than the first view of one of those stupendous mounds which
are so frequent along the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates and
in the vast plain between Bagdad and Abu Sharein. But the impression
is greatly intensified when the place visited is associated with the
happiest days of one’s youth and when one may again dream the dreams
that once afforded such exquisite pleasure and such delightful visions
of long-departed glory and magnificence. This was my experience when I
first set foot on the soil that covers the superb structures which, in
my early boyhood, I had so frequently pictured in fancy that it almost
seemed that I had really wandered through their sculpture-adorned halls
and had been an actual spectator of the gorgeous processions which they
had so frequently witnessed when Nineveh was at the zenith of her power
and greatness.

I had been deeply impressed when I first ascended the hill on which
stood Homer’s Troy, but my emotion was not so great as when I found
myself on the crumbling ruins of “Nineveh, that great city in which
there were more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons that knew
not how to distinguish between their right hand and their left.”[353]

But this is easily explained. I was much younger when I became
acquainted with the enchanting story of Nineveh than when I first
conned the spell-weaving pages of the _Iliad_. My earlier
impressions were more vivid and, because of the intimate relation of
Assyria to the Holy Land, as exhibited in the Sacred Text, my interest
was correspondingly greater.

As I contemplated the remains of the great city which had in tender
years been so frequently the subject of my dreams and in mature age had
been the subject of so much study and reflection, I found a thousand
thoughts presenting themselves to my mind regarding the great capital
which for so long a period played so important a rôle during the dawn
of civilization.

_The days of old return;--I breathe the air_
_Of the young world;--I see her giant sons_
_Like a gorgeous pageant in the sky_
_Of summer’s evening, cloud on fiery cloud_
_Thronging upheaved,--before me rise the walls_
_Of the Titanic city--brazen gates,--_
_Imperial Nineveh, the earthly queen!_
_In all her golden pomp I see her now._

No region in the world has a more venerable historic past than that
vast territory enclosed by the Euphrates and the Tigris, and no city in
this region, with the possible exception of Babylon, was for centuries
the center of greater power and influence than Nineveh. According to
the book of Genesis,[354] it was built by Asur, who came from the land
of Sennaar. How long ago this was is a matter of mere conjecture.
Its first certain mention occurs in the code of Hammurabi, who ruled
over Babylonia in the twenty-third century before our era, but it was
doubtless in existence many centuries before the time of this great
Babylonian lawgiver. It is, however, certain that from the time of
its foundation, it gradually increased in size and importance until
it became the celebrated capital of the Assyrian Empire--an empire
which at one time embraced the whole of the civilized world. But when
it was at the zenith of its greatness, when it was feared and hated
from the Nile to the Persian Gulf and from the scorching deserts of
Arabia to the Hittite lands to the north of the Taurus, it suddenly, in
707 B. C., collapsed under the combined attacks of the Medes and the
Babylonians led by Cyaxares and Nabopolassar, who left it a smoking
ruin, where, according to the victors, “the words of men, the tread of
cattle and sheep and the sound of happy music” were heard no more.

How execrated was the name of Assyria throughout the length and the
breadth of western Asia, and how the peoples whom she had so long
plundered and enslaved rejoiced when they heard of the downfall of her
capital is made clear by the prophet Nahum when he declares:

All who have heard of the fame of thee [thy destruction] have
clapped their hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy
wickedness passed continually.[355]

But the Prophet Zephaniah, who was a contemporary of the stupendous
event, gives an even more graphic account of the utter desolation
which followed the overthrow of the far-famed metropolis:

And the Lord of hosts ... will stretch out His hands upon the
north and will destroy Assyria and He will make the beautiful
city [Nineveh] a wilderness and as a place not passable and as a
desert.

And flocks shall lie down in the midst thereof, all the beasts
of the nations; and the bittern and the urchin shall lodge in
the threshold thereof; the voice of the singing bird in the
window, the raven on the upper post, for I will consume her
strength.

This is the glorious city that dwelt in security; that said in
her heart: I am, and there is none beside me; how is she become
a desert, a place for beasts to lie down in? Everyone that
passeth by her shall hiss and wag his hand.[356]

How completely these dire words of the Hebrew prophet were verified is
evidenced by the fact that when Xenophon and his Ten Thousand Greeks
two centuries later passed by the mounds which covered the remains of
Nineveh’s one-time magnificence, they were quite unaware of being in
the immediate vicinity of the sumptuous palaces and temples of the
erstwhile Queen City of the Tigris.[357]

Lucian, the Greek Voltaire, who was born at Samosata on the Euphrates
in the second century after Christ, tells us in one of his satirical
dialogues that all trace of Nineveh had disappeared. Representing
Charon as on a leave of absence from the infernal regions, where he
officiated as ferryman of the dead, and as starting with Hermes,
the swift-footed messenger of the gods, who acts as his guide, on a
short tour of this upper world, he gives us these two characteristic
paragraphs:

CHARON.--Show me the famous cities of which we hear
so much down below: The Nineveh of Sardanapalus and Babylon
and Mycenæ and Cleonæ and especially Troy. I remember to have
ferried over the Styx so many times from this last place that
I could not haul my boat upon the bank, or have it thoroughly
dried for ten whole years.

HERMES.--Nineveh, O Ferryman, perished long ago and
there is no trace of her remaining; nor would you be able to
tell where she stood. Babylon is yonder city with the fair
towers and the immense circuit of wall, but will soon have to be
sought for like Nineveh.[358]

But, although Assyria’s capital was so thoroughly demolished, its name
and fame still persisted. In the course of time a new Nineveh arose on
the site of the ancient metropolis and, although quite unimportant as
compared with its famous predecessor, it served at a later date to aid
in the identification of the ancient site and to pave the way to some
of the most extraordinary archæological discoveries of the last century.

The great Assyrian Empire came to an end after enduring more than a
thousand years, and being, a great part of this period, one of the
greatest powers of western Asia. Its downfall, after its long centuries
of glory and preëminence, occurred while Rome was yet in its infancy
and little more than a rendezvous of robbers and refugees from justice.
From that date, 707 B. C., nearly twenty-five centuries passed over the
grass and shrub-covered mounds on the site of ancient Nineveh before
any serious effort was made to determine whether they concealed any
remains of the long-buried metropolis of Mesopotamia.

Until the middle of the last century our knowledge of the history of
Assyria and Babylonia was based entirely on the historical books of
the Old Testament and on the accounts given by certain Greek and Latin
writers. The books of Scripture which are of special importance in
their relation to Assyrian and Babylonian history are Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, Nahum, and the Fourth Book of Kings.

Chief among the classical writers is Herodotus. He was not only, as
Cicero calls him, the “Father of History,” but he was also the greatest
traveler of his time. Not only did he traverse a great part of Asia
Minor, Syria, and Egypt, but there is a strong probability that he
extended his peregrinations to the Euphrates and proceeded on its
waters to Babylon. Making all due allowance for numerous inaccuracies
which exist in his picturesque work and for not a few travelers’
tales,[359] the history of the brilliant Greek writer will always
possess value not only for its matchless style but also for the facts
which it contains and its descriptions, which are evidently from the
pen of an eye witness. I refer especially to that part of his charming
work which treats of Babylon and the culture of its inhabitants.

Of more importance was the great history of Babylonia written by
Berosus, a contemporary of Alexander the Great and a priest of Bel in
Babylon. Unfortunately we have only the fragments of this work which
have been preserved by Eusebius, Josephus, and other ancient writers.

But the works mentioned, as well as those of Ctesias, Dinon of
Colophon, and others, threw but little light on the civilization and
achievements of Assyria and Babylonia during their long and eventful
history. Detailed information respecting the development and decline
of these two mighty empires was to come only from native annals of
which not even the existence was suspected until the latter half of the
nineteenth century.

Nor was there before the beginning of the last century any certitude
regarding the sites of the great Assyrian and Babylonian cities which
had made such a profound impression upon the peoples of the ancient
world. Although history and tradition still spoke of the grandiose
palaces and temples of Nineveh and of the towers and hanging gardens
of Babylon, the general ignorance which almost from the time of the
Arab conquest had prevailed regarding the actual sites of Babylon and
Nineveh was not removed until the illustrious Danish scholar, Carsten
Niebuhr, proved that the site of Babylon was in the vicinity of the
modern village of Hillah, and the noted English investigator, Claudius
James Rich, demonstrated in 1821 that the mounds on the left bank of
the Tigris, just opposite Mosul, covered all that remained of the famed
city of Nineveh.[360]

But even after the sites of Nineveh and Babylon had been identified, it
was yet to be proved that amid the ruins of these famous cities there
were records and monuments which would shed light on the civilization
of which they were once such noted centers. The potsherds and fragments
of cylinders which travelers had found in and about the mounds of
Babylon and Nineveh led scholars to believe that discoveries of greater
value awaited the explorer. This conclusion was confirmed by the
finding in various places of bricks, tablets, and monuments covered
with strange inscriptions which were written in characters which are
now designated as cuneiform.

It was not, however, until 1842 when the French Government--to
which the world of science has long been indebted for intelligent
encouragement and generous assistance in every branch of research--sent
Paul Emil Botta to Mosul that decisive results were obtained. He was
ostensibly appointed to fill there the newly-created position of
vice-consul, but, as French commerce did not require the service of
such an official at that point, he was really designated to act as
the head of an archæological mission to Nineveh and its environs. His
appointment, as subsequent events proved, was a red-letter day in the
annals of Assyrian research. For, not long after his arrival in Mosul,
the world was thrilled by the news of his marvelous discoveries in the
long-buried city of Nineveh and the report that he was “sending home
the spoils of superb ancient edifices to increase the treasures of the
Louvre.... A city buried for more than twenty centuries offered its
remains for comparison with the aspects of modern London and Paris; and
the sculptured monuments of a bygone race rose up to offer a contrast
with the works of modern art.”[361]

Three years after Botta’s arrival in Mosul, Austen Henry Layard began
his memorable excavations at Nimroud, a short distance to the south
of Nineveh. So successful was he in his work here and subsequently at
Kuyunjik--Citadel of Nineveh--that he was soon able to send a larger
and a more valuable collection of antiquities to the British Museum
than that with which Botta had enriched the Louvre. Great, indeed,
was the excitement in France and England when the treasures of the
long-buried palaces of Nineveh were placed on exhibition and when
people had before their eyes tangible evidence of that famed Assyrian
capital which for more than twenty centuries had left no other trace of
its existence than a name which was a synonym of fabulous wealth and
magnificence.

In a work published shortly after Botta and Layard had electrified the
world by their startling discoveries, a well-known English scholar,
speaking of the unearthing of Nineveh, wrote:

More than two thousand years had it thus lain in its unknown
grave, when a French savant and a wandering English scholar,
urged by a noble inspiration, sought the seat of the once
powerful empire, and, searching till they found the dead city,
threw off its shroud of sand and ruin and revealed once more to
an astonished and curious world the temples, the palaces, the
idols; the representations of war and the triumphs of peaceful
art of the ancient Assyrians. The Nineveh of Scripture, the
Nineveh of the oldest historians; the Nineveh--twin-sister of
Babylon--glorying in a civilization of pomp and power, all
traces of which were believed to be gone; the Nineveh, in which
the captive tribes of Israel had labored and wept, was, after a
sleep of twenty centuries, again brought to light. The proofs
of ancient splendor were again beheld by living eyes, and, by
the skill of the draftsman and the pen of antiquarian travelers,
made known to the world.[362]

Notices like this which frequently appeared in books and periodical
literature had the effect of exciting widespread enthusiasm for
the advancement of Assyrian research. Societies were organized for
promoting excavations on a larger scale than was feasible for the first
explorers, who were greatly hampered by the lack of adequate funds, and
for giving due publicity to the work of the archæologists in the field.
The results were most gratifying, for it was not long before explorers
were investigating the mounds of Babylonia as well as those of Assyria.

Meantime, under the direction of George Smith and Ormuzd Rassam, the
mounds which covered the site of Nineveh were made to yield further
treasures which were quite as extraordinary as any which had been
brought to light by Botta and Layard. A discovery by Smith of a tablet
relating, it was supposed, to the Noachian deluge, convinced many that
Assyrian archæology was destined to render incalculable aid in the
study of Sacred Scripture. Although its apologetic value subsequently
proved to be greatly overestimated by some of the more enthusiastic
students of Assyrian antiquities, it soon became manifest that the
new science was destined to throw a flood of light not only on the
Old Testament but also on the history of the greatest nations of the
ancient world.

We experienced special pleasure in exploring the mounds which covered
the remains of imperial Nineveh. There was not, truth to tell, much
to see which was either of interest or value, for everything of
importance, that could be transported, had been forwarded to the
museums of Europe as soon as they had been disinterred.

On the mound of Nebi Yunus--Prophet Jonas--we visited the mosque which
the Moslems declare contains the remains of the prophet who preached
repentance to the sinful Ninevites.

This mosque [said our Dominican companion] was originally a
Christian monastery that was built in the fourth century by a
disciple of St. Anthony of Egypt. He named it in honor of the
Prophet Jonas, but when the building, long afterwards, came
into the possession of the Mussulmans, it was converted into
a mosque. It, however, retained its original name--Prophet
Jonas--which it bears to this day.

The inhabitants here exhibit a flat stone which they guard as a
treasure beyond price. “It was upon this stone,” they aver, “that the
great fish deposited Jonas when it returned him to _terra firma_.”
Since that time the stone is reputed to have the power of curing
rheumatism by simply being brought into contact with the afflicted
part. So highly do the natives prize this remedial agent that nothing
could induce them to part with it. When we told them of the curative
powers attributed to the Hittite stone at Aleppo they gravely assured
us that the stone of Nebi Yunus possessed incomparably greater efficacy
and that it afforded certain relief to all cases of rheumatism however
malignant.

Although we were always interested in listening to the folklore of
the Mussulmans of the Near East, we preferred on this occasion to
stroll over the mounds beneath which were buried the remains of one of
antiquity’s most celebrated cities and to inspect the localities where
Botta and Layard and Ormuzd Rassam had made those famous finds which
contributed so greatly to our knowledge of Assyria and Babylonia. Most
of the excavations whence they drew such priceless treasures had been
refilled with earth, but this did not matter. We had in various museums
seen the valuable monuments that had been taken from them and were,
therefore, freer to indulge in day-dreams than we had been when we
visited Homer’s Troy.

Aided by the drawings of Place and Fergusson we found it easy to
reconstruct in fancy the superb palaces of Sargon and Eserhaddon and
Tiglath-pileser, whose names and achievements had so impressed us in
our youth. In imagination we contemplated the colossal statues of
winged lions with human heads, which stood at the portals of the palace
of Sennacherib, and fixed our gaze on the marvelous bas-relief and
sculptures--reminders of the frieze of the Parthenon--which adorned the
vast halls and exhibited the monarch’s exploits in the chase and in
wars innumerable.[363] We could observe Sennacherib himself standing on
an elevated outlook of his palace and watching “the marching forth of
the hosts of Assur and the smoke of their holocausts spreading over all
the lands,” or pensively pacing a lofty tiled terrace which overlooked
the swift-flowing waters of the Tigris and the broad expanse of the
western desert illumined by the crimson glow of the setting sun.

But a more fascinating scene engages our attention. It recalls
one described in the book of Esther,[364] in which King Assuerus
is represented as having his annalists and wise men read for him
“the histories and chronicles of former times.” Before us is
Asurbanipal--the Grand Monarch of Assyria--surrounded by his scribes
and sages and intent on the examination of a recent addition to the
royal library. For, after many years spent in military campaigns in
Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Susiana, and elsewhere, he resolved to devote
the remainder of his life to the arts and avocations of peace. Numerous
temples and palaces in many parts of Assyria and Babylonia bear witness
to his activity as a builder and to the magnificence of the structures
erected to his own glory and to that of his gods.

But it was in his gorgeous palace at Nineveh that he had the joy of
his life--that which was to perpetuate his name to the end of time.
This was his library--the largest and most valuable collection of
documents that the world had yet seen. Composed of myriads of inscribed
tablets, they were fortunately made of a material--baked and unbaked
clay--which, for more than two millennia, successfully withstood all
the ravages of war and the elements. They treated of mathematics,
astronomy, history, poetry, grammar, lexicography, law, religion--in a
word, of the entire circle of the sciences of the ancient world.

Asurbanipal--an Assyrian Mæcenas--was not only the patron of scholars,
whom he encouraged to produce new books on every branch of science and
literature, but was also, as a collector, the worthy forerunner and
rival of the bibliophilous rulers of Pergamum and Alexandria. He had
his scribes visit all the libraries of Babylonia--the earliest home of
science and letters--and had them make copies of all works of value
which did not exist in his own library. So indefatigable, indeed,
was the King as a collector that it is probably true--as has been
stated--that he had in his extensive library a copy of all the books
that existed in the numerous libraries of Assyria and Babylonia.

The discovery of Asurbanipal’s library surpassed in importance any
that had ever been made in either the valley of the Tigris or of the
Euphrates. But every tablet in this immense collection was absolutely
a sealed book, for there was not anyone living then who was able to
decipher a single sentence of those mysterious documents which had
thus so unexpectedly been brought to day. When Layard, in the course
of his exploration of the vast palace of Asurbanipal, first beheld the
priceless contents of the royal halls of records, his emotions must
have been like those of Shelley’s Alastor in the temples of Egypt, for

_Among the ruined temples there,_
_Stupendous columns and wild images_
_Of more than man, where marble demons watch_
_The zodiac’s brazen mystery, and dead men_
_Have their mute thoughts on the mute walls around._
_He lingered, pouring on memorials_
_Of the world’s youth; nor when the moon_
_Filled the mysterious halls with floating shades_
_Suspended he that task, but ever gazed_
_And gazed_

on precious monuments before him which he knew full well contained

_The thrilling secrets of the birth of time_.[365]

The identification of the site of Nineveh and the unearthing of its
long-concealed monuments marked the beginning of a new era in Oriental
research. But nothing gave so great a stimulus to the study of all
things Assyrian and Babylonian as the discovery of the precious library
of Asurbanipal. For this wonderful collection of documents was destined
to disclose much of the history, science, literature, and politics
of the famous land bounded by the Tigris and the Euphrates, and to
show--what would not otherwise have been possible--the relation of this
land to the other great nations of the Near East.

But who was to decipher the cuneiform tablets which were thus so
unexpectedly brought to the light of day? That was the question that
was on the lips of everyone. Until this could be accomplished the
countless books of the royal library would be of little more value than
so many useless curiosities.

That the work of decipherment would eventually be achieved,
scholars had no doubt. That the languages in which the mysterious
inscriptions were written would one day be read with ease and
certainty, all investigators were convinced. The achievements of
Champollion in deciphering the hieroglyphics of Egypt and of De Sacy
in reading Pehlevi gave an assurance that eventually the mysterious
Assyro-Babylonian inscriptions would also be elucidated and that the
long-forgotten documents of Asurbanipal’s library would then become the
chief sources of our knowledge of the most ancient and most powerful
empires of western Asia.

Nothing in the entire history of intellectual advancement is more
interesting and romantic than the story of the gradual decipherment of
those strange cuneiform inscriptions whose interpretation long baffled
the powers of the greatest linguistic geniuses of Europe.

The discovery of the key to the Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions
was practically the work of one man--the immortal Jean François
Champollion. The decipherment of the Assyro-Babylonian inscriptions was
the joint achievement of many men, laboring during many generations,
in many and widely separated parts of Asia and Europe. It was effected
by daring travelers and explorers, by philologists, philosophers, and
historians, most of them laboring independently of one another, but all
working, although nearly always unconsciously, toward the same goal.

And an even more singular fact was that the first clue towards the
unraveling of the great enigma was found far away from both Assyria and
Babylonia and in a place where an explorer bent on searching for it
would certainly not look for it. This place was Persepolis, where are
the remains of the splendid edifices constructed by Darius I, Xerxes
I, and Artaxerxes I, the celebrated Persian Kings of the Achæmenian
dynasty.

So far as known the first European to visit these remarkable ruins was
the noted Franciscan friar, Fra Oderico, on his way to Cathay in the
first quarter of the fourteenth century.

In the latter half of the sixteenth century Persepolis was visited
by an Augustinian monk, Antonio de Gouvea, whom Philip III, King of
Spain and Portugal, had sent as an ambassador to Shah Abbas the Great,
King of Persia. Among the many things which attracted his attention
in the old Persian city were the inscriptions which he saw on the
monuments, which, “although they are in many parts very distinct, there
is nevertheless no one who can read them, for they are not written
in Persian, or Arabic or Armenian or Hebrew, which are the languages
spoken in this land.”[366]

Some thirty years later Gouvea was followed, as ambassador to Shah
Abbas from Philip III, by Don Garcia de Sylva y Figueroa, who wrote a
letter on the monuments of Persepolis which attracted deep interest
when published in Europe in 1620. In this communication he speaks of
“one notable inscription cut in a Jasper-table, with characters still
so fresh and faire that one would wonder how it could escape so many
ages without touch of the least blemish. The Letters themselves are
neither Chaldæan nor Hebrew, nor Greeke, nor Arabike, nor of any other
Nation which was ever found of old, or at this day, to be extant. They
are all three-cornered, but somewhat long, of the forms of a pyramide,
or such a little Obliske as I have set in the margine: (△) so that in
nothing do they differ one from one another, but in their placing and
situation, yet so conformed that they are wondrous plaine, distinct and
perspicuous.”[367]

But the first one to make known these peculiar characters to the
scholars of Europe was the learned traveler, Pietro della Valle,
of whom we have already spoken. And it was thus that this eminent
Roman patrician had the honor of being the first of that long line
of investigators whose labors have resulted in building up that
comprehensive branch of science now known as Assyriology.[368]

From the time of Pietro della Valle the number of travelers who visited
the ruins of Persepolis and wrote of the inscriptions which they saw on
the ruins of this old Persian capital rapidly increased. But, although
their published observations failed to arouse any special interest at
the time, some of them deserve at least a passing notice for the quaint
language in which the views of the authors found expression. Thus
Thomas Herbert, referring to the inscriptions of Persepolis, writes:

Wee noted above a dozen lynes of strange characters, very faire
and apparent to the eye, but so mysticall, so oddly framed, as
no Hierogliphick, no other deep conceit can be more difficultly
fancied, more adverse to the intellect.... And, though it have
small concordance with the Hebrew, Greek, or Latine letter,
yet questionlesse to the Inventer it was well knowne; and
peradventure may conceale some excellent matter, though to this
day wrapt up in the dim leafes of envious obscuritie.[369]

The Italian, Spanish, and English writers on Persepolis were followed
by travelers and writers of other nationalities. Among these were Jean
Chardin of France, Cornelis de Bruin of Holland, Engelrecht Kaempfer of
Germany, and Carsten Niebuhr, a German, long in the service of Denmark.
Each of these men made a contribution--small though it was--towards the
decipherment of the Persepolitan inscriptions.

Chardin was the first to reproduce in his superbly illustrated
work[370] an entire inscription from one of the monuments of
Persepolis. This, to scholars, was incomparably more valuable than
any of the fragments that had hitherto come to Europe. De Bruin, who
visited Persepolis in 1704, and subsequently published a book with
magnificent views of the ruins of the old Achæmenia capital, together
with numerous inscriptions from its monuments, put more material in
the hands of scholars than had any of his predecessors. Kaempfer
advanced a step further when he published in 1712 a long inscription in
Assyro-Babylonian.

But of the four travelers mentioned the one who performed the most
important work was Niebuhr, an experienced traveler, an accurate
observer and a man of broad scholarship. Besides making careful
drawings and measurements of the monuments of Persepolis--monuments
which in many respects were the most important in the East--he made
copies of numerous cuneiform texts which had not appeared in any
preceding work. His studies of the inscriptions also led him to
conclude that there were three classes of them and that they were, as
some of his predecessors had surmised, to be read from left to right.
He had thus not only supplied scholars with new and valuable material
but, by his comparative study, blazed the way which led to their final
decipherment.

Among the first to attempt decipherment of these inscriptions were such
distinguished philologists as Professor Tychsen, of the University
of Rostock, and Friedrich Munter, of Copenhagen, and such eminent
Orientalists as Eugène Burnouf, Anquetil-Duperron, and Silvestre de
Sacy, who was the most eminent Arabist of his age. They did not succeed
in solving the problem which had so long baffled the keenest minds of
Europe, but they had accumulated the material that was necessary for
its solution.

Several years before Botta and Layard sent their vast stores of tablets
from Nineveh and Nimroud to the Louvre and the British Museum, it was
evident from the few specimens of cuneiform inscriptions which had
reached Europe from Mesopotamia that the script on the Babylonian
tablets was the same as one of the varieties occurring in the
trilingual inscriptions of Persepolis. It was then only a step to
the conclusion that these two scripts were identical and represented
identical languages. Thanks to the researches of De Sacy, Burnouf,
Anquetil-Duperron, and others, it was now possible to make the old
Persian script--the first class--of the trilingual inscriptions of
Persepolis serve as a key to the third class, or what is now designated
as the Assyro-Babylonian script. The process was exactly similar to
that which enabled Champollion to use the Greek on the Rosetta stone as
a key to the mysterious hieroglyphics of the Egypt of the Pharaohs.

But, although the method to be adopted seemed simple enough, the labor
involved was incomparably greater than that which was required of the
illustrious French _savant_. For the Greek on the Rosetta stone
was a well-known language, whereas Old Persian, which was to serve as
the key for deciphering the Babylonian script, was itself quite as
unknown as the writing to be deciphered. It was only after a knowledge
of Old Persian had been acquired by comparing it with Avestan,
Pahlavi, and Sanscrit, that it could serve as the long-sought key to
Assyro-Babylonian.

The first one to read an Old Persian word was Georg Friederich
Grotefend. This was in 1802, when he was only twenty-seven years of
age and without any knowledge of oriental languages. Nevertheless, he
was, wonderful to relate, able “to solve the riddle practically in a
few days, that had puzzled much older men and scholars apparently much
better qualified than himself. Under the magical touch of his hand the
mystic and complicated characters of ancient Persia suddenly gained new
life. But when he was far enough advanced to announce to the Academy
of Sciences in Göttingen the epoch-making discovery which established
his reputation for ever, that learned body, though comprising men of
eminent mental training and intelligence, strange to say, declined to
publish the Latin memoirs of this little-known college teacher, who did
not belong to the University circle proper nor was even an Orientalist
by profession. It was not until ninety years later--1893--that his
original papers were rediscovered and published by Prof. Wilhelm Meyer,
of Göttingen, in the Academy’s transactions--a truly unique case of
_post mortem_ examination in science.”[371]

Notwithstanding, however, the attitude of the Göttingen Academy of
Sciences, scholars like De Sacy, Heeren, and others were not slow to
recognize the importance of Grotefend’s far-reaching discoveries.
The number of investigators in the studies of Europe and in the
ruin-dotted plains of Persia and Mesopotamia gradually increased.
The careful researches of Niebuhr were followed in the first half of
the nineteenth century by the painstaking observations of Rich, Ker
Porter, and Colonel Chesney. But while those noted explorers were
winning laurels in the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates, Sir
Henry Rawlinson “forced the inaccessible rock of Behistun to surrender
the great trilingual inscription of Darius, which, in the quietude of
his study on the Tigris, became the ‘Rosetta Stone’ of Assyriology
and in his master hand the key to the understanding of the Assyrian
documents.”[372]

While Rawlinson was conducting his celebrated investigations relating
to the trilingual inscription of Behistun, and Layard and Rassam were
unearthing the priceless documents of Asurbanipal’s library, Edward
Hincks in Ireland, Edwin Norris in England, Eugène Burnouf and M.
de Saulcy in France, Westergaard, a Dane, and Lassen, a Norwegian,
both living in Germany, were astonishing the learned world by their
wonderful contributions towards the decipherment of the inscriptions of
Persepolis and Behistun and of tablets and seals and cylinders taken
from the temples and palaces of Assyria and Babylonia.

Thanks to the investigators named and to a rapidly increasing number
of others, the decipherment of Assyrian inscription was gradually
assuming the dignity of an exact science. But there were still scholars
of acknowledged eminence who questioned the validity of the system
employed and who openly expressed grave doubts about the translations
of the cuneiform inscriptions which had been published by divers
scholars of Great Britain and the Continent.

Finally, in 1857, it was suggested to make a test which should silence
all objectors and demonstrate that the method of the decipherers
reposed on a scientific basis. An Assyrian text was translated
independently by Hincks, Talbot, Oppert, and Rawlinson, and sent sealed
to the Royal Asiatic Society. When these versions were compared by a
committee of distinguished scholars they were found to show such a
remarkable correspondence that there could no longer be any reasonable
doubt as to the system of decipherment or the substantial accuracy
of the four translations which had been offered to the distinguished
committee of the Royal Asiatic Society.

But, notwithstanding this remarkable confirmation of the correctness
of the method of decipherment employed by Assyriologists, there
still remained a certain number of skeptics even among the most
noted scholars of the age--men like Gutschmid in Germany and Renan
and Gobineau in France--who refused to admit the conclusiveness
of the demonstration which had silenced most other objectors. Even
after the French Institute on July 15, 1863, had awarded to Oppert
the coveted quinquennial prize of twenty thousand francs for “that
work or discovery which is best calculated to honor or serve the
country,” skepticism still persisted among certain Orientalists.[373]
Indeed, it was not until the appearance in 1872 of the masterly _Die
Assyrisch--Babylonischen-Keilinschriften_ of Eberhard Schrader that
general confidence in the prevailing system of cuneiform decipherment
was firmly established and that all opposition to its methods was
finally abandoned.

Seventy years had elapsed from the reading by Grotefend of his epochal
paper before the Göttingen Academy to the publication of Schrader’s
great work on the cuneiform writing and language. From the time of
Schrader, who has been called the father of early Assyriology, to
the splendid achievements of his illustrious countryman, Friedrich
Delitzsch, who is known as the father of contemporary Assyriology,
progress in the new science has been as rapid as the activity of its
countless votaries has been enthusiastic. This is evidenced by the
large number of cuneiform monuments which are now found in the museums
of Europe and America and by the ever-increasing number of scholars who
are devoting all their time to the study of Assyrian science, religion,
and literature.

It is estimated that there are now, in the divers museums of the world,
more than a half million inscribed tablets. Besides the immense number
of tablets found in the great library of Asurbanipal, Rassam discovered
in Abu-Habba, formerly Hillah, no fewer than seventy thousand. In 1894
M. Ernest de Sarzec took from a single chamber in the ruined city
of Telloh, in the alluvial plain of Babylonia, fully thirty thousand
tablets, while a few years later Haynes and Hilprecht to the north of
Telloh, in the ruins of Nippur, discovered more than forty thousand
tablets, which have proved to be of inestimable value to the student
of the history, religion, and social conditions of the inhabitants of
ancient Sumer and Akkad. Still other stores of tablets were unearthed
by Banks at Bismya and De Morgan at Susa. Among the precious monuments
brought to light by the distinguished French explorer of Susa was the
important code of Hammurabi--the oldest compilation of laws in the
world--the code by which Babylonia was governed at a period which
antedated the Christian era by fully two thousand years.

But the inscribed clay tablets--some baked, others unbaked--are not the
only monuments of value as sources of history which have been uncovered
by the pick and spade of the excavator in the tells of Assyria and
Babylonia. There are also seals, statues, cylinders, and bas-reliefs
innumerable which bear cuneiform inscriptions of the utmost value
to the historian and the man of science. There are even numberless
uninscribed monuments which are also of immense historical importance.
Such are the sculptured alabaster slabs which once adorned the palace
of Sennacherib in Nineveh. These marvelous bas-reliefs exhibit scenes
of domestic life, the peculiar garbs of men and women, of masters and
slaves, of natives and foreigners with almost photographic exactness.
They likewise show spirited representations of battles and sieges,
which portray in the most lifelike manner the types of the combatants,
their divers instruments of warfare, the punishments inflicted by the
victor on helpless captives, and long processions of the vanquished
bringing tribute to the triumphant monarch of Assyria.

Without the knowledge of a single cuneiform character [declares
Professor Hilprecht] we learned the principal events of
Sennacherib’s government, and, from a mere study of those
sculptured walls, we got familiar with customs and habits of
the ancient Assyrians, at the same time obtaining a first clear
glance of the whole civilization of Western Asia.[374]

The foregoing pages show the extraordinary progress that has been made
in Assyriology since Botta and Layard began their famous excavations
in the ruins of Nineveh in the middle of the last century. But,
although much, very much, has been achieved, far more remains to be
accomplished. For there are, we are assured, hundreds of ruin-mounds
and earth-covered cities in Western Asia awaiting the spade and the
pick of the excavator to disclose treasures that will equal, if
not surpass in value any that have yet rewarded the labors of the
explorer. Even such important ruins as those of Babylon and Nineveh,
where such splendid results have been obtained, have so far yielded,
there is reason to believe, but a part, possibly but a small part,
of their precious stores. For it has been computed that to excavate
Kuyunjik and Nebi Yunus--the two principal mounds of Nineveh--would
require the labor of a thousand men working continually for a hundred
and seventy-four years. “The recent excavations and tunnelings at
Kuyunjik”--the Citadel of Nineveh--“fruitful as they have been in
results, have made little impression on the vast mass of ruin, and only
prove how much might be gained by complete clearance.”[375]

But as the work of excavation is still almost in its infancy, so
is also that of decipherment and coördination of the myriads of
inscriptions now in the museums of the world. For, notwithstanding the
wonderful achievements of Assyriologists during the last three-quarters
of a century, many generations must yet elapse before the vast amount
of material which has been already collected and to which additions
are being constantly made, can be properly interpreted and made
available for students who are not professional Orientalists. As
yet there is in Assyrian neither a complete grammar nor a complete
dictionary, and, on account of the immense number of ideograms yet
undeciphered and the astonishing number of polyphonous signs in the
Assyrian language--signs which have each several distinct syllabic
values--it is certain that many decades will elapse before the
countless difficulties can be overcome.

Considering, however, the complexity of the problem which confronted
Orientalists at the beginnings of their researches, it is, indeed, a
wonder that their achievements during the last two generations have
been so fruitful and of so far-reaching importance. For in a few
decades they have changed completely our conception of the ancient
peoples of Assyria and Babylonia and shown that their civilization
“stands before us in all its ramifications as one of the great forces
in the ancient history of mankind, the direct or indirect influence
of which is to be seen in many a phase of our modern culture.”[376]
They have proved that the Assyrian language was not only the speech
of the inhabitants of Mesopotamia but that it was also long used as
the language of diplomacy by the Hittites and the Egyptians and by
the peoples of Syria and Palestine. More than this, it was a kind of
_lingua franca_ from the Euxine to the valley of the Nile and from
Cyprus to the plateau of Susiana. This fact is most strikingly proved
by the priceless collections of cuneiform inscriptions which, only a
few years ago, were found in Tel-el-Armana, Egypt, and in Boghaz-Keui,
Asia Minor. These finds are indications that there are other, probably
many other, similar discoveries to reward the patient and well-directed
excavations of the explorer in the ruin-spread lands of the Near East.

How often, while wandering among the ruins of Kuyunjik, Nebi Yunus,
and Khorsabad, have I not had brought home to me the far-reaching
changes in our knowledge of the Near East, which have been effected by
the startling discoveries that were made three-quarters of a century
ago in the palaces of Sargon and Sennacherib and Asurbanipal! But
nothing impressed me more than the first question which Scriptural
students always make regarding these discoveries, “How do they bear
on the Bible”? It is the same question which has so often been asked
about the revelations of geology in their bearings on the Sacred
Text. Something is discovered which at the first blush is regarded
as militating against the accuracy of the Sacred Scriptures. After
further investigation, this same discovery is viewed as being strongly
confirmatory of the Bible, while still more careful examination shows
that the teachings of the new science not only do not but, by their
very nature, cannot question, much less impeach the veracity of the
Book of Books.

It is true that one’s view of the Bible may be enlarged with one’s
advancing years; that one’s understanding of it may be improved by more
profound study, and by the progress of research; but science, whether
it appear in the guise of geology, or Assyriology, or of what has
falsely been called the science of evolution, can never invalidate a
single one of the fundamental teachings either of Scripture or of the
Church of Christ.

This thought was borne in upon me with unwonted force as I stood one
day above the ruins of Asurbanipal’s library. Gazing at a cluster of
keleks--skin rafts--bearing their light traffic down the historic
Tigris, as they did when Assyria ruled the East, and recalling the
pictures I had formed of “Nineveh the great city” when as a boy I read
my first history of the Bible--a book that was to exert so paramount an
influence on the studies and thoughts of my after life--I asked myself,
“In what respect does my faith to-day differ from that which I held
three score years ago”? I had then, as Pasteur once said of himself
when at the zenith of his fame and mental vigor, the faith of a Breton
peasant.[377] Since that far-off time when I delighted to picture
the glories of Nineveh and Babylon and dwell on the famous campaigns
and victories, the superb palaces and entertainments of Sennacherib
and Assuerus and Nebuchadnezzar, I have striven to keep abreast with
the intellectual movement of my time and, in so doing, I have never
found anything in any of the new sciences that could by any legitimate
interpretation be construed as being at variance with the teachings of
the religion of my boyhood. We now know incomparably more about the
history, the social and economic condition of the ancient Assyrians
and Babylonians than we did before the explorer brought to light the
literary treasures of Nippur, Telloh, Abu-Habba, and Nineveh; but we
have discovered nothing which is competent to discredit any of the
eternal verities on which our faith is founded. The higher criticism
may, indeed, cause us to modify some of our views regarding literary or
textual problems, but as to the basal truths of Scripture, they stand
absolutely in all their divine immutability untouched and absolutely
unassailable. It was, indeed, with a feeling of joy and gratitude that
I could, sixty years after my first acquaintance with Nineveh, feel,
while contemplating the ruins of the famous city, that there was still
in my soul nothing changed of that faith of a Breton peasant--a faith
which, as it was my most precious inheritance in early youth, has
ever continued to be my greatest consolation from then to beyond the
Scriptural age of three score years and ten.

That the discoveries at Nineveh or elsewhere should ever prove to be
in conflict with revealed truth, has to me never seemed possible. How
could they be? Science and religion belong to entirely different
spheres of thought. They are as far separated from each other as are
the theories of electricity, of the constitution of matter, of the
origin of species, and of universal gravitation from the doctrines
of creation, redemption, Providence, sanctification. For this reason
I can now repeat as unreservedly as I did a quarter of a century ago
that “I am as firmly convinced as I can be of anything, that God is
the Lord of science, that science is the handmaid of religion, that
the two, speaking of the same Author, must voice the same testimony,
and that this testimony must be not only unequivocally true but also
unequivocally one.”[378]

When, therefore, the eminent Assyriologist, Friedrich Delitzsch, tells
us that “the conviction is becoming more general that it is the results
of the excavations in Babylonia and Assyria in particular, that are
destined to inaugurate a new epoch as regards both the way in which
we must understand the Old Testament and the estimate we must form of
it,”[379] we must tell him that our viewpoint will be unchanged in all
essential matters and that, whatever may be the future discoveries of
Assyriologists, all of them will eventually be harmonized with the
Bible and with the fundamental doctrines of the Church just as science
and religion have always been reconciled with each other from the days
of Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine of Hippo to those of Bossuet of Meaux
and Wiseman of Westminster.

CHAPTER XV

FLOATING DOWN THE TIGRIS ON A KELEK

_When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free_
_In the silken sail of infancy,_
_The tide of time flow’d back with me,_
_The forward-flowing tide of time;_
_And many a sheeny summer-morn,_
_Adown the Tigris I was borne,_
_By Bagdad’s shrines of fretted gold,_
_High-walled gardens green and old._
TENNYSON.--“Recollections of the Arabian Nights.”

The first thing we did on arriving at Mosul--even before we visited
any of the places of interest in the city--was to make arrangements
for our transportation to Bagdad. Had it not been for the late World
War, the Bagdad Railway would have been completed to the famed city
of Harun-al-Rashid and we could then have made the journey from Mosul
to Bagdad in a luxuriously upholstered car or in the latest type
of _wagon-lit_ accompanied by a well-supplied and well-manned
_wagon-restaurant_. In the absence of these we might, had we
sought for one, have found an aviator who would have taken us to our
destination in an aeroplane, for both aviators and aeroplanes were
numerous in this vicinity during the war and there was reason to
believe that there were still here both flying machines and pilots.

But we were not looking either for luxury or rapidity of
transportation. Even if they had been at our disposal we should
not have availed ourselves of these twentieth-century comforts and
time-saving devices by which our western world sets such store. We had
no desire to fly at express-train speed through the historic valley of
the Tigris even if we had had at our disposition all the luxuries and
conveniences of a railway president’s private car. We wished to study
the country and the people and we desired to do so at our leisure.

The usual way to make the journey from Mosul to Bagdad is by land.
Some make it on horseback, but the majority elect to perform it on
the back of an Arabian or a Bactrian camel. A few, however, prefer to
entrust themselves to the capricious waters of the tortuous Tigris.
This route requires more time and offers, besides, a little spice of
adventure. Both of these facts appealed to us and we decided--without
hesitation--that our journey to the city of the _Thousand and One
Nights_ should be by the longest and the slowest and, as we were
assured, the most venturesome way.

We chose also to go by the Tigris because I had always been specially
fond of river travel. It has been my good fortune to navigate from
source to mouth or from mouth to source many of the longest rivers
of the world, and I was grateful for the opportunity to spend a week
or more on one of the largest rivers of western Asia and one of the
most famous in history. Another reason for choosing this route was the
peculiar age-old craft that was to carry us to the famed capital of the
Caliphs.

It was not a boat nor anything that even remotely resembled one. It was
a peculiar kind of a raft which has been in use on the Tigris since the
time of the early Assyrian kings, and which, notwithstanding all our
modern improvements, still holds its own here not only for conveying
the traveler to his destination but also for carrying freight as well.

The raft in question is called a kelek. It is composed of a large
number of inflated goat or sheep skins which are kept united by reeds.
Over these is laid a framework made of saplings or scantlinglike
timbers which are held together by twigs or lianas. No nails or screws
whatever are used. If the skins be continually kept moist and properly
inflated, the framework of the kelek will always remain above water,
even when bearing a considerable load.

Thanks to our good Dominican hosts, the work of constructing our
kelek was specially expedited after the workmen knew exactly the
size and kind of craft we desired. And to our great joy it was ready
for us as soon as we were prepared to start on our journey down the
river. It was fifteen by twenty feet in dimensions and counted a
hundred and seventy-five inflated skins. In the middle of the kelek
we had a good-sized tent in which we had two light cots, three light
folding chairs, a folding writing table, ten pockets, and other
things which occupy little space but which we found by previous
experience contributed immensely to the convenience and comfort of
the traveler whether on land or water. Most of our luggage, as well
as our provisions, was left outside of the tent in care of our good
and faithful Simoun, a middle-aged Chaldean who had been specially
recommended to us by our Dominican friends and who was guaranteed to
give us devoted and intelligent service. He took charge of everything
on the kelek and looked after the kelekgis--rowers--cook, and the
commissary department as well as our comfort and pleasure. Certain
Greeks and Armenians had applied for the position which we gave to
Simoun, but our experience with their countrymen had been such that we
had resolved to entrust ourselves thenceforth to the much abused and
little-understood Chaldean. For honesty, reliability, devotedness, a
Christian Chaldean, like an Osmanli Turk from the interior of Anatolia,
is, in any fiduciary capacity, absolutely unsurpassed.

When we actually found ourselves on our kelek, ready to depart for
Bagdad, we felt as happy as schoolboys starting on a vacation. It meant
at least a week of absolute rest--a rest which, after the strenuous
lives we had been leading since we left Constantinople, was most
welcome.

Besides the good fathers of St. Dominic, whose kindness during our
sojourn in Mosul we can never forget, a number of the people of the
city whom we had learned to know were at the point of embarkation to
bid us Godspeed. We were specially touched by the presence of some
school children with whom, from having frequently met them, we were on
the friendliest terms. “Children,” said I to my companion, “are the
same the world over. Treat them kindly and they will do anything for
you.” I was then specially thinking of the little Indian children whom
I had often met in the wilds of South America, and who, although they
had never come into contact with a white man before, became, after a
little act of kindness, my devoted friends and wished to be always near
me. The Turkish children of Anatolia, the little Arabs of Syria, and
the Chaldeans of Mesopotamia are, when kindly treated, just as loving
and as lovable as the youthful redskins of the broad wildernesses of
Brazil and Peru.

It was nearly eleven o’clock when we finally got under way. The last
words I heard from my friends on the shore were those of a charming
Osmanli youth who in a clarion voice bade us an affectionate good-bye
in the touching Turkish words _Allaha-ismarladiq_--we have
commended you to God. Again how like the fond _adios_ of the good
children of the South American hinterland whose parting words _Vaya
Usted con Dios!_--may you go with God--so often cheered our souls
during our long journeys over the snow-clad summits of the Andes or
through the trackless forests of the Amazon and the Orinoco.

We started on our journey down the Tigris under a cloudless sky. During
the early morning it had been quite chilly, but, as the sun rose in the
heavens, the atmosphere became as balmy as that of a morning in May.
All augured a pleasant voyage; and no sooner had the minarets of Mosul
and Nebi Yunus vanished from our sight than we proceeded to give the
interior of our tent as homelike an appearance as circumstances would
permit. Simoun had decked the opening of the tent with some flowers
that our kind friends had brought us. On our writing table we placed
some of our favorite books. Among these was a small copy in India
paper of the Bible which was in constant use during our journey in the
Orient. Another was a small pocket edition of the _Divina Commedia_
which, for years, had been my companion to the most distant parts of
the world. There were also small editions of the _Soliloquia_ of St.
Augustine and of the select works of St. Teresa. I took these last two
books with me because they, like Dante’s immortal poem, had been old
and cherished friends in other lands and because they seemed peculiarly
appropriate for such a journey as the one we were then undertaking. To
these were added copies of Xenophon’s _Anabasis_, Arrian’s _Anabasis of
Alexander_, and _The Oxford Book of English Verse_. The other books I
had brought with me I left in my trunk, as I expected to spend most of
my time on our way down the river in contemplation of the many objects
of interest with which both banks were everywhere studded.

A great part of the land in the vicinity of Mosul is under cultivation.
Wheat and barley are grown in abundance. Hemp is also cultivated but
more attention is given to cotton, especially along the banks and on
the islands which diversify the river. Melons seem to be as popular
along the Tigris as they are among our dusky population south of Mason
and Dixon’s line.

Much of the land in this region is very fertile and, if irrigated as it
was three thousand years ago, would yield harvests as extraordinary as
ever in the past. But the countless vicissitudes, consequent on wars
innumerable and on inefficient government, through which this ill-fated
region has passed since the fall of Nineveh, have not been conducive to
the development of agriculture nor to the economic growth of what was
once the wealthiest country of Western Asia.

I have been on many rivers but I have never found so much genuine
intellectual pleasure on any of them as on the Tigris. It has not,
indeed, the natural beauties of the Hudson or the Columbia, of the
Rhine or the Danube; but it has something that appealed to me
far more than the attractions for which these famous waterways of
America and Europe are so justly celebrated. Charged with the myths
and the legends, the traditions and the historical associations of
six millennia, it offers to the thoughtful student subjects for
consideration that cannot be found elsewhere.

In contemplating the old classic streams of Greece and Italy, the
Illisus, the Peneus, the Tibur, the Po--I always experience a kind of
admiration bordering on respect. I am impressed not by the volume of
water which they carry to the sea but by their picturesqueness, by
the atmosphere of romance that hangs over them and by the venerable
history in which they all rejoice. But when I gazed on the Tigris and
its ruin-fringed banks, a surge of emotion pervaded my entire being
and I was thrilled as by few other objects on earth. Under the name
Hiddikel it appears as one of the rivers of Eden. To the prophet
Daniel, who crossed it in his journeys to and from Susa, it was “The
Great River,”[380] and on its banks he had some of his most remarkable
visions. It carried on its waters the greatest fleet ever built by an
Assyrian potentate. This was when in 694 B. C., Sennacherib inaugurated
his campaign of devastation in Babylonia and when, with the aid of
seafaring men from Cyprus and Phœnicia, he floated his boats to the
lower Tigris and thence transported them to the Euphrates. It was
during this ruthless war that he applied the torch to the great city of
Babylon and left it with its magnificent temples and palaces and its
splendid works of art--the result of long centuries of labor--a vast,
smoldering ruin. It was along the Tigris that Xenophon and his heroic
Ten Thousand returned homewards after the eventful battle of Cunaxa.
This famous retreat revealed to the Greeks the weakness of the vast
Persian Empire and led to its overthrow by Alexander the Great and to
“the accomplishment of the promises of God, as made in the prophecies
of Daniel, and prepared the way for the third of the great empires
which were to precede the coming of the Savior of mankind.”[381]

As the evening sun was disappearing behind a gorgeous gold and crimson
mountain range of cumulus clouds, we heard, a short distance ahead of
us, the roaring of the Zikr ul Aawaze, a noted cataract about twenty
miles below Mosul and we then knew that we were near the celebrated
ruins of Nimroud. These ruins formerly stood on the left bank of the
Tigris, but, owing to a shifting of the river’s channel towards the
west, are now about two miles inland.

As we desired to visit the great tell of Nimroud the following day, we
here tied up our kelek for the night. Early the next morning we were
on our way to the ruins which, in the annals of Assyrian archæology,
are almost as famous as those of Kuyunjik and Khorsabad. Here Layard
unearthed some of the most prized treasures in the Assyrian department
of the British Museum and here, there are reasons to believe, are still
buried countless other treasures equally valuable.

The ruins of Nimroud occupy the site of Calah mentioned in Genesis as
having been built by Assur, the founder of Nineveh. But the people
living near by are convinced that it was built by Nimrod, “the
mighty hunter before the Lord,” and that it was his favorite place
of residence. Assyriologists, however, declare that it was built by
Salmanassar I who made it the capital of Assyria, a dignity which it
retained until the time of Sargon who removed his residence to the
north of Nineveh where lie the ruins of Khorsabad.

The general aspect of the ruins of Nimroud is not unlike that of
Nineveh. The ruins constitute a platform in the form of a parallelogram
about five hundred feet in width and a thousand in length. At the
northwest corner of this elevation is a conical tower whose height,
according to recent measurements, is one hundred and ten feet above
the surrounding plain. This is all that now remains of the imposing
_zikurat_, or stage tower, that once dominated the great capital
of Salmanassar.

In order to get a good view of the ruins, as well as of the surrounding
country, we lost no time in reaching the summit of the tower. From its
crest we had a view as interesting as it was replete with historic
reminiscences. Our vision ranged over a region in which were enacted
some of the most memorable events of Mesopotamia and Persia. Down
the Tigris passed the famous fleets of Trajan and Sennacherib, and
along its bank marched the vast armies of Esarhaddon, Cyaxares, and
Nabopolassar. Within gunshot were the emerald waters of the Great
Zab rushing to join the tawny current of the Tigris. On its banks
the Persian satrap, Tissaphernes, in violation of a solemn compact,
treacherously seized Clearchus and several of his generals and sent
them to Artaxerxes, who ordered them to be beheaded. It was here
that Xenophon assumed command of the memorable expedition of the Ten
Thousand--an expedition that the distinguished English geographer,
Rennell, has declared was “the most splendid of all the military events
that have been recorded in ancient history.” Eastward was the famous
battlefield of Arbela, where “the greatest battle in the record of the
ancient world had been fought; where the issue of centuries had struck
their balance in a day; where the channel of history for a thousand
years had been opened with a flying wedge”;[382] where Alexander the
Great had completed the work which was begun by his countrymen under
Xenophon when they made the discovery of the innate weakness of the
Persian colossus and thus prepared the public opinion of Greece for
the great campaign against the ancient Persian Empire which once
menaced all the nations of the earth with subjection but which “was
irrevocably crushed when Alexander had won his crowning victory of
Arbela.”[383]

After exploring the ruins of Nimroud, we returned to our kelek which,
with much creaking and quivering, was soon wrestling with the boiling
waters of the Zikr ul Aawaze. This is a dam or dyke built across the
river and during low water rises a foot or more above the surface. It
produces quite a cataract but our kelekgi conducted our frail craft
over its seething waters without any difficulty. Like other remarkable
works in this neighborhood this dam--some say it was a bridge--is
attributed by the inhabitants to Nimrod. The noted French traveler,
Tavernier, tells us that when he passed down the Tigris, the Zikr ul
Aawaze formed a waterfall twenty-six feet high. He assures us, however,
that his kelek went over this waterfall without mishap.[384] One may
be permitted to suspect that in this statement he was striving, in
recounting travelers’ tales, to emulate his mythical predecessor, Sir
John Mandeville.

About fifty miles to the south of Nimroud, on the right bank of the
Tigris, is the great mound of Kalah Sherghat over which, until a few
years ago, hung as deep a mystery as that which so long enveloped
the imposing tells of Nimroud and Khorsabad. To the Turks, in their
ignorance, it was but a fort made of clay--_Toprak Kale_. Even
so late as 1900 a distinguished German traveler was unaware that the
wonderful tell of Kalah Sherghat, which so excited his admiration,
covered the remains of one of the most noted cities of Assyria.[385]

It was indeed only after Dr. Robert Koldewey and Dr. Walter Andræ, the
eminent explorers of the German Orient Society, had, in 1903, begun
their exhaustive excavations at Kalah Sherghat that it was demonstrated
that its imposing ruins were none other than those of Assur, the first
capital of ancient Assyria. It was here that Asur, the national god of
Assyria, had his favorite sanctuary--a god that was not only supreme
over all the gods of the Babylonian pantheon but was also their lord
and master, “the King above all gods.”[386] King Sennacherib addresses
him as

King of the totality of the gods, his own creation, father of
the gods.

Whose power is unfolded in the deep, king of heaven and earth,
lord of all gods.[387]

As the national deity of the greatest military power of the ancient
world, Asur was preëminently a martial god. For, as is evinced by
cuneiform inscriptions, it is “by the might of Asur” that the nation’s
enemies are vanquished, that towns and cities are razed, that other
lands are brought under the dominion of the invincible Kings of Assyria.

Although I had read with exceeding interest, shortly after their
publication, Andræ’s superbly illustrated reports of his careful and
methodical excavations at Kalah Sherghat, I was not fully prepared for
the wonderful ruins which greeted my vision when I first surveyed them
from one of the imposing zigurats of the great temple of Anu and Adad,
which was rebuilt by Salmanassar III, nearly nine centuries before our
era.[388] As reconstructed by Andræ this temple was, in its day, one
of the architectural wonders of western Asia. But the city of Assur
was more than a thousand years old when Salmanassar placed in the
great temple enclosure a record of his work on it and an account of its
completion. For fully twenty centuries, B. C., Assyria, from Assur as
a center, had begun to extend her dominions northwards and to lay the
foundations of that mighty empire which was for so many generations the
admiration and the dread of the ancient world.

Besides uncovering the temples and palaces of Assur, Dr. Andræ and his
colleagues unearthed a part of its residential quarter. In so doing
they made discoveries of the greatest interest regarding the domestic
life of its inhabitants and their care for the sanitary condition
of their homes. Every house, however small, had suitable sewer
connections, while all the larger homes had rooms for domestics and
dependents.

But to many students of Assyriology the most notable discovery made
here by the German expedition took place not in the temples and
palaces of the venerable city but in the space between its interior
and exterior walls. This consisted in unearthing a large number of
tombs and nearly a hundred and fifty stelae, some of which were made of
sandstone and limestone, while others were fashioned out of basalt and
alabaster. From the inscriptions on these stelae it was evident that no
fewer than thirty-five of them were erected to the memory of rulers of
Assyria.

Among the royal tombs were those of Ashbelkala, Ashurnasirpal III, and
Shamsi-Adad V. The massive sarcophagus of the first-named king was
found to be in almost perfect condition.

Commenting on this remarkable find Dr. Rogers writes:

This discovery of these royal tombs appeals most strongly to
the imagination. Before this, Assyriology had seemed so poor in
comparison with Egyptology which has from the beginning been
able to point to its long series of royal tombs, nay, even to
the mummied remains of the greatest of Egyptian Kings. There
is no probability that Assyrian discoveries will ever be able
to match these, but the reproach that neither Assyria nor
Babylonia had even one royal tomb has been taken away.[389]

More interesting far than any of the royal tombs referred to is one
of the stelæ that were uncovered in the same place. According to the
inscription on it the discovery of this monument was really startling
in its import and marked a most notable event in the romance of
archæology. The legend which this stone pillar bears tells us that it
is:

The stela of Sammuramat

The woman of the palace (that is, the consort of Shamsi-Adad,)

The King of the world, King of Assyria,

The mother of Adadnirari

The King of the world, King of Assyria,

The daughter-in-law of Salmanassar

The king of the four quarters of the earth.[390]

But who was Sammuramat? Surprising as it may seem, she was, as scholars
now concede, none other than Semiramis, the famous legendary queen of
Assyria.

What a marvelous discovery! What a vindication of long suppressed
truth! What an unexpected substitution of reality for fiction, of fact
for fancy, of authentic history for myth and legend!

To no other woman of antiquity have there been attributed so many
brilliant achievements as to Semiramis. Nor has any one of her
sex during the last two thousand years and more, occupied a more
conspicuous position in myth and legend, song and story.

From the time of Ctesias, the physician of Artaxerxes Mnemon, until
the latter part of the last century, there was no question about the
main facts of her marvelous career. During all this time she was
regarded as one of the most notable rulers of antiquity--as a queen of
consummate military ability and exceptional statesmanship; as a ruler
of vaulting ambition and as a conqueror whose dominions embraced the
most flourishing regions of Asia and Africa. So great indeed was her
reputed activity and genius that Strabo tells us tradition attributed
to her all the most stupendous works along the Tigris and the Euphrates
and even those in distant Iran.[391] Alexander the Great, it is said,
found an inscription of hers on the frontier of Scythia, which was then
considered the boundary of the inhabited world. In this inscription the
famous queen declares:

Nature has given me the body of a woman but my achievements
have made me the equal of the most valiant of men. I have ruled
the empire of Ninus which on the east extends to the river
Hinamanes, on the south to the country of incense and myrrh,
and on the north as far as the Sacæ and the land of Sogdiana.
Before me no Assyrian had seen any of the seas; I have seen
four of them which were so distant that no one had ever reached
them. I have forced rivers to flow where I wished them to, and
I have wished them to flow only where they would be useful.
I have rendered the sterile earth fecund by irrigating them
with these rivers. I have erected impregnable fortresses.
With iron I have made roads through impassable rocks. I have
constructed for my chariots highways through places which the
wild beasts themselves had never traversed. And in the midst of
these occupations I have found time for my amusements and my
pleasures.[392]

Zenobia and Cleopatra were distinguished for their beauty, their
genius, and the brilliancy of their achievements, but, according to the
testimony of Ctesias, Diodorus Siculus, and other ancient historians,
they were completely eclipsed by the wonder-working queen of Assyria.
So great, tradition had it, were her abilities as a sovereign that two
thousand years after her time the most eminent female rulers of their
age were named after this extraordinary woman who had so impressed
her personality on the West as well as on the East. Thus it is that
Catherine II of Russia, who was almost the rival of Peter the Great, is
known as the Semiramis of the North, while the same epithet is given
to that remarkable sovereign, Queen Margaret de Valdemar of Norway,
Sweden, and Denmark.

But when, in the second half of the last century, Orientalists began
to decipher the cuneiform inscriptions of Western Asia, the majority
of them soon showed a marked skepticism regarding the historical
character of the renowned Assyrian queen. It was contended that there
was no mention of her name in the Babylonian records during the period
in which she was supposed to have lived and that the silence of these
records respecting a ruler who, according to ancient writers, played
so important a rôle in antiquity was conclusive proof that she never
existed. It was furthermore asseverated that the work of Ctesias,
which for so many centuries had been accepted as sober history, was no
more than a romantic narrative which the progress of Assyrian research
had completely discredited. And Semiramis, it was further averred,
was not a woman of flesh and blood at all but an entirely mythical
character,--merely a creation of Ctesias and having no existence
outside of his elaborate romance which for more than two thousand years
passed as serious history.

But scholars, while denying that Semiramis was the human personage she
was so long believed to be, were unwilling to concede that she was
nothing more than a mere arbitrary creation of the fertile imagination
of a Greek romancer posing as a historian. The assumption that she was
nothing more than a creature of fancy would, in view of her conspicuous
position in the ancient world, be more difficult of acceptance than the
age-old belief that she was really, as so long considered, the great
queen and conqueror of Western Asia.

If, then, she was neither a human being nor a mere figment of the
imagination, what was she? Scholars, and especially Orientalists,
felt the necessity of finding a plausible, if not a satisfactory,
answer to this question which became daily more and more insistent.
To obtain such an answer they ransacked, as never before, oriental
history, mythology, and archæology and with results which, at least to
themselves, seemed beyond question.

Semiramis [declares an eminent Orientalist] is not a human
personage, but a divinity whom legend, as so often happens in
similar cases, transports into the domain of human affairs.
Diodorus says formally that she was adored as a goddess and
declares that her cult had two principal seats, Assyria and
the city of Ascalon in Philistia.... That she was, of a truth,
a goddess is evinced by her being the daughter of Derceto as
well as by the traditions respecting her birth and by her
final metamorphosis, which have all a distinctly mythological
color.[393]

Another distinguished Orientalist is positive that “Semiramis was the
name not of a human queen but of the goddess Istar whose legend was
nationalized by the Persian historians and their Greek followers.”[394]
“The name of Semiramis,” he will have it, “belongs not to Babylonian
history but to Greek Romance.”[395] He accentuates this statement when
he asserts that Ctesias, the creator of Semiramis, who is only the
Greek Aphrodite, based his history in great measure on Persian annals
which “like those of Firdusi or of later Arabian writers consisted
for the most part of mere legendary tales and rationalized myths,”
in which we have to seek “not the history but the mythology of the
Babylonians.”[396]

Another noted scholar writes a learned paper to prove that “Semiramis
is not an historical queen whose legend was enriched in later times
with elements borrowed from a religious myth,” but that “she is
primarily a goddess, and becomes a quasi-historical queen only by
virtues of that euhemerism which in the East is so much older than
Euhemerus.”[397]

For several decades these and other distinguished scholars endeavored
to account for the origin and exploits of Semiramis in a way that would
relieve them from the necessity of conceding that she was either an
arbitrary creation of Ctesias or, as historians so long taught, an
actual Assyrian queen. Insisting that the character of Semiramis is
unmistakably that of the Semitic Ishtar or Astarte, some accounted for
her historical character by assuming that she was but an eastern myth
translated into “the semblance of a history that would be creditable
to the Greeks.” Others maintained that she was the daughter of the
fish-goddess Derceto, while still others quite as vigorously contended
that “the legend of Semiramis originated in Lydia,” whence it found its
way to Persia where Persian imagination transformed the daughter of a
fish-goddess into a Babylonian queen. Then again it was asserted that
the Semiramis legend arose from the commingling of exaggerated accounts
of a royal Assyrian lady named Sammurat and certain myths regarding
the Assyro-Babylonian Ishtar and the Canaanite Astoreth. To this
Semiramis, as to the great Sesostris of Egypt, the Greeks in course of
time assigned most of the stupendous works in Asia Minor which were
of Hittite or Assyrian origin. Smith, as the result of an exhaustive
investigation, comes to the conclusion that “Semiramis is a name and
form of Astarte and the story of her conquests in Upper Asia is a
translation into the language of political history of the diffusion and
victories of her worship in that region.”[398]

But while Orientalists were cudgeling their brains in the vain endeavor
to solve the problem on which they had wasted so much midnight oil, Dr.
Andræ and his associates of the _Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft_
unexpectedly made their astounding discovery among the ruins of Assur.
By a single stroke of the pick they nullified the carefully constructed
theories of nearly a half century and proved beyond peradventure that
the romantic and mysterious Semiramis was neither an Aramæan goddess,
nor the arbitrary creation of a Persian poet, nor the figment of a
Greek romancer, but an actual personality who was closely related
to some of the best known sovereigns of Assyria. As the wife of
Shamsi-Adad V and the mother of Adadinari IV and the daughter-in-law
of Salmanassar III, who reigned over Assyria from B.C. 860 to 826, the
place of Semiramis in history is henceforth as certain and as fixed as
is that of Sargon II or Tiglath-pileser IV, two of the most brilliant
monarchs who ever presided over the destinies of the vast empire of
Assyria when in the apogee of her power and splendor.

That romance has so long been busy with the name of Semiramis as to
leave small space for history; that the myths about Derceto and Astarte
and Ashtaroth were in the course of ages attached to the Assyrian
palace lady who made so great an impression on her contemporaries
is not an exceptional occurrence. Similar myths and romances have
clustered about the names of Alexander the Great, about Charlemagne,
about Harun-al-Rashid, about Frederick Barbarossa, about Dietrich von
Bern, and other notabilities of ancient and mediæval times.[399]

But the veils of myth and legend and romance, which have so long
enveloped the commanding personality of Semiramis, are finally
torn away and reveal a woman, like her namesake of Russia, of rare
ability and forcefulness, and that at a time when and in a land where
participation in public affairs on the part of women was absolutely
taboo.[400]

I have dwelt somewhat at length on the fascinating romance of Semiramis
because it is so interesting an illustration of the extraordinary
progress which the new science of Assyriology has made during the
last few decades; because it illustrates how difficult it is in the
annals of the nations of western Asia to separate myth and legend from
authentic history; because it shows how gradually we are acquiring a
more thorough and exact knowledge of the great empires of Assyria and
Babylonia than was possible for a Berosus or a Herodotus to obtain;
and, lastly, because it exhibits in bold relief the importance of the
work which the Germans, especially the members of the _Deutsche
Orient Gesellschaft_, have for years been quietly accomplishing
in the valley of the Tigris from the source of this storied river in
the highlands of Kurdistan to the alluvial plains of ruin-besprent
Babylonia.

The first two days after leaving Assur we found but little along the
river to attract us from our smoothly-gliding kelek. We encountered, it
is true, occasional eddies, or reaches in the river where the current
was more rapid than usual, or where small islands were so numerous
that navigation was somewhat intricate, but we rather enjoyed this as
it roused our crew from their habitual lethargy and from their chronic
disposition to spend all their time in kaif. We also met with quite a
number of breakers which extended across the river, but none of them
were so violent as that of the Zikr ul Aawaze. Many have maintained
that the largest of these rapids are due to the ruins of bridges that
spanned the Tigris in ancient times, but it seems more probable that
they were caused by the ruins of dams which were constructed by the
ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia “to insure a constant supply of
water to the innumerable canals which spread like a network over the
surrounding country.” This seems clear from what Strabo says of them,
although he himself seems to think that they were built to prevent
hostile fleets from ascending the rivers of Mesopotamia and Susiana.

The Persians [he writes], through fear of incursions from
without and for the purpose of preventing vessels from ascending
these rivers, constructed artificial cataracts. Alexander on
arriving there destroyed as many of them as he could, those
particularly on the Tigris from the sea to Opis.[401] [He
declared that] such devices were unbecoming to men who are
victorious in battle and, therefore, he considered this means
of safety unsuitable for him and, by easily demolishing the
laborious work of the Persians, he proved in fact that what they
thought a protection was unworthy of the name.[402]

A short distance below Assur we passed the embouchure of the little
Zab whose clear mountain waters were in strong contrast with the
flood of the turbid Tigris. Near the confluence of these two rivers
were located the Median villages of Parysatis, the wife of Darius and
mother of Cyrus the Younger. These villages had, according to a Persian
custom, been bestowed upon the queen by the king for her girdle--that
is for the purchase of personal apparel and ornaments. How generous the
Persian monarchs were in supplying their wives with pin money!

The scenery below the Little Zab differed but little from that round
about Assur--an arid plain on the left and a low range of yellow hills
on the right. The Arabs call them mountains--Jebel Hamrin and Jebel
Makhul--but they scarcely deserve such an exalted appellation. In a
recess of Jebel Makhul are the remains of a stronghold that reminds
one of similar ruins along the Danube. It is called Kalat Makhul--the
Castle of the Maiden. According to an Arabian legend, this was the
citadel of the warlike daughter of a giant, who was the terror of all
who sailed down the river. Near by was the citadel--Kalat el Gebbar--of
her giant father. The legend apparently recalls the time when these
strongholds were occupied by bandits who, like the old robber barons
of the Rhine and the Danube, formerly levied tribute on all the
passing keleks or who despoiled their owners of all they possessed.
These brigands are said to have infested certain reaches of the Tigris
as late as a third of a century ago, but, although the traveler is
still warned against them, they seem to have changed their scene of
operations to fields where they would not be so much harassed by
government soldiery.

A few miles below the Giant’s Castle, the river becomes much narrower
and swifter, for it here cuts through the sandstone chain of hills
called Jebel Hamrin which, on the left bank of the Tigris, continues in
a southeasterly direction until it unites with the one of the rugged
spurs which juts out from the mountains of Luristan. This narrow
section of the river through the range of Jebel Hamrin, which is
locally known as El Fatha--the aperture--is interesting because it is
on the boundary between the vilayets of Mosul and Bagdad, and because
it once marked a point on the natural frontier between Assyria and
Babylonia.

Outside of Nimroud and Assur, there is little during the first half of
the journey to Bagdad to claim one’s attention except the numerous Kurd
villages, composed of squalid stone and mud houses and frequent groups
of black tents occupied by various tribes of Arabs. Around the Arabian
encampments one sees occasionally quite large flocks of sheep and, in
the vicinity of the stone and mud villages of the Kurds, one will note
the feeble attempts which its inhabitants make to cultivate the land.
Considering the primitive methods of irrigation that exist here, one is
not surprised to find that the poor husbandman’s return for his labor
is very small. In marked contrast, however, to the unpromising grain
fields on the arid plains were the luxurious fields of Indian corn in
the small islands which dotted the Tigris.

During the entire journey between Mosul and Bagdad one is never long
out of sight of ruins of some kind or other--ruins of old strongholds,
ruins of monuments to Moslem saints, ruins of mosques and minarets,
ruins of towns and cities long since deserted or destroyed by the
ruthless invader. They certainly give the country a most desolate
appearance, but they, at the same time, tell in the most eloquent
fashion how great must have been the wealth and prosperity of this
ill-fated country in the palmiest days of the great Caliphs and during
the reigns of the wise and beneficent monarchs of the Sassanidæ and the
Achæmenidæ.

However rich the flora and fauna may formerly have been along the
Tigris, there is now visible but little of either. Older travelers
speak of the long stretches of woodland along the river. Now one sees
little more than small clumps of Acacia and Glycyrrhiza here and there
and even these seem to be rapidly disappearing.

Wild fowl are said to be abundant, but during the first half of our
journey on the Tigris we saw only a few shy francolins, pelicans,
and cormorants. Farther down the river, however, the number of fowl
appreciably augmented. Among them were some snipe and a beautiful
species of duck with snowy-white plumage. Singing birds were
exceedingly rare.

According to early travelers, large game formerly abounded the whole
way from Nineveh to Bagdad. Thus Jean de Thévenot in his entertaining
work on the Levant assures us that in the vicinity of El Fatha, lions
were as numerous as sheep elsewhere--_des lions--que l’on y voit
en aussi grande quantité que des moutons ailleurs_.[403] He tells
us particularly of an extraordinarily large and powerful lion which
took a man from every caravan--except his own--that ventured to pass
by that terrible place. That his caravan escaped the payment of the
tribute exacted by the ferocious brute from all others, was, he opined,
something glorious--_ce qui devoit être bien glorieux pour la noire
qui ne lui paia point ce tribut_.

Judging by the precautions which, he informs us, he was continually
obliged to take against these feral terrors of the desert, Thévenot
was as much obsessed by them as he was by the hot and poisonous
wind which, he avers, was such a deadly menace in the valley of the
Tigris. This consuming wind is, he declares, the same as the _ventus
urens_--burning wind--mentioned in the twenty-seventh chapter of
the book of Job and prevails during the summer all the way from Mosul
to Surat in distant India and is so fatal that if one inhales it one
instantly drops dead, and his corpse immediately becomes as black as
ink, and, if one touches it, the flesh falls from the bones.[404]

But these are only samples of travelers’ tales that have been current
regarding the East and its scorching atmosphere since the days of
Strabo.[405] It is, therefore, quite evident that Thévenot did not
purpose to allow his predecessors, including his countryman Tavernier,
not to mention others, to enjoy a complete monopoly in the recounting
of wonders and adventures.

In addition to stories about the poison wind--the Samum of the
Arabs--most travelers in the desert have something to say about the
huge, yellow sand pillars that are sometimes seen scudding over the
plain on the wings of the whirlwind. They are at times a positive
menace to travelers and to the natives are objects of terror. According
to Arab superstition they are “Jinnis of the Waste which cannot be
caught, a notion arising,” Burton tells, “from the fitful movements of
the electrical wind-eddy that raises them.”[406]

The first place at which we stopped after entering the vilayet of
Bagdad, which embraces the northern part of old Babylonia, was Tekrit.
Although modern Tekrit is little more than a wretched village, the
Tekrit of mediæval times, as is evinced by the vast area covered
by rubbish and ruins, was a large and flourishing city. Writing of
the modern town, Rich says its atmosphere “seems to be favorable to
prosers, as the saying, ‘To talk like Tekreetli,’ which is common in
these parts, apparently indicates.” To this statement he adds, “If the
women exceed the men in this gift, in the due proportion of the sex, he
is to be pitied who marries a Tekreetli wife.”[407]

The German traveler, Baron von Thielmann, in the account of his
journey down the Tigris, gives his impression of the town in a single
sentence: “As for ourselves we saw nothing worth noticing in this
miserable abode save two solitary palm-trees, the first which we had
met with.”[408] Incidentally, he quotes as a statement of Karl Ritter,
the celebrated geographer, “the striking remark that the furthest
palm-tree in the East always denotes the limit of Arab sway and Arab
life.”

But, if modern Tekrit possesses little of interest for the traveler,
the ancient city, long in ruins, still breathes proud memories of
the distant past. Once known as “Tekrit the Blest,” it was the seat
of the Monophysite metropolitan and a center whence missionaries
of the Monophysite church radiated in all directions. It was also
the birthplace of Saladin, one of the most celebrated of oriental
sovereigns, the famous adversary of Richard Cœur de Lion, the Moslem
warrior whose chivalry and generosity were the admiration of the
Crusaders and whose memory has lived in history and romance from the
appearance of the _Itinerarium Regis Ricardi_ and the masterly
_Historia Hierosolymitana_ of William of Tyre to the days when
Lessing in his _Nathan der Weise_ and Scott in his _Talisman_
gave those matchless portraits of the chivalrous sultan, which
made the name of Saladin a household word throughout the whole of
Christendom. The valley of the Tigris can point to many illustrious
sons, but to none whose achievements were more brilliant than those
of the immortal Kurd who, by reason of his gentleness, courtesy, and
nobility of character, his justice, truthfulness, and generosity has
been signalized in _The Tales of a Minstrel of Rheims_ as “the
best prince that ever was in pagandom,” and who, on account of his
kingly liberality, is given a place by Dante[409] in company with such
illustrious men as Alexander the Great, the good King of Castile, the
good Marchese of Monferrato, the good Count of Toulouse, Bertran of
Born, and Galasso of Montefeltro.” And, although the poet condemns
Mohammed to the frightful punishment meted out to schismatics in the
ninth bolgia of hell, he honors Saladin by placing him in the noble
castle of Limbo where--_senza martiri_--without torments--he
associates with Cæsar and Brutus, Lucretia and Cornelia and other
illustrious heroes and heroines of antiquity.[410]

Although Tekrit is in ruins and has been since it was visited by the
fell destroyer Timur, it will still continue to occupy a place in the
annals of our race because it was here that the baby eyes of Saladin
first opened on the bright, blue sky which canopied the broad lands of
which he was in manhood’s prime to become the humane conqueror and the
wise and beloved sovereign.

Below Tekrit the Tigris gradually widens and deepens, while the
velocity of the river’s current becomes markedly less. Obstructions to
navigation rapidly diminish in number and we are able to sail on an
even keel--if one can say this of a craft that is keelless.

Our progress down the Tigris, as we foresaw before embarking at Mosul,
was exceedingly slow. It rarely exceeded three miles an hour while it
was often less than one. As the fall of the river between Mosul and
Bagdad, a distance of three hundred and sixty miles, is less than seven
hundred feet, there is an average fall of less than two feet to the
mile. The Tigris is said to have been named on account of the swiftness
of its current, from the Persian word for arrow. The Hebrew name of the
river--Hiddekel--also means arrow. Judging, however, from the actual
velocity of the river, this name, if not originally given because of
some of its northern rapids, is a very apparent misnomer.

Although we had four kelekgis--two for the day and two for the
night--their chief occupation was not to propel our kelek, but rather,
by means of their long wooden sweeps, to keep it away from rocks and
sand bars and steer it clear of dangerous currents and whirlpools.
We did not, therefore, row or sail down the river; we simply floated.
Sometimes, when we faced a head wind, we came to an actual standstill.
But no one complained. We were prepared for this and our crew was so
accustomed to it that they would have been surprised if we had not
encountered occasional delays of this kind. It gave us an opportunity
to enjoy _dolce far niente_, as never before, and afforded our
crew the always coveted leisure to make kaif, to smoke and dream at
their sweet pleasure. With the Lotos-Eaters their

_Inner spirit sings_
_“There is no joy but calm!”_
_Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?_

And how natural is it for us to appreciate the point of view of our
calm-loving, rest-seeking boatmen! For hours at a time they sit at
their posts without uttering a word and as immovable as statues.
Whether they arrive at their destination in a week or a month is
apparently immaterial to them. So long as they are allowed to enjoy
their kaif they are supremely happy.

As we gaze on our men at their “dreamful ease,” I recall the verses of
Tennyson’s “Song of the Lotos-Eaters”:

_How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream_
_With half-shut eyes ever to seem_
_Falling asleep in a half dream!_

* * * * *

_How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing slowly)_
_With half-dropt eyelid still,_
_Beneath a heaven dark and holy,_
_To watch the long bright river drawing slowly_
_His waters from the purple hill--_
_To hear the dewy echoes calling_
_From cave to cave thro’ the thick twined vine--_
_To watch the emerald-color’d water falling_
_Thro’ many a wov’n acanthus wreath divine!_

Noiselessly and, at times, almost imperceptibly, we glided down the
majestic Tigris which through the broad desert waste floats

_Changeless to the changeless sea_.

With ever renewed interest we gazed on the silent ruins whose history
was ended before that of Ancient Rome began. The Forum, the Palatine,
the Colosseum, the Mole of Hadrian belong in their splendor to an age
when the more imposing ruins along the Tigris were hoary with the dust
of centuries or long buried under the shifting sands of the desert.

But it is at the hour of sunset that one most completely falls under
the spell of the Tigris and the historic land through which it flows.
For the sunsets of the desert lands of the East exhibit a gorgeousness
of color unknown in our land of fogs and mists. This is probably
owing to the haze produced by impalpable dust in an exceptionally
dry atmosphere. As the sun nears the horizon, the western sky glows
with all the delicate hues of ruby and topaz, emerald and amethyst
and, after it has set, the zodiacal light, rising from where the sun
disappeared, ascends to the zenith with a display of all the delicate
tints of rose and gold and lilac of the aurora borealis.

The glories of a sunset in Mesopotamia are indeed entrancing, but it is
when night comes with her dewy freshness and

_Her starry shade_
_Of dim and solitary loveliness_;

when the moon silvers the river’s wavelets and its ruin-crested banks,
that one loves to linger in this land of a great historic past and
contemplate at leisure

_Those ruined shrines and towers that seem_
_The relics of a splendid dream;_
_Amid whose fairy loneliness_
_Naught but the lapwing’s cry is heard._[411]

How we reveled in those glorious moonlit nights spent on our tranquilly
floating kelek on the enchanting Tigris! “They say that Carl Niebuhr,
the traveler, when old and blind, used to lie and dream over the old
Eastern landscapes and night-skies in his darkened life,--a perpetual
world of enchantment to console him.”[412] How could it have been
otherwise? For how often since our return from the East where we, like
Niebuhr, have spent some of the most delightful days of our life, have
we not also found ourselves dreaming of the eventful days and the
fascinating nights which it was our privilege to spend under the pale
azure skies of the inspiring and enthralling home of our race?

But while, in silent rapture, we were thus enjoying the magnificent
displays of the setting sun and were reveling in the beauties of
the stars,--“the flowers of the sky,” “the poetry of heaven,” “the
forget-me-nots of the angels,”--our crew was totally indifferent to all
these sublime manifestations of nature and completely buried in their
kaif. They were indeed living pictures of what Robert Louis Stevenson
somewhere most aptly calls “the apotheosis of stupidity.” As we noted
in their placid features their rapturous expression of contentment and
happiness we realized as never before the full force of the poet’s
words,

_The heaven of each is but what each desires_.

Never once, during our journey from Mosul to Tekrit were we ever out
of sight of some place or monument of historic or legendary lore. But
the number of these reminders of the hoary past rapidly increased in
our sail between Tekrit and Bagdad. About five miles below Saladin’s
birthplace we came to the little town of Iman Dura. According to
tradition, it was here that King Nebuchadnezzar set up his colossal
golden statue which the Hebrews, Sidrach, Misach, and Abednago, in
defiance of the King’s orders, refused to adore.[413] It was near
Dura that the Roman army under Jovian pitched their tents after the
death of Julian the Apostate and it was here that the Roman Emperor
was forced to conclude an ignominious peace--_necessariam quidem
sed ignobilem_, writes Eutropius--with the Persian King, Sapor the
Great. A short distance below Dura is a small stream which the natives
say was a canal dug by King Solomon. Near it, on the left bank of the
Tigris, begins the ruins of Eski Bagdad--Old Bagdad--“a mighty field of
ruins,” writes Thielmann, “extending some twenty-five miles along the
Tigris.”[414] Situated in this long field of ruins is the little town
of Samara, as celebrated for its romantic history as for its remarkable
monuments which, however, have only in the last decade or two received
the attention on the part of scholars which they so richly deserve.

The ruins of which I have here given a brief account [writes a
well-known archæologist, after a visit to Samara] are of the
first importance for the elucidation of the early history of
the arts of Islam. They can all be dated within a period of
forty years falling in the ninth century, and are, therefore,
among the earliest existing examples of Mohammedan architecture.
They bear witness to the Mesopotamian influences under which
it arose. The spiral towers of Samara and Abu Dulaf are an
adaptation of the temple pyramids and Assyria and Babylonia,
which had a spiral path leading to the summit; the technique of
arch and vault was invented by the ancient East and transmitted
through Sassannian builders to the Arab invaders; the decoration
is Persian or Mesopotamian and almost untouched by the genius
of the West. In the palaces and the mosques of Samara we can
see the conquerors themselves conquered by a culture which
had been developing during thousands of years on Mesopotamian
soil, a culture which had received indeed new elements into
its composition, which had learnt from the Greek and from the
Persian, but had maintained in spite of all modifications its
distinctive character.[415]

The complex of ruined mosques and palaces which here excites the
admiration of the student dates from the time--A. D. 836 to 892--when
Samara was the capital of the Abbassid Caliphate. Mutasim, a son of
Harun-al-Rashid, was the first caliph who made his residence here.
So numerous and magnificent were the edifices which he called into
existence, as by an enchanter’s wand, that the glories of Samara
soon rivaled those of Bagdad in the days of her greatest power and
prosperity. The magnificence of the enlarged and embellished city was
expressed in the official name which was then given it, for, in lieu
of Samara, it was called Surra-man-raa--Who sees it, rejoices. Judging
from the ground plan of the palaces of Samara as given by M. H. Violet,
the distinguished French Academician who, during a visit to Samara,
made a careful study of its imposing ruins, this group of buildings was
not inferior to the royal edifices of Versailles.[416]

According to local tradition Samara, like Sestos and Abydos, had also
its Hero and Leander. As they lived in palaces on opposite sides of the
river, the Samara Leander could see his immorata, who was the daughter
of a sultan, only by breasting the swift-flowing waters of the romantic
Tigris. The lovers were, however, more fortunate than were their
Greek prototypes, for their lives did not end in the tragedy which
overtook the Romeo and Juliet of the Dardanelles but, so the story
runs, terminated in a happy marriage like that of Feramoz and Lalla
Rookh. And the memory of the devoted pair is still kept green by the
names which the Arabs have given to the ruins of their former homes--El
Aschik--the lover--and El Maschuka--the beloved.[417]

Below Samara the number of ruins and places of historic and legendary
interest seemed to increase in proportion as we sailed southwards.
Particularly interesting were the ruins of Opis which was once, next
to Babylon, the most important city in Babylonia. It was to this point
that were floated from the upper Tigris the boats that Sennacherib,
seven centuries B. C., had constructed for use in his celebrated
campaign against the Chaldeans and Elamites. From Opis the boats were
transported by camels overland to the Euphrates, down which they
sailed to the Persian Gulf. How forcibly this achievement of the great
Assyrian monarch reminds one of a similar exploit nearly twenty-two
centuries later, when Mohammed the Conqueror had a part of his fleet
conveyed over the elevated section of land between the Bosphorus and
the Golden Horn preparatory to his capture of Constantinople, May 29,
1453!

Opis is also celebrated as having been visited by Alexander the Great
in his memorable voyage up the Tigris from the Persian Gulf. “In
his voyage up,” as Arrian informs us, “he destroyed the weirs which
existed in the river and thus made the stream quite level.”[418] More
than twenty-one centuries afterwards, in 1839, the English steamer
“Euphrates”--the first steamer ever seen in this region--ascended the
Tigris on its voyage of reconnaissance when it went up the river to the
tomb of Sultan Abdullah near the mouth of the Greater Zab.[419] But
since that date the navigation of the Tigris--at least for commercial
purposes--has terminated at Bagdad. If the country bordering the Tigris
were under a stable and enterprising government, there is no reason
why light-draught and light-tonnage boats should not ply regularly not
only between Bagdad and Opis but between Bagdad and Mosul as well. High
explosives properly applied under the direction of competent engineers,
and possibly a dam or two with suitable locks would solve the problem
and would contribute immensely towards restoring to its former
flourishing condition a country which, as we have seen, is now little
more than a desert overspread with ruins “where kings have paced” and
where

_The gray fox litters safe_
_Under the broken thrones_.

When the Tigris shall have been cleared for steam navigation from
Bagdad to Mosul and the Bagdad Railway shall be completed and in
successful operation through its entire length, we may hope to see the
fertile lands, through which the famous river flows once more the home
of teeming millions as they were when they constituted the richest and
the most flourishing region of Western Asia.

Below Opis we noted a marked change in the aspect of the country. We
were now passing through a rich alluvial plain where not a pebble was
to be seen. There were on both sides of the river broad, verdant fields
enameled with wild flowers and carefully irrigated by the primitive
shadoofs and norias which are still in use here as they are along
the Nile and in all parts of the Levant. Much of this land is under
cultivation or utilized for grazing, as is evinced by the flocks and
herds with which the country is everywhere dotted. As we slowly glided
down the river we observed an ever-increasing number of villages
surrounded by gardens and fruit trees and clumps of date palms. All
these grateful changes in the landscape, especially the beautiful palm
groves which hourly became more numerous and more attractive, and
the little fleets of guffahs filled with commodities and passengers,
told us that we were near our destination. These indications did not
mislead; for a few hours later the domes and minarets of Bagdad hove
in sight and our week’s happy floating on a kelek was at an end. We
were at last within the gates of the world-renowned metropolis of the
Abbasside Caliphs.

CHAPTER XVI

BAGDAD

_Romantic Bagdad! name to childhood dear,_
_Awaking terror’s thrill and pity’s tear;_
_For there the sorcerer gloomed, the genii dwelt,_
_And Love and Worth to good Al Rashid knelt;_
_Prince of the Thousand Tales! whose glorious reign_
_So brightly shines in fancy’s fair domain!_
_Whose noble deeds still Arab minstrels sing,_
_Who rivaled all but Gallia’s Knightly King._
NICOLAS MICHEL.

We entered Bagdad in the full glory of a Mesopotamian sunset. Her
mosques glowed with amber and light primrose; her minarets with the
most delicate rose and gold. The noble crowns of stately palm trees
cast masses of shade over gardens and fountains and, trembling under
a gentle breeze from Oman’s Sea, played almost mystically in the
quivering and departing sunlight. Throngs of Turks and Arabs, Kurds and
Persians pressed feverishly through the narrow streets. The color notes
of the red and green, blue and white robes of the men and women struck
a pleasant harmony with the drab of the walls and the maroon and olive
green of the fretted bay windows which projected over the gradually
darkening thoroughfares of the picturesque city of Harun-al-Rashid.

We felt ourselves at once in the thrall of the quiet and subtle
spell which the famed home of the Caliphs had cast over us, but,
notwithstanding this, we lost no time in repairing to the home of the
Carmelite Fathers, who had been advised of our arrival and who gave us
a welcome such as is accorded only by the generous and warm-hearted
missionaries of the Orient. Once under their hospitable roof we felt
that we were a member of their religious family. So fully was our
every want foreseen and our every desire anticipated that we saw
at a glance that our sojourn among these devoted fathers would be
fully as pleasant and as profitable as had been our stay among the
whole-souled Capuchins of Urfa and the zealous and scholarly Dominicans
of Mosul. Nor were we mistaken, for every hour we spent with the good
Carmelite priests of Bagdad was replete with pleasure, instruction, and
edification.

The story of the going of the Carmelites to Bagdad and the record of
their labors since their arrival there is as interesting as it is
inspiring. Their formal taking possession of the Mission of Bagdad, the
Carmelites tell us, took place in the first decade of the seventeenth
century, under the most dramatic circumstances. The zealous Father
Paul-Simon, superior of their mission in Persia, who had been sent by
the Shah as an envoy to the Sovereign Pontiff, arrived at Bagdad so
exhausted by the fatigues of a long and trying journey and the inroads
of disease that, when he reached the gate of the city, he prostrated
himself on the ground and gave up the ghost.

A little more than a quarter of a century after this tragic occurrence,
was created the Latin bishopric of Bagdad, usually known as the See
of Babylon. This was due to the progress which the Church had made
in Persia--a progress that was the result of the fruitful missionary
labors in that land of Carmelites, Jesuits, and Dominicans and to
the protection and liberty which had been accorded them by the wise
and enlightened Shah, Abbas the Great. Recognizing the necessity of
a bishop as head of the Persian mission, Abbas, in 1830, sent Father
Thaddée, a Carmelite, to Rome, to request the Holy Father to create a
Latin bishopric in Ispahan, his capital, with a permanent coadjutorship
which should guarantee the new episcopate from too long vacancies. As a
result of the Persian monarch’s interest in the Church, Father Thaddée
was promoted to the new See of Ispahan. He received as coadjutor Father
Perez, likewise a Carmelite, who was given the specially created title
of Bishop of Babylonia, which at that time was a part of the Persian
Empire.

In the meantime, a pious lady of Meaux, France--Marie Ricouard--put at
the disposition of the Holy See six thousand Spanish doubloons for the
creation and endowment of a bishopric in _partibus infidelibus_,
on the double condition that to the donor should be reserved the
presentation of the first titular and that the following bishops should
always be of French nationality.

Pope Urban VIII by his bull, _Super Universas_, decreed in June
1838, that the sum named should be appropriated to the See of “Babylon
or Bagdad,” with the formal stipulation that all future incumbents
of this bishopric should be obliged to reside there personally under
pain of forfeiting all right to the fruits of the Ricouard foundation.
At the same time the Sovereign Pontiff named as the first bishop
of the new see Father Bernard de Sainte-Thérèse, of Paris, who had
been proposed by the donor of the fund mentioned, and ordained that
thenceforth no one should be promoted to this see unless he had been
born in France. This wish of the Pope and of the pious donor has thus
far never been transgressed, and there is no reason to doubt that it
will continue to assure to France the honor of seeing one of her sons
occupy the See of Bagdad.[420]

In the year 1677 a special act, signed at Constantinople by the
Ambassador of Louis XIV, named the superior of the Carmelites in
Basra consul of France, _in perpetuum_. At a later date the
French King gave the title and prerogatives of consul to the Bishop
of Bagdad. This was an immense help to the bishop in his ministry for
it gave him increased power with the civil government and enhanced
immensely his prestige among the Mohammedans. From the time of Francis
I, when a treaty of peace and amnity and commerce was signed by the
French Government and the Sublime Porte, the French had enjoyed full
religious liberty throughout the Ottoman Empire and France continued
for centuries to be with the Moslem the favored nation of Europe.[421]

But, although the consular positions which were held by the Carmelite
superior of Basra and the bishop of Bagdad and, still more, the treaty
of amnity which had been established between the French and Ottoman
governments--especially after the Ottoman Turks gained possession of
Mesopotamia in A. D. 1534--had given the French missionaries in the
Near East increased power and prestige, they still had to confront
difficulties innumerable and sacrifices that were calculated to appall
all but the noblest heroes.

Their difficulties, however, did not proceed from the followers of
Mohammed so much as from lack of material resources and from the
paucity of subjects for the ever-expanding work of the mission. So many
calls were made on their charity by the poor that they were at times
forced to live on only a single piece of dry bread a day, with nothing
to flavor it but a small clove of garlic. Then both priests and bishops
were decimated by the plague while ministering at the bedside of the
stricken members of their flock. On one occasion the Carmelite superior
of Bagdad saw himself without any assistants whatever. Age and disease
had taken them all from him one after another. In this extremity he
wrote letter after letter to his superior general in Rome, conjuring
him to send him men. “I have none, was the general’s answer; if you
want them, come and seek them.”

The superior, Father Marie-Joseph, took the general at his word. Poor
as Job, he borrowed money enough to hire a camel and alone, with
a single Arab and a sack of dates and a leather bottle of water,
he started for Aleppo on the long journey--nearly eight hundred
miles--through the inhospitable Arabian and Syrian deserts. Twice his
alertness and eloquence saved him from bands of marauding Bedouins.
But, finally, after untold difficulties and sufferings he reached
Aleppo and Rome. His superior general in the Eternal City was so
impressed by the magnificent audacity of the zealous missionary that
he found a means of procuring for him the assistants he so much needed
and sent him back to his flock rejoicing. Among these assistants was
Father Damien, formerly a practicing physician, who soon proved to be
a godsend to the suffering poor of Bagdad, whom he gladly treated and
supplied with medicine without any compensation whatever.[422]

As in the missions of Edessa and Mosul, the missionaries of Bagdad are
nobly assisted in their moral and civilizing work by devoted nuns from
France. But the life of these devoted sisters is one of the greatest
self-sacrifice. They may not, as did the Carmelite priests, have
attempted to imitate St. Peter of Alcantara, who took but one repast
and that of the most frugal kind, only once every three days; but the
privations which they for years had to endure would daunt all but the
most courageous souls. Even before they reached the scene of their
missionary activities they had to pass through an experience that, for
delicately reared women as they were, was truly disheartening for any
but those engaged in the service of the Master. This was their long
journey on horseback--in great part--through a wild and forbidding
desert from Beirut to Bagdad. They were twenty-four days in the
saddle. The nights they had to spend in the filthy, noisy, dilapidated
caravansaries which were scarcely fit shelter for the beasts that
carried them. And yet these heroic _religieuses_ always maintained
the same cheerfulness during this long and trying journey as ever
characterizes them in the performance of their arduous labors in the
schoolroom and at the bedside of the sick and suffering.[423]

But the labors of these ardent souls is not without compensation, even
in this world. Notwithstanding all the drawbacks that confront them
they have the comfort of knowing that their sacrifices are not in vain.
The number of their pupils, Mohammedans and Jews, as well as Christians
of all the numerous rites in Mesopotamia, is so rapidly augmenting,
that it is difficult for the good nuns to house them and secure enough
teachers to take care of them. For, in addition to the ordinary
branches of an elementary education, they teach their young charges
various kinds of needlework and the simpler principles of domestic
economy.

“The children of Bagdad are very bright and very eager to learn,” said
one of the sisters to me in answer to a question I had asked, “and
nowhere will you find pupils who are more studious or more grateful for
the opportunities they have of improving their minds. Our great grief
is that our school-buildings are not larger and that we have not more
sisters to meet the constantly increasing demands that are made on us
in our class-rooms. But,” she said, in sweet resignation, “the _Bon
Dieu_ will provide in His own good time.”

Never before did I so much regret that I was not a millionaire as
I did when I visited the schools of these perfervid and laborious
_religieuses_ and saw what splendid results they were achieving
with the very limited resources at their disposal and learned how much
more they could accomplish if they had the necessary means. If the
good and generous people of America could only realize the noble work
which the good Sisters of the Presentation are achieving in Bagdad and
how very worthy they are of assistance, I am sure that many would open
wide their purses for the benefit of both teachers and pupils. I know
of few places where money could be spent to better purpose. When one
remembers that these ardent souls are condemned to perpetual exile by
the atrocious _Association Laws_ of their mother country and that
they frequently lack the ordinary necessities of life because they
are unable to reach a public that would gladly succor them in their
needs and coöperate with them in their admirable work, one cannot help
sympathizing with them and feel that it is one’s duty to help them in
every way possible.

The school for boys under the direction of the Carmelite Fathers is
recognized as the best in Bagdad. It, with the church and monastery of
the Fathers, occupies a capital position in the center of the city and
is pronounced by foreigners to be “a French oasis in the midst of the
desert.”

It will interest the reader to know that the study of French is
obligatory from the lowest to the highest classes of the school. The
result is that many of the pupils speak the language with wonderful
facility and correctness. At the commencement exercises at the end of
the year they exhibit their proficiency before a large audience made
up of the élite of the city by giving a play from Racine. It is in
consequence of their thorough knowledge of the language of Molière and
Bossuet that after leaving school they are given high positions in
the leading houses of commerce and in all the administrative offices
of the government. The traveler is often surprised at the extent
to which French is spoken in the Near East; but when one remembers
that the schools and colleges in the Ottoman Empire, which are under
the direction of French priests, sisters, and laymen are numbered
by the thousand, the wonder ceases. It is for this reason that the
empire is, in the words of Pierre Loti--_presque un pays de langue
française_--almost a country of the French language.[424]

The missionaries in Bagdad--from the Archbishop down to the humblest
nun--are greatly attached to the city in which Divine Providence has
called them to labor and--to suffer. Not the least reason for this
attachment is the glorious position which Bagdad so long occupied in
the history of the world. Until the late war the average reader knew
little about it except that it was in some way associated with the
“Arabian Nights.” And this association was so vague in his mind that he
was not sure whether Bagdad ever had an actual existence or whether it,
like the famous characters in _Thousand and One Nights_, belonged
only to fable land.

For this reason it seems this chapter would be incomplete without some
account of the famous city which, during five hundred years, was the
capital of the Abbasside Caliphs; which, there is reason to believe,
was for a considerable period the largest city in the world; which,
during many centuries bore rule from the Oxus to the Nile and from the
Caucasus to the Gulf of Oman; and which, during a half millennium, was
to Islam what Rome is to Christendom.

Bagdad was founded A. D. 762, by Al-Mansur, the second of the Abbasside
Caliphs. Before deciding on a site for his capital Al-Mansur made many
journeys and carefully examined all the available locations along the
Tigris from Jarjaraya to Mosul. Moslem historians inform us that the
Caliph was finally induced to select the spot on which Bagdad now
stands by the advice of those who had lived there both in winter and
in summer and who assured him that “among all the Tigris lands this
district especially was celebrated for its freedom from the plague of
mosquitoes and that the nights, even in the height of summer, were cool
and pleasant.” “We are, furthermore, of the opinion,” they continued,
“that thou shouldst found the city here because thou shalt thereby live
amongst palms and near water, so that if one district fail thee in its
crops, or be late in its harvest, in another will the remedy be found.
Also thy city being on the Sarat Canal, provisions will be brought
thither by the boats of the Euphrates and by the caravans through the
plains, even from Egypt and Syria. Hither, up from the sea will come
the wares of China, while down the Tigris from Mosul will be brought
goods from the Byzantine lands. Thus shall thy city be safe standing
between all these streams, and thine enemy shall not reach thee,
except it be by a boat or by a bridge, and across the Tigris or the
Euphrates.”

“The practical foresight shown by the Caliph,” in the selection
of the site of his capital, “has been amply confirmed by the
subsequent history of Bagdad. The city called into existence as by an
enchanter’s wand was, during the Middle Ages, second in size only to
Constantinople, and throughout Western Asia was long unrivalled for
splendor. It at once became and remained for all subsequent centuries
the capital of Mesopotamia. Wars, sieges, the removal for a time by
the Caliphs of the seat of government to Samara, higher up the Tigris,
even the almost entire destruction of the city by the Mongols in A. D.
1258, none of these have permanently affected the supremacy of Bagdad
as the capital of the Tigris and the Euphrates country, and now, after
the lapse of over twelve centuries, the new Arabic King of Mesopotamia
still resides in the city founded by the Caliph Al-Mansur.”[425]

Many etymologies, most of them fanciful, have been given of the name
Bagdad. It is said that when Al-Mansur finally selected the site for
his capital he found it occupied by several monasteries, most of them
Nestorian, and that the capital derived its appellation from the Arabic
word _bagh_--garden,--and _Dad_--the name of a certain monk
who had a garden there. Others aver that the name is derived from two
Persian words, _Bagh_--God,--and _Dadh_--founded--signifying
a city founded by God. The official name, however, given, we are told
by the Caliph Al-Mansur himself, was Medina-as-Salam, which signifies
the “City of Peace.” But among the Saracens it was more generally
known as Dar-as-Salam, which also signifies City or Home of Peace. The
Greeks gave it a name--Eirenopolis--which is a literal translation
of the Arabic Dar-as-Salam. But it is by the older and more common
name--Bagdad--which is variously spelt--that the city of Al-Mansur has
generally been known from its foundation to the present day.

It was long thought that the capital of the Caliphs had been founded on
ground which had not previously been occupied by a dense population.
But a discovery made in 1848 by Sir Henry Rawlinson, when the waters of
the Tigris were exceptionally low, disclosed the surprising fact that
Al-Mansur had founded his capital on the site of a city that antedated
the Christian era by at least seven centuries. An extensive facing of
brickwork, which still exists, was then found to line the western bank
of the river, and each brick of this facing bore the name and titles
of Nebuchadnezzar. No less remarkable, in this connection, is a later
discovery in the Assyrian geographical catalogues, belonging to the
reign of Asurbanipal, of a name very similar to Bagdad “which probably
refers to the town then standing on the site afterwards occupied by the
capital of the Caliphs.”

Al-Mansur founded his capital, known from its peculiar form as “The
Round City,” on the right bank of the Tigris, but it was not long until
the palaces of the Caliphs and the government offices were transferred
to the eastern side of the river, where the capital has since remained,
while the part of the city on the western bank, especially the quarter
called Karkh, was given over to markets and merchants, where “every
merchant and each merchandise had an appointed street: and there were
rows of shops, and of booths and of courts in each of the streets; but
men of one business were not mixed up with those of another, nor one
merchandise with merchandise of another sort. Goods of a kind were only
sold with their kind, and men of one trade were not to be found except
with their fellows of the same craft. Thus each market was kept single
and the merchants were divided according to their merchandise, each
craftsman being separated from others not of his own class.”[426]

What greatly contributed towards the rapid development of Bagdad and
towards making it the great emporium of the East, was the admirable
system of canals which intersected the rich alluvial plains of lower
Babylonia and which enabled the inhabitants of this region to utilize
the surplus waters of the Euphrates for irrigating the fertile lands
which lay between this river and the Tigris. Contrary to what is so
often thought, the Arabs, under the Caliphs, gave as much attention to
the canalization of Mesopotamia as had their predecessors, the Persians
and the Babylonians.

But these canals, besides being used for purposes of irrigation,
likewise served for the transportation of merchandise from distant
regions. Thus, to give a single instance of their use for this purpose,
we are informed that “great boats and barges were loaded at Rakkah,
‘the port,’ as it was called, of the Syrian desert on the Upper
Euphrates, there taking over from the land-caravans the corn of Egypt
and the merchandise from Damascus; and these boats, coming down the
great river, and then along the Isa Canal, discharged their cargoes at
the wharves on the Tigris banks at the lower harbor in Karkh.”[427]

To give some idea of the fertility of the irrigated region of
Mesopotamia during the reign of the Caliphs it suffices to quote the
words of an Arabic writer regarding certain cornlands in the vicinity
of Bagdad, where, we are told, “the crops never failed, neither in
winter nor in summer,” and of the report given of a certain mill in
which there were no fewer than a hundred millstones which produced the
extraordinary annual rental of a hundred million dirhams, a sum that
was equivalent to several million dollars of our money.

Marco Polo, that king of mediæval travelers, who, by the vast compass
of his journeys, was better qualified than any man of his time to
express an opinion on the relative importance of the cities of Asia,
declares that Bagdad--which he calls Baudas--is “the noblest and
greatest city of these regions” and that it “used to be the seat of
the Caliph of all the Saracens in the world, just as Rome is the
seat of the Pope of all the Christians.”[428] But the illustrious
Venetian voyager did not visit Bagdad until several decades after the
destruction of the city by the Mongol hordes under Hulagu Khan.

The question now arises, if Bagdad was so great a metropolis only a
half century after it was ravaged by the Mongols, what must it have
been when at the zenith of its power and magnificence? Some authors
estimate that the city counted no fewer than two million souls.
D’Herbelot, the celebrated Orientalist, says that one can conjecture
the number of the inhabitants of Bagdad from a statement made by Arab
historians, who declare that the funeral of Eben Hanbal, a famous
Moslem doctor who died with a great reputation for sanctity, was
attended by eight hundred thousand men and sixty thousand women.[429]
Then again, Marco Polo tells us that the number of Christians in
Bagdad, shortly before it was sacked by Hulagu, was more than a hundred
thousand.[430] This would indicate that the population of this Saracen
city, of which a very great majority was Mohammedan, must then, in the
days of its decline, have exceeded a million. This seems clear from
what historians tell us about the “horrible butchery of men, women and
children,” which lasted forty days, when the city was sacked by the
Mongols under Hulagu.

Nearly all the inhabitants, to the number, according to
Rashid ud Din, of eight hundred thousand--Makrizi says two
million--perished, and thus passed away one of the noblest
cities that had ever graced the East--the cynosure of the
Mohammedan world, where the luxury, wealth and culture of five
centuries had concentrated.[431]

About the greatness and splendor of Bagdad before it was laid in
ashes by the Mongol invader, there can be no question. The concurrent
testimony of contemporary historians puts this beyond doubt. The walls
which surrounded the city in its infancy were such as to rival those
of ancient Babylon and Nineveh, as described by Herodotus and Diodorus
Siculus. According to the noted Jewish traveler, Benjamin of Tudela,
who visited Bagdad in the second half of the twelfth century, “the
palace of the Caliph of Bagdad is three miles in extent.”

An idea of the magnificence of the Caliph’s palaces may be gained
from an account that has come down to us of the brilliant reception
accorded the Greek ambassadors who were sent to Bagdad, A. D. 917,
by Constantine Porphyrogenitus.[432] Before being introduced to the
Commander of the Faithful, the envoys were conducted in state through
the various buildings within the palace precincts. Each of these
buildings, of which there were twenty-three in number, was a separate
palace.

One of these was the riding academy, adorned with porticoes of marble
columns.

On the right side of this house stood five hundred mares
caparisoned each with a saddle of gold or silver, while on the
left stood five hundred mares with brocade saddle-cloths and
long head-covers; also every mare was held in hand by a groom
magnificently dressed.[433]

After all this, and leading to the very presence of the Caliph, came
the officers of state and the pages of the privy council, all in
gorgeous raiment, with their swords and girdles glittering with gold
and gems. Near them were “the eunuchs and the chamberlains and the
black pages.”

The number of the eunuchs was seven thousand in all, four
thousand of them white and three thousand black; the number of
the chamberlains was also seven thousand, and the number of the
black pages, other than the eunuchs, was four thousand.... On
the Tigris there were skiffs and wherries, barques and barges
and other boats, all magnificently ornamented, duly arranged
and disposed.... The number of the hangings in the palaces
of the Caliph was thirty-eight thousand. These were curtains
of gold--of brocade embroidered with gold--all magnificently
figured with representations of drinking vessels and with
elephants and horses, camels, lions and birds.... The number of
the carpets and the mats was twenty-two thousand pieces; these
were laid in the corridors and courts....[434]

A hundred lions were brought out, every lion being held in by the hand
of its keeper. Among other spectacles of rare and stupendous luxury was
a tree of gold and silver. The tree had eighteen branches, every branch
having numerous twigs, on which sat all kinds of gold and silver birds,
both large and small. Most of the branches of this tree were of silver,
but some were of gold, and they spread into the air carrying leaves of
divers colors. The leaves of the tree moved as the wind blew, while
the birds, under the action of mechanical appliances, piped and sang.
Through this scene of magnificence the Greek ambassadors were led to
the foot of the Caliph’s throne.

The impression made on the ambassador and his suite at the sight
of such a display of wealth and luxury was, we may well believe,
not unlike that produced on the Spanish Conquistadores at the sight
of the vast treasures of Cuzco and Cajamarca, or on the astonished
ambassadors of foreign powers when they were admitted to the presence
of Abd-al-Rahman III in his gorgeous audience chamber in the famed
palace of Medina-al-Zahra.[435]

But Bagdad has more compelling claims to undying fame than those based
on gorgeous palaces, superb mosques, boundless luxury, and ostentatious
displays of fabulous wealth. This splendid capital of the Caliphs will
always live in history’s page as the seat of numerous and splendid
institutions of charity and education and as the home of Caliphs who
were the most munificent patrons of science and letters of the Middle
Ages.

Among the hospitals of Bagdad was a palatial structure with many rooms
and wards, which were furnished in elaborate style. Here the patients
were gratuitously provided with food and medicine and regularly
visited by the physicians of the city. It was here that Rhazes, the
most celebrated Mussulman physician of his time, gave his lectures and
founded the great medical school which drew students from all parts of
Western Asia. Rhazes is famous not only for his eminence as a physician
but also as a voluminous writer on medicine and for having described
smallpox nearly nine hundred years before Jenner began his noted
investigations on this dread disease.

It was, however, the colleges, of which there were more than
thirty--“each more magnificent than a palace”--that gave Bagdad
its greatest fame in the mediæval world. One of these, called the
Nizamiyah, founded by an eminent vizier who was the friend of the
poet Omar Khayyám, was, on account of its architectural splendor,
and the celebrity of its professional staff, known as the “Mother of
the colleges of Bagdad.” Among its most illustrious lecturers were
Ghazzali, celebrated as a philosopher and a theologian, and Bohadin,
who achieved eminence as a historian, as a statesman, and as the
biographer of the Sultan Saladin. The endowment of the Nizamiyah was
so princely that it sufficed not only to pay the salaries of the
professors but also to pay for the board and tuition of indigent
students.

Completely eclipsing the Nizamiyah College in its architectural
grandeur, sumptuous equipment, and wealth of endowment was the College
of the Mustansiriyah--the ruins of which still exist--which was founded
by the Caliph Mustansir, the father of Mustasim, who was put to death
by Hulago after the destruction of Bagdad. So great was the splendor of
this college that it is said to have surpassed any similar institution
in Islam. It was not only the most notable seat of learning in Bagdad,
but was also its most beautiful and imposing edifice. When one recalls
the many gorgeous palaces of the city--many of them costing fabulous
sums--one can realize what munificent patrons were Bagdad’s Caliph and
men of wealth and how well this fairy capital deserved its reputation
as the Orient’s most famous center of science and letters. It had only
one rival and that was the famous Ommaied metropolis in Spain, so
celebrated for its riches and attractions, its schools and libraries
and scholars--a city which Hroswitha, the gifted nun of Gandersheim,
has so beautifully described in a single distich:

_Corduba famosa, locuples de nomine dicta,_
_Inclyta deliciis, rebus quoque splendida cunctis._

But no description of Bagdad is complete without some account of its
more eminent Caliphs, especially of its immortal Harun-Al-Rashid, who
is “inseparably associated with the most charming collection of stories
ever invented for the solace and delight of mankind.” This brilliant
Saracen ruler has long been ranked among the illustrious men of all
time. For, notwithstanding the fact that from time immemorial legends
have gathered around his name in greater number than about those of
King Arthur, or Charlemagne, or Frederick Barbarossa, authentic history
tells us enough of his character and achievements to make the romantic
life of “Aaron the Just”--to Anglicize his name--one of supreme
fascination and abiding interest.

The Arabians [Sismondi writes] are indebted to him for the
rapid progress which they made in science and literature, for
Harun never built a mosque without attaching to it a school.
His successors followed his example, and in a short period the
sciences which were cultivated in the capital spread themselves
to the very extremities of the empire of the Caliphs. Whenever
the faithful assembled to adore the Divinity, they found in this
temple an opportunity of rendering Him the noblest homage which
His creatures can pay--by the cultivation of those faculties
with which their Creator has endowed them. Harun-Al-Rashid,
besides, was sufficiently superior to the fanaticism which
had previously animated his sect not to despise the knowledge
which the professors of another faith possessed. The head of
his schools and the first director of studies in his empire
was a Nestorian Christian of Damascus, of the name of John Ebn
Mesua.[436]

Christians were the translators of the works of Plato and Aristotle; of
Galen, Hippocrates, and Dioscorides; of Ptolemy, Euclid, and Apollonius
Pergæus.

No Caliph ever gathered round him so great a number of learned
men:--poets, jurists, grammarians, cadis and scribes,--to say
nothing of the wits and musicians who enjoyed his patronage.
Personally, too, he had every quality that could recommend
him to the literary men of his time. Harun himself was an
accomplished scholar and an excellent poet; he was well versed
in history, tradition and poetry which he could always quote on
appropriate occasions. He possessed exquisite literary taste
and unerring discernment and his dignified demeanor made him an
object of profound respect to high and low.[437]

He was, indeed, as described by his biographers, “the most
accomplished, eloquent and generous of the Caliphs,” and the stories
that are told of his lavish generosity towards scholars who frequented
his court proved that he was probably the most munificent patron of men
of science and letters that ever lived.

And yet, sad to relate, there is a dark spot in the career of
Harun-al-Rashid. This is due to his inhuman treatment of the
Barmecides, whose tragic fate at the hands of the Caliph is one of the
most shocking occurrences in oriental annals. One of this ill-fated
family, Yaya ibin Barmek, was Harun’s vizier, who, by his consummate
ability, had contributed more than any other man towards the success
of the Caliph’s reign. It was he, and not the Commander of the
Faithful, who directed the course of events that rendered the reign
of Harun-al-Rashid the culminating point of Islamic history. His son
Jaafer was the most cherished friend of the Caliph and his constant
companion in his nightly _incognito_ wanderings through the city
of Bagdad. “Harun’s attachment to Jaafer was of so extravagant a
character that he could never bear him to be absent from his side, and
he went to the absurd length of having a cloak made with two collars,
so that he and Jaafer could wear it at one and the same time.”[438]

But to wipe out a fancied indignity he did not hesitate foully
to murder his friend and companion, “by far the most lovable and
attractive character of the many that live for us in the _Thousand
and One Nights_.[439] He cast his old and loyal vizier, the father
of Jaafer, into prison. Not content with this barbarous treatment of
men to whom he owed so much, he vented his fury on their family and
did not abate his anger until he had slain more than a thousand of the
Barmecides. So great an impression did Harun’s atrocious treatment
of his best friends make on his contemporaries that it became “the
proverbial example in oriental history of the change of fortune and the
mutability of royal favor.” It is because of this barbarous cruelty
and his revolting treachery that the Harun of history is so unlike the
Harun of legend, in which he is always painted as a merry monarch--the
patron of scholars and the boon companion of congenial friends. And
it is because of this that we must refuse him his long-accorded title
of “The Just” and “The Good,” although, in view of his achievements
as a ruler and his unfailing and generous patronage of men of science
and letters, we cannot deny him the epithet of “The Great.” Were it
not for the stain on his escutcheon, due to his infamous treatment of
the Barmecides, we could, with some semblance of truth, say of this
illustrious Caliph of Bagdad, in the words of Tennyson:

_Sole star of all that place and time,_
_I saw him in his golden prime,_
_The Good Harun-al-Rashid._

One cannot speak of the services rendered to science and literature
by Harun-al-Rashid without referring to his distinguished son and
successor, the Caliph Al-Mamun. Although the power and the greatness
of the empire had suffered a notable diminution after the death of
Al-Rashid, the glory of Bagdad as a center of learning still retained
all its former luster. Some, indeed, will have it that its prestige was
enhanced and that Al-Mamun and not Harun was the father of letters and
the Augustus of the Abbasside Caliphate. For the first thing he did on
ascending the throne was to invite the Muses from their favorite seats
in the Byzantine Empire to the capital of the Caliphs on the Tigris.

Study, books and men of letters almost entirely engrossed his
attention. The learned were his favorites and his ministers
were occupied alone in forwarding the progress of literature.
It might be said that the throne of the Caliphs seemed to
have been raised for the Muses. He invited to his court from
all parts of the world all the learned with whose existence
he was acquainted, and he retained them by rewards, honors
and distinctions of every kind. He collected from the subject
provinces of Syria, Armenia and Egypt the most important
books which could be discovered, and which, in his eyes, were
the most precious tribute he could demand. The governors of
provinces and the officers of administration were directed to
amass in preference to everything else the literary relics
of the conquered countries and to carry them to the foot of
the throne. Hundreds of camels might be seen entering Bagdad
loaded with nothing but manuscripts and papers and those
which were thought to be adapted for the purpose of public
instruction were translated into Arabic that they might be
universally intelligible. Masters, instructors, translators, and
commentators formed the court of Al-Mamun, which appeared to
be rather a learned academy than the centre of government in a
warlike empire. When the Caliph dictated the terms of peace to
the Greek Emperor, Michael the Stammerer, the tribute which he
demanded from him was a collection of Greek authors.[440]

History was but repeating itself, for, as in the days of ancient Rome,
so also in the most brilliant period of Bagdad

_Græcia capta ferum victorem cepit et artes_
_Intulit agresti Latio._[441]

So great during this brilliant literary period was the love of learning
that there were in Bagdad more than a hundred booksellers. How many of
our modern cities could count so great a number? And so large were even
private libraries that we are told of a doctor of Bagdad who “refused
the invitation of the Sultan of Bokhara, because the carriage of his
books would have required four hundred camels.”[442]

Nor was it in Bagdad alone that the zeal of Harun and Mamun for the
progress of knowledge had stimulated enthusiasm for science and
letters. Under these two illustrious patrons of learning, homes of
science that almost equaled that of Bagdad were established in all
parts of the Caliphate--in Cufa and Basra; in Fez and Morocco; in Cairo
and Alexandria and Damascus; in Balk, Ispahan, and Samarcand--many of
which, in the splendor of their buildings and in the equipment of their
libraries, rivaled the famous Arabian schools of Granada, Seville,
and Cordoba, which were in their heyday “when all that was polite or
elegant in literature was classed among the _Studia Arabum_.” And
it is to be observed that these institutions, created and fostered by
the benign influence of the Caliphs, had reached the acme of their
glory when the greater part of western and northern Europe was in a
condition of comparative darkness.

But in paying this tribute to the Caliphs of Bagdad--especially
Harun-Al-Rashid and his son Al-Mamun--I do not wish to appear as
overrating their achievements in science and letters. One may, indeed,
concede that they always held literary excellence in the highest honor;
one may admit that never, not even in the days of Mæcenas and Lorenzo
the Magnificent, did men of letters receive greater encouragement
and rewards; one may acknowledge that for centuries the Saracens
were far in advance of many of the western nations of Christendom in
many branches of science and philosophy, but, granting all this, the
indisputable fact still remains that they were borrowers and not
originators.

All their achievements in philosophy, medicine, astronomy, and
mathematics were due to their Greek masters--to Plato and Aristotle;
to Galen and Dioscorides; to Hipparchus and Ptolemy; to Euclid,
Archimedes, and Eratosthenes. And it must not be forgotten that the
Saracens owed their knowledge of Greek science to Christians, for it
was Christians who translated for them the works which they were unable
to read in the original. Thus it was the Christian scholar Honein, who
was the physician to the Khalif Motowakkel, that translated into Arabic
the “Elements” of Euclid and the “Almagest” of Ptolemy; and it was his
pupils who made the Arabic versions of the greater number of the works
of Galen and Hippocrates.[443] And it was to the celebrated Christian
family, the Boktishos, and to the Nestorian school of Gondisapor, from
which issued so many scholars of distinction, that the Saracens were
indebted for versions of countless other works of Greek science and
philosophy.

Among the many learned men whom the Caliph Al-Mamun invited to his
court and “who contributed far more than his own subjects to the
reputation that sovereign has deservedly gained in the history of
science,” was Leo the Mathematician, who subsequently became the
Archbishop of Thessalonica. The Caliph desired to have made an accurate
measurement of the earth’s orbit and he called this distinguished Greek
to his court to take charge of this important work because “he was
universally recognized to be the superior to all the scientific men of
Bagdad in mathematical and mechanical knowledge.”[444]

But while the Arabs were good borrowers from Greek writers on medicine,
astronomy, and mathematics, they almost completely ignored the great
poets, orators, and historians of ancient Hellas. Never cultivating any
language but their own, they were unable to read the masterpieces of
Greek literature except in a translation, but as there was no demand
by the Saracens for translations of these works into Arabic, none were
ever made. For this reason the matchless poems of Homer and the Greek
dramatists; the orations of Lysias and Demosthenes; the histories of
Herodotus and Trucidides, were for the Saracens as so many closed
books. The noted Syriac author, Bar-Herbræus, does, indeed, mention a
version of the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ by a Christian Maronite
of Mount Lebanon, but his translation was into Syriac and not Arabic.

These facts show how much the great reputation of the Saracens for
learning was due to their immortal Greek masters and to the literary
activity of their Christian subjects, especially the Greeks of the
Lower Empire. It is true, as Freeman observes, that “the Arabs studied
Aristotle and taught him to the men of western Europe; but it was
surely from the men of eastern Europe that they obtained him in the
first instance. He was read in translations at Samarcand and at
Lisbon, when no one knew his name at Oxford or Edinburgh; but all the
while he continued to be read in his own tongue at Constantinople and
Thessalonica.”[445]

The impulse that Harun-al-Rashid and his son Al-Mamun gave to
educational progress by encouraging the translation of the works of
Aristotle, Galen, Ptolemy, and others of the great Greek masters will
always give their reigns a conspicuous place in the annals of science
and civilization. But the successors of these two illustrious monarchs
did not follow in their footsteps. Although the power of the Caliphate
seemed still unimpaired and its splendor was apparently undimmed, the
seeds of decay, which led to ultimate destruction, were already at
work. The vices of sloth and luxury and cruelty which prevailed at the
court and in many of the most important departments of the government
of the Caliphate, slowly but surely entailed their fatal consequences.
Besides these, there were other causes of decay and extinction. Chief
among them were internecine strife and the separation of the remoter
provinces from the central power. Added to these disintegrating factors
the Caliphate had become top-heavy, and under a weak and degenerate
ruler like Al-Mostassem, the last of the Abbassides, its downfall was
inevitable.

In contemplating the fall of the power which was for five centuries
the glory of the Moslem world, one is led to compare the close of the
reign of the last of the Caliphs with that of the last of the Byzantine
Emperors:

The last and weakest of the Caliphs without an effort of arms or
policy to stay his fall, sinks from senseless pride to craven
terror and expires amidst the tortures of a faithless victor.
The last and noblest of the Cæsars, after doing all that mortal
man could do for the deliverance of his city, himself dies in
the breach, the foremost among its defenders. Not Darius in
the hands of the traitor, not Augustulus resigning his useless
purple, not the Ætheling Edgar spared by the contempt of the
Norman Conqueror ever showed fallen greatness so dishonored
and unpitied as did Al-Mostassem Billah al Wahid, the last
Commander of the Faithful;[446] not Leonidas in the pass of
Thermopylæ, not Decius in the battle below Vesuvius, not our own
Harold upon the hill of Senlac, died a more glorious death than
Constantine Palæologus, the last Emperor of the Romans.[447]

Among the names given to Bagdad, as has been said in a preceding page,
was that of Dar-as-Salam, or Medina-as-Salam--City of Peace. In view
of the numerous vicissitudes through which the erstwhile capital of
the Caliphs has passed, the protracted sieges it has sustained, the
frightful destruction it has time and again undergone, the appalling
massacres of its inhabitants at the hands of bloodthirsty invaders, it
would be difficult to conceive a more preposterous misnomer.

We have seen what was the fate of the city when it was given over to
the savage and rapacious hordes of Hulagu Khan. But this reign of
terror was but a prelude to the horrors that befell the ill-fated city
when, less than a century and a half later, the brutal Mongols again
captured and sacked the city; when its streets streamed with the blood
of its defenders and reëchoed with the frenzied shrieks of women and
children, and when, as a climax of all this unutterable carnage,[448]
the Mongol leader, Timur, celebrated his bloody victory by erecting on
the ruins of Bagdad a gruesome pyramid of ninety thousand heads of its
slaughtered inhabitants.[449]

No wonder that the people of the East were wont to declare that
“conquest by Turks or Saracens was a blessing compared with falling
into the jaws of the implacable Mongols.” When word reached the Court
of Byzantium that the Mongols, under Timur, were approaching the city,
so great was the terror which they inspired that “popular rumor
painted the invaders as having dogs’ heads and eating human flesh.”[450]

When, in addition to all these atrocities, one recalls the deeds of
violence and savagery which afterwards followed the successive storming
and occupation of the unfortunate city by Turkomans, Persians, and
Turks, one must conclude that the proper epithet for Bagdad would have
been not Dar-as-Salam--City of Peace--but Dar-al-Harb--City of War.

“But what,” the reader inquires, “of modern Bagdad, of the Bagdad of
to-day”? Since the Muses left the fair capital of the Caliphs, long
centuries ago, little more of interest remains in it than may be found
in any other city of the Moslem East.

My first hurried view of Bagdad was in the parting splendor of sunset,

_When her shrines through the foliage were gleaming half shown,_
_And each hallow’d the hour by some rites of its own._

My eyes were then open only to what was beautiful, romantic,
picturesque.

My second view was on the following morning, from the terrace of the
Carmelite monastery. It was at the hour when the sun, in the words of
Omar Khayyám, was scattering

_Into flight_
_The Stars before him from the Field of Night._

A filmy veil of pearl-gray mist hung over the slumbering city and the
witchery of the scene was even more enthralling than that which so
captivated me the preceding evening. Presently

_The magic of daylight awakes_
_A new wonder each minute, as it slowly breaks;_
_Hills, cupolas, fountains, called forth every one_
_Out of darkness, as if just born of the Sun._

Yes, I was in Bagdad, the fairy city of boyhood’s dreams, the
glittering home of pomp and pleasure, where the fair Zobeide dwelt in a
palace with spangled floors and marble stairs with golden balustrades;
where there was a riot of broidered sofas, damask curtains, silk
tapestry, purple robes from the most famous looms of the East; where a
joyous group of bejeweled dancing girls were wont, to the sound of harp
and lute and dulcimer, to carol away, with voices as melodious as that
of Israfel, the cares and ennui of their pleasure-sated mistress.

Willingly I yielded myself to the hypnotic influence of the _spiritus
loci_. In fancy I saw Aladdin with his wonderful lamp; the one-eyed
calenders as they told their fascinating tales; the fishermen as they
deluded the heavy-witted jinn; Harun-al-Rashid and Jaffer as they
wandered under their double-collared cloak through the somber streets
of the capital; the radiant homes of wealth and luxury, which gleamed
with the subdued light of a myriad of golden lamps and reëchoed with
the heart-easing strains of sweet music and the gladsome voices of
midnight revelry.

But the illusion was of short duration. The mauve-shot veil of tenuous
mist lifted under the ardent rays of the morning sun and the magic
city of Harun and his favorite Zobeide vanished to give place to the
squalid houses, narrow, crooked streets, and crumbling walls of a
time-stricken, war-battered city which is now but a shadow of what it
was in the days of its pristine glory.

As a compliment to our hosts we did not even express a wish to explore
the city, which we had come so far to see, until we had visited their
schools and those conducted by their heroic coworkers, the Sisters of
the Visitation of Tours. After having spent several most delightful
hours with teachers and pupils we sent for a trio of those white
donkeys for which Bagdad is so celebrated. Gentle as they are strong
and hardy, they willingly keep up an easy, ambling gait for hours at a
time without exhibiting the slightest evidence of fatigue. I learned
to value them a third of a century ago when traveling in Egypt and
I was glad to have an opportunity of again availing myself of their
service in the old capital on the Tigris. Here they take the place of
cabs which would not be at all available in the majority of the very
narrow streets of the city.

As the Carmelite monastery is in the heart of the city, we soon found
ourselves in the midst of a colorful scene that could not be surpassed
by anything similar either in Damascus or Stamboul. Such a seething
cauldron of races, such an utter confusion of tongues, such a motley
carnival of costumes from plain white and black to the gay fabrics
of Madras and the tawdry prints of Manchester! Here we meet men of
countless types and creeds and nationalities--Turks, Afghans, Persians,
Arabs, Indians, and Europeans; Jews, Hindus, Christians, Parsees,
Shiites, Sunnites, and Mohammedans of all the seventy-three sects
into which the Prophet of Mecca predicted Islam would eventually be
divided. The languages and dialects number more than a score, for which
reason the traveler in Bagdad would imagine that he hears fully as many
different tongues as were spoken by the builders of the Tower of Babel.
Indeed, not the least of the many difficulties which the British forces
encountered in their recent operations against the Turkish army was, we
are told, “the same which confronted the contractors for the old tower
so many thousands of years ago.”

The appearance of Bagdad, as we wandered through the maze of narrow,
filthy, noisome streets, was quite different from what it seemed when
we first saw it from our lazily moving kelek on the palm-fringed
Tigris, or when we gazed upon it enveloped in the delicate mist of
early morning. Then little was visible except domes and minarets
covered with bright-colored tiles and scintillating mosaics which
appeared to float in the opalescent atmosphere.

As in the case of all other eastern cities, Bagdad is more enchanting
at a distance than when viewed from her somber unsanitary and
intricate thoroughfares. And as we threaded our way through these
dingy streets and byways, flanked on either side by low, dun-colored,
windowless mud houses, we found it difficult to see in them, even in
fancy, the sumptuous homes that adorned the city in the time of Caliphs
and more difficult still to repeople them with the glamouring figures
of _Thousand and One Nights_.

But when one passes from these narrow and gloomy streets, that will
scarcely admit a camel, into the spacious courtyards with which even
the most unpretentious dwellings are provided, one is often surprised
at the magic transformation of the scene. Here one finds a profusion
of beautiful trees and shrubs and plants loaded with flowers of every
size and hue. Among the most conspicuous are the palm, the orange, and
the pomegranate whose bright green foliage is in striking contrast with
the flaming blooms of the hibiscus in which the Bagdadi takes as much
pleasure as do her dusky Hawaiian sisters in far-off Honolulu, with
whom these brilliant flowers are universal favorites.

A peculiarity of the habitations of the well-to-do of Bagdad is the
_serdab_, an underground chamber which is usually eight or
nine feet in height. It is here that the family lives during the
terrifically hot weather that prevails during summer and a part of
the spring and autumn. But, although the temperature is here ten
degrees lower than in the upper part of the house, the intense heat
of mid-summer, which often reaches 120° Fahrenheit in the shade, is
almost unbearable. As so great a part of the people spend much of
their time in the _serdab_, the city seems to be almost lifeless
during a greater part of the day. Towards sunset, however, it begins
to revive. The women then repair to the terraces of their dwellings
where they pass the night in talking, smoking, drinking sherbets, and
trying, when the mosquitoes permit, to get a little sleep. As to the
men, especially the Moslem portion of the population, they endeavor to
find some surcease of misery in the Lethean fumes of their chibouks and
hubble-bubbles. Most of them congregate in the countless coffeehouses
which, during the everlasting dog days of Bagdad, are thronged day
and night with all sorts and conditions of sweltering and par-baked
humanity.

Passing so much time in a state of semi-torpor, it is not surprising
that even the strongest constitutions soon succumb to the enervating
climate. Because of the intolerable heat, Europeans endeavor every
few years to find relief in a change of climate. But when this is not
possible, the majority of the foreign sufferers are short-lived. Thus
I was informed that the average life of the Carmelite missionaries in
southern Mesopotamia is only about nine years. But their premature
deaths do not deter them from continuing the work of charity to which
they are so devoted. As soon as one drops out of the ranks his place is
immediately taken by a zealous _confrère_ who is only too willing
to serve in the cause of the Master where the trials are most severe
and where the dangers are greatest and most imminent.

What with the grilling climate, defective drainage, ignorance and
neglect of the first principles of hygiene, one is not surprised to
learn that the population of Bagdad is periodically decimated by the
plague. Cholera is frequent. It was this dread visitant that carried
off General Maude, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces during the
recent campaign in Mesopotamia against the Turks.

We visited all the places of interest in the city but those in which
we found most local color were the bazaars. As we neared the principal
one of them we found the street crowded with Kurdish hamals bearing
incredible burdens, and quick-stepping white donkeys disputing the way
with awkwardly racking camels which snappishly sputtered or proudly
held aloft their supercilious noses while disdainfully sniffing the
air above the heads of shouting drivers. And round about us was a
vociferating throng that were roughly jostling one another in their mad
rush to force themselves into the alluring bazaars, which were already
filled with all kinds of curious idlers or prospective purchasers.

Although the bazaars of Bagdad are much smaller than those of Damascus
and Constantinople they are more interesting. This is not because of
the attractive wares, but rather on account of the strange and motley
crowd. And what a variety of garbs and what a medley of colors! There
are every type and shade of oriental face; every style of headdress;
every variety of costume one can conceive. Fezes, tarbooshes, keffiehs,
turbans, the brimless hat of the Baktiari, the long felt hats of the
Lurs and the Kurds; the black astrakan caps of the Russians and the
Persians. As to costumes, there is everything imaginable from the
primitive dhotee of the Hindu to the graceful full-flowing aba of the
Arabian mollah and the elaborately embroidered apparel of an Indian
rajah or the closely fitting frock coat of some prodigal nabob from
Europe in quest of strange curios or rare old rugs and tapestries from
Khorassan and Candahar.

The vesture of the women is even more variegated and costly and
resplendent than that of the men. Some are garbed in rich silks of
all the tints of the autumn leaf. Some are veiled, others unveiled,
according as they come from the Moslem, Jewish, or Christian quarter
of the city--but all are gathered around all the booths in which there
is a special display of feminine finery. There is no law in Islam to
prevent women from visiting the bazaars and whenever they desire to
escape the monotony of the harem they start out on a shopping tour
in which they take as much delight as do their sisters in the West.
Frequently they have no more intention of making purchases than have
the _habituées_ of the great department stores of Fifth Avenue or
the splendid jewelry shops of _La Rue de la Paix_.

My attention was directed to the large number of Jews who had shops
in the city and stalls in the bazaars. Many of them were specially
conspicuous on account of their cheap misfit garments from English and
German manufactories, which contrasted sharply with the costly and
elegant robes of some of their customers. For headdress most of them
wore black skull caps or flaming red fezes made in Vienna. But they all
had the same dark, prominent eyes, the same hot and shining looks, like
fanned flames, which so characterize the people of their races in other
parts of Mesopotamia and the Near East.

When I expressed surprise at the number of the descendants of Abraham
that we saw not only in the bazaars but in all parts of the city, one
of my companions informed me that they constituted fully one-fourth of
the population. The exact number of the inhabitants of Bagdad is not
definitely known, but it is variously estimated to be from one hundred
and fifty to two hundred thousand. There are, indeed, few, if any,
other large cities in the Near East in which the children of Abraham
have so great a representation in proportion to that of the adherents
of other religious beliefs.

The majority of the Jews in Bagdad are descendants of those who were
deported from Judæa to Babylonia by Nebuchadnezzar six centuries
before the Christian era. Others, doubtless, are descended from Hebrew
captives that were a century and a quarter earlier carried to Assyria
by Sargon and Tiglath-pileser III. Still others trace their descent
from those who voluntarily sought refuge in Mesopotamia after the
destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans and after the Holy City, many
centuries later, fell under the sway of Islam.

The favorable conditions under which the Jews of the Captivity lived
during the reign of the Babylonian monarchs, and even during the time
of the Abbasside Caliphs, induced many of their brethren to join them
in the fertile plains of the Tigris and the Euphrates. So satisfactory,
indeed, were the relations of the Jews with their Babylonian rulers,
that when, after they had been seventy years in captivity, Cyrus the
Great gave them permission to return to their native land, but few of
them, comparatively, availed themselves of the proffered opportunity.
The unsettled conditions of Palestine and the sad experiences of those
of their fellow countrymen who had returned to Jerusalem decided the
majority of the Jews to remain in Babylonia where, although nominally
captives, they enjoyed more peace, prosperity, and even more freedom
than it was possible to find in the ravaged and desolate land of their
fathers.

Once fairly settled in Babylonia, where they seem from the first to
have enjoyed a great measure of freedom, the mode of life and fortunes
of the Jews underwent a complete change. In their fatherland their
chief pursuits were pastoral and agricultural. In Mesopotamia also
they followed for a time the avocations of their forefathers. Thanks,
however, to the greater productivity of the soil in the fertile
Babylonian plain, which far surpassed that of the richest fields of
Judæa and to their native thrift and industry and keen eye to business
opportunities, which permitted no chance to escape them, it was not
long before the children of the exiles were living in ease and comfort,
while many of them soon found themselves in a position which, as
compared with that which they occupied in Palestine afforded them, in
Johnsonese phrase, “the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams
of avarice.”

From that time most of the Jews of Mesopotamia began to devote
themselves to commercial pursuits, which, more than anything else,
influenced the subsequent fortunes of their countrymen throughout the
world.

But not only did the descendants of the Jews of the Captivity achieve
distinction in the commercial world; they also became celebrated for
their attainments in science and letters. Under the Caliph Ali, in the
middle of the seventh century of our era the Jews of Irak--Southern
Babylonia--were able to organize what was almost an independent state.
Here flourished the great Talmudic schools of Sara and Pumbeditha
and here, in the country of their father Abraham, the Jews loved to
fancy the survival of a prince of the Captivity who had recovered the
scepter of David.[451] This was a period of notable prosperity for
Irak, a period when Bagdad was at the height of its glory; when it
was not only preëminent in science, art, and literature but was the
religious capital of Jewry as well as Islam.[452]

In conclusion, I may here answer a question which I have been often
asked, namely, “What of the future of Bagdad?” “Is there any hope of
its return to its former greatness and splendor?”

This is a difficult question to answer. When one remembers that two
other great capitals--Seleucia and Ctesiphon--once flourished only a
few leagues to the south of the city of the Caliphs and that now but
a vestige of them remains; when one remembers that Babylon, a short
distance to the southwest, was, for nearly two thousand years, the most
magnificent city of the ancient world, but that, under the demolishing
action of man and nature, it so completely disappeared that its very
site was long a matter of controversy, one will hesitate to make
any predictions about anything in a land in which the vicissitudes
of fortune have been so extraordinary and in which the conflicts of
international interests have been so relentless and so destructive.
And yet, when one travels over the matchless alluvial plains on which
stood the famous capitals that once controlled the destinies of
Western Asia, one cannot but feel that there is a brilliant future
in this celebrated region of the two rivers, but only when a stable
and enterprising government shall have been established--a government
whose purpose will be not to exploit the land and the populace for
its own selfish purposes, but a government that shall be willing to
guarantee to the people the blessings of peace and at the same time
honestly strive to secure for them their position in the family of
nations, to which their long and wonderful history gives them so just
a title.[453] Then and then only shall we again see the broad desert
of Mesopotamia blossoming as of old, and witness once more in the
Land of the Two Rivers a metropolis that shall recall the greatness
and the splendor of Babylon and Seleucia and Ctesiphon and of Bagdad
too,--Medinah-al-Salam--as it was in the golden prime of Al Mamun and
Harun-al-Rashid the Great.

CHAPTER XVII

MOTORING IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden eastward; wherein he
placed man whom he had formed.

And the Lord God brought forth of the ground all manner of
trees, fair to behold, and pleasant to eat of: the tree of life
also in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of
good and evil.

And a river went out of Eden to water paradise, which from
thence is divided into four heads.

The name of the one is Phison: that is it which compasseth all
the land of Hevilath, where gold groweth.

And the gold of that land is very good: there is found bdellium,
and the onyx stone.

And the name of the second river is Gehon: the same is it that
compasseth all the land of Ethiopia.

And the name of the third river is Tigris: the same passeth
along by the Assyrians. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

And the Lord God took man and put him into the garden of Eden to
dress it and to keep it.
GENESIS, ii: 5–15.

“Effendi, your _terumbil_ is ready.” Thus did a young Arab inform
me that the automobile which was to take us to Babylon was at the door
of the Carmelite monastery.

Barely have a few words so thrilled me as did these then pronounced by
the bronze-visaged son of the desert. They meant so much to me--far
more than the simple words would seem to imply. They meant that we were
at last near the final objective of our long and eventful journey;
that, in a few hours, we should be contemplating the world-famed ruins
of Babylon; that in, the short journey from the romantic capital of
Harun-al-Rashid to the historic city of Nebuchadnezzar we should
traverse a land which has long been celebrated in story and legend as
the cradle of our race.

When we attempted to cross the swaying pontoon bridge which separates
Bagdad proper from its old suburb on the right bank of the Tigris, we
found our passage blocked for a while by the heterogeneous crowd of men
and women and the long train of burdened donkeys and camels that were
headed for the shops and the bazaars of the old capital of the Caliphs.
But we welcomed this delay as it gave us an opportunity to study a
scene which, during our wanderings along the river front of the city,
had always possessed for us a special fascination.

Here were assembled the strange and varied craft for which the Tigris
is so noted. Among them was the steam side-wheeler which brings freight
and passengers from the port of Basra on the Shat-al-Arab. There were
also tugs and barges and lighters of other varieties of modern craft
familiar to people of the West. Scattered among these were numerous
mahailas, those primitive and picturesque boats so much used by the
Arabs in the navigable parts of the Tigris and Euphrates. With their
pointed prows, high masts, and lateen sails, they are not unlike the
dahabiyehs of the Nile or simplified forms of the fast-sailing felucca
and xebec once so much used by the pirates of Barbary. Alongside of
them were countless specimens of that long, canoe-shaped boat called
by the Arabs the _bellum_--which in the narrow canals in and
around Basra serves the same purpose as the gondola in Venice. The
_bellum_, to judge from certain bas-reliefs found among the ruins
of Nimroud, is but a slight modification of the type of boat which
Sennacherib employed in his fleet during his celebrated campaign
against the Elamits. But a far more singular craft than any of those
mentioned is the kufa. Its frame is woven of willows or the split
branches of the date palm and, like the Ark of Noah, is “pitched within
and without with pitch” which is procured from the hot, bitumen springs
of Hit, on the Euphrates. It is circular in form and looks like a
large cauldron with its brim turned inwards. Their great number at
Bagdad and the way which they are made to rotate among the other boats
are always sure to attract attention. They are used as ferryboats in
crossing the river and for carrying freight and passengers to and from
the city and the adjoining country. Herodotus tells us that, after the
city itself, these curious craft surprised him more than anything that
he saw in Babylon. In form and size they are similar to the coracle in
which St. Brendan is said to have made his famous voyage from Ireland
to America, long centuries before Columbus “to Castile and Leon gave a
New World.”

But few keleks are seen among the numberless boats that dot the Tigris
at Bagdad. The reason is simple. As soon as they arrive from Mosul and
Diarbeker their wooden frameworks are sold for fuel, for which they
fetch a good price, while the deflated skins are returned to the places
whence they came to be again used in the construction of other keleks.

Nowhere in the world can one see so great a variety of river crafts
as at Bagdad, or styles of vessels which have remained unchanged
for so many thousands of years. For here one finds everything from
the raftlike slow-floating kelek to the swift, surface-skimming
_glisseur_ which, with a powerful engine, is capable of making
a speed of more than forty miles an hour. The kelek and the kufa
represent the high-water mark of the shipwright’s achievements two
thousand years before our era, while the _glisseur_ is but one of
the many triumphs of the marine engineers of the twentieth century of
the era in which we live. Forty centuries separate the two creations
and yet they are both seen here side by side--one typifying the
changeless East and the other the ever-progressive West.

After the congested traffic on the bridge had diminished sufficiently
to allow us to pass, we took the stage road that leads to Hillah and
Babylon. There was nothing to detain us in West Bagdad for of the old
Round City of Mansur not a vestige is now visible. Many travelers make
a detour to get a near view of the noted Kazimayn mosque but, as the
fanatical Shiahs do not allow a Christian to enter this sacred shrine,
I was satisfied with the view I had had of it through my field glass
from the summit of the lofty old minaret of Souk-El-Ghazl.

Neither did we go to see that other lion on the western bank of the
Tigris--the much lauded tomb of Zobeide, who occupies so conspicuous
a place in _Thousand and One Nights_ and in many Arabian
chronicles. With the renowned Arabian queens Zenobia and the Queen
of Sheba, Zobeide will always live in story and legend as one of the
most prominent figures of the East. According to an Eastern tradition,
she shares with the mythical Sultana Scheherazade the honor of having
composed those fascinating tales known as “The Arabian Nights.” We did
not visit the crumbling monument which is said to contain her tomb, for
the simple reason that it has been proved beyond doubt that this was
never the last resting place of Harun-al-Rashid’s favorite wife and was
never considered to be so until nearly nine hundred years after her
death.

A few short hours after leaving the city of the Caliphs we were in the
heart of the broad alluvial plain of Babylonia. But there was little
to attract our attention except the countless mounds that dotted the
broad expanse of level land and covered all that remained of once
flourishing towns and cities. With the exception of a few palms here
and there along some old irrigating canal this extensive region was
almost as treeless as the desert sections of northern Mesopotamia.
Outside of an occasional reed hut or black tent--the humble homes of
Bedouin Arabs--we saw but few human habitations in a land that during
thousands of years was as thickly populated and as carefully cultivated
as Holland or the valley of the Rhine.

Once we met a small caravan of pilgrims coming from far-distant Mecca
and Medina. Although travel worn by their long journey through the
burning sands of Arabia they seemed, nevertheless, to be a very joyous
company. They were happy in the thought of having complied with the
precept of the Koran which requires that every one of the Faithful
shall, if at all possible, make a pilgrimage, at least once in his
lifetime, to the venerated shrines which enclose the Kaaba and the tomb
of the Prophet. Even

_The camels, tufted o’er with Yemen’s shells,_
_Shaking in every breeze their light-toned bells_,

seemed to enter into the spirit of their cheerful and godly riders.

Among the green-turbaned hadjis I observed two whose means enabled
them to indulge in the luxury of genuine Arabian steeds. After the
delightful experience I had had with a pure-blooded Arabian horse when
traveling in the East many years ago, I have never been able to pass
one of these noble animals without scrutinizing it as closely as I
would a masterpiece of Raphael or Murillo. I do not know whether or
not these two horses had made the long journey to Mecca and return--a
distance of nearly fifteen hundred miles--but if they did, they failed
to show it, for they seemed as lively and as vigorous as if they had
been on the road but a few days. But this is one of the characteristics
of the true Arabian horse--its remarkable powers of endurance, even
when forced to travel long distances without food or water.[454]
Judging from their delicate forms, their well-fashioned heads, their
large beautiful eyes, their agile and supple movements, the two
steeds in question must have been bred from one or two of the five
pure-blooded races of horses for which, from time immemorial, Arabia
has been so celebrated.[455]

According to an Arabian legend, when God wished to create the horse He
called the South Wind to Him and said, “I wish to take from thy bosom a
new being. Condense thyself by depriving thyself of thy fluidity.” The
wind obeyed. The Lord then took a handful of that element, now become
malleable, breathed upon it and the horse was born. “You will be for
man,” the Lord then said, “a source of happiness and riches and he will
render himself illustrious by riding you.”

It is said that “the happiest events in the life of a Bedouin are the
births of a she-camel, of a son, and of a she-foal.” And so highly
does the Arab value his young colts, as well as his young camels, that
he cares for them as children and “the nearer on the social ladder he
stands to the real Bedouin” the higher rises his love for his horse.
Indeed, to judge by his actions at times, one would think that he
prefers his horse to his son. For when the camels are milked in the
evening the colts receive their regular supply of the lacteal fluid
before the children of the family. Not only this, but the true Arab
puts the care of his horse before his own ease. In the desert there is
a saying that “work which does not belittle a man is for his horse, for
his brother and for his guest.” Another saying among the Bedouins is
that “Allah has three great gifts for man--a good horse, a good wife
and a good blade.” Similar to this is the adage that “the greatest
blessings are a wise wife and a fruitful mare.”

How well the Bedouin is rewarded for his affectionate care of his horse
is a common theme of the stories and songs of the desert. For the
prized animal which occasionally exhibits almost human intelligence
fully reciprocates his master’s affection and serves him in danger and
out of danger with a loyalty that is proverbial and with an unswerving
devotion that never falters as long as strength and life endure.

But one cannot speak of the Arab’s horse without also saying something
of his intimate associate--the camel. So indispensable is the camel to
the Bedouin that, without it, it would be almost impossible for him to
continue his nomad life. For the hair of the animal supplies him with
clothing and tents while its milk is his principal article of food.
Hence, the significant proverb “God created the camel for the Arab and
the Arab for the camel.” Hence, also, the peculiar custom of speaking
of the camel as a “person.” Thus an Arab when enumerating his flocks
and herds will speak of so many “head” of sheep or cattle, but when
counting his camels will speak of them as so many “persons.”

According to a Bedouin legend, the camel and the date were fashioned by
Allah from the same clay from which Adam was formed. The same legend
declares that they were found with our first parents in the Garden of
Eden and that they will accompany man to the world beyond the tomb.
When young, the camel, like the colt, is regarded as a member of the
family. Like its companion, the colt, it is fondled as a child and
always treated with the most unremitting care. And so important a
position does it occupy in the life of the family and the clan in
Arabia, that the poets of the desert have from time immemorial vied
with one another in seeking suitable epithets for their inseparable
servant and associate. The number of these epithets, describing
and glorifying the camel, is no less than six hundred, while the
distinguished French traveler Chardin assures us that it is fully a
thousand.

And well may the Arab sing the praises of the animal to which he owes
so much, for it is to the patient, frugal, and laborious camel that he,
in great measure, owes his proud, uninterrupted independence during the
long ages of his country’s history. For, “without the camel, he must
have long since bowed his neck to a foreign yoke, sharing the fate of
those despised felahin who guide or draw the plow on the banks of the
Nile and the Orontes.”[456]

But while the much-praised camel is to the Arab fully as useful as the
horse--in many respects far more indispensable--he has, contrary to
general opinion, neither the docility nor the intelligence of the horse
and, notwithstanding all the care his master may have lavished upon
him, shows no interest in him whatever. Besides this, he is vindictive
to a degree, and that sooner or later he will seek revenge for some
real or fancied injury is so well known that the camel driver is always
on his guard against its malice and fury.

Palgrave, the adventurous explorer of central and eastern Arabia, who
had a rare opportunity of studying “the ship of the desert” in his
desert home, writes:

If docile means stupid, well and good; in such a case the camel
is the very model of docility. But if the epithet is intended
to designate an animal that takes an interest in its rider so
far as a beast can, that in some way understands his intentions
or shares them in a subordinate fashion, that obeys from a
sort of submissive or half fellow-feeling with his master,
like the horse and elephant, then I say that the camel is by
no means docile, very much the contrary; he takes no heed of
his rider; pays no attention whether he be on his back or not;
walks straight on when once set agoing, merely because he is
too stupid to turn aside; and then, should some tempting thorn
or green branch allure him out of the path, continues to walk
on in this new direction simply because he is too dull to turn
back into the right road.... In a word, he is from first to last
an undomesticated and savage animal, rendered serviceable by
stupidity alone, without much skill on his master’s part or any
coöperation on his own except that of an extreme passiveness.
Neither attachment nor even habit impresses him; never tame,
though not wide-awake enough to be exactly wild.[457]

Shortly after meeting the caravan from Mecca and Medina, we overtook
one going in the opposite direction. This was composed of pilgrims on
their way to the sacred shrines of Nejef and Kerbela--the holy cities
of the Shiites. A sorrier and more mournful crowd could not easily be
imagined. It was composed of Persian Shiites who were convoying their
dead to Kerbela and Nejef for burial. Among the departed were some
but recently deceased, while others had been dead for years and their
moldering remains had been exhumed for final interment in the sacred
ground in and around Kerbela and Nejef. There were no sumptuous funeral
cars for transporting this gruesome freight. Only jades and donkeys and
mules, all worn out by their long journey through the sandy desert. Nor
were there any costly caskets to enclose the remains of the dead. Far
from it. Some were wrapped in reeds and rugs while others were packed
in bags and baskets. In this condition they were slung from the backs
of the jaded pack animals which were conducted by friends or servants
of the deceased.

In Nejef are preserved the ashes of Ali, the husband of Fatima,
daughter of the Prophet of Mecca, while in the mosque of Kerbela is
the last resting place of his son, Husein. By his followers Ali was
considered the first legitimate Caliph and his sons Hasan and Husein
have ever since their tragic death been venerated as martyrs. It was
the dispute about the first lawful Caliph that occasioned the great
schism which divides the Moslem world into two sects: the Shiites,
who reject the first three Caliphs--Abu-Bekr, Omar, and Othman--as
usurpers; and the Sunnites, who recognize Ali as well as the three
Caliphs named, while they regard the Shiites as “forsakers of the
truth.” The Shiites include the Persians, besides whom they have a
large representation among the Mohammedans of India.

It is the ardent desire of every devout Shiite to be buried either in
Nejef or Kerbela, for the sacred soil of these places, so he firmly
believes, assures him of paradise. There is a cherished tradition
among the Shiites that Ali will be the first to rise on the day of the
general resurrection and that all who are interred in Nejef will rise
with him to a life of immortality and happiness.

This accounts for the countless thousands that are every year interred
in Nejef and Kerbela. The cost of the burial permits at these two
places is said to amount to nearly a million dollars a year, while the
number of pilgrims from Persia alone, who annually visit the shrines
of Ali and Husein is estimated at no less than sixty thousand souls.
In a preceding chapter we have seen that the pilgrims--nearly all of
whom are Sunnites--that yearly visit Medina and Mecca number fully two
hundred thousand. Considering, however, the relative populations of
Shiite and Sunnite countries, more pilgrims are found at the shrines of
Ali and Husein than at those of the Prophet and the Kaaba.

But, although both the great Moslem sects recognize Mohammed as their
prophet and have the greatest veneration for him, the most profound
hatred separates one from the other. The Shiites regard the Sunnites as
impure and detest them because of their association with Christians and
Jews, something which the followers of Ali consider intolerable.

Unlike the Sunnites, the Shiites, especially those in the valleys of
the Tigris and the Euphrates, lead a retired life and studiously avoid
relations with all except their coreligionists. Those of the well-to-do
class are, when at home, continually engaged in religious ceremonies
and conferences. On these occasions accounts are read of the tragic
deaths of Ali and his sons. So moved are all present that they express
their grief by sobs and lamentations. These reunions, which usually
last two hours, take place for the men in apartments specially reserved
for them and in the harem for the women. But the women are much more
demonstrative in their sorrow than the men, for so moved are they by
the recital of the cruel deaths of Ali and his sons that they utter
piercing shrieks, strike their breasts, and, when carried away by their
delirium, disfigure their faces with their finger nails.

But what is passing strange is that these ceremonies of mourning take
place on such occasions of rejoicing as a wedding or the birth of a
child. In a word, the Shiites are born, live, and die in the midst of
tears and moans and lamentations. The wailing of the Jews in Jerusalem
at the wall of the temple of their forefathers occurs but once a week,
while the dolorous reunions of the Shiites are far more frequent.
During the first ten days of the month of Moharrem and every day during
the pilgrimage to Nejef and Kerbela they are obligatory.[458]

But it is not my purpose in this chapter to give more than a cursory
glance at the present condition of Babylonia and its people. For,
during my wanderings in this historic land, my thoughts were rather
occupied with its myths and legends and, above all, with that
interesting and persistent tradition which, from time immemorial, has
here located the Garden of Eden--what the “Vulgate” calls the Paradise
of Pleasure and what is frequently known as the Terrestrial Paradise.

Of the many interesting subjects treated of in the book of Genesis,
few have received more attention from scholars and interpreters than
that which relates to the Terrestrial Paradise. Even in the early
days of Christianity men began to dispute about it. Some, among them
Origen[459] and St. Ambrose, not to mention others, inclined to the
opinion that the Genesiac account of the cradle of our race was
to be interpreted allegorically. Others, however, like St. Jerome
and St. Augustine,[460] maintained that the Scriptural narrative
regarding the Garden of Eden was to be interpreted literally. Even
at the present time Biblical students exhibit the same difference of
opinion respecting the words of the Sacred Text which relate to the
Garden of Paradise as was displayed by the writers and Fathers of the
primitive Church. Some favor an allegorical interpretation of the much
discussed narrative while others contend that we must adopt a literal
interpretation. “So concrete,” they hold with St. Augustine, “is the
description of the Terrestrial Paradise that one cannot allegorize it
without doing violence to the text.”

The eminent Assyriologist, Frederick Delitzsch, in an elaborate
study of this long vexed question, insists that “the Biblical record
of the Garden of Eden contains no indication of being fabulous or
extravagant, or enveloped in semi-obscurity. Neither need one hesitate
as to the sense, nor is one, for lack of clearness, obliged to read
between the lines. For the narrator the Garden of Eden, with its four
rivers, the Phison, the Gehon, the Tigris and the Euphrates, is a
manifest and well-known reality. He is in nowise obscure respecting
the meaning of the names of the Phison and the Gehon. Not only does
he know exactly their signification--as exactly as that of the Tigris
and the Euphrates--but he wishes to instruct his readers concerning
the subject. It is for this reason that he gives explanations and
elucidations which his readers can control.”[461]

But, notwithstanding the explicitness of the author of the second
chapter of Genesis, the localization of the Garden of Eden bristles
with many and grave difficulties. Ever since the days of Philo Judæus,
scholars have been seeking a solution of the problem, and, although
they have written countless books on the subject, the actual site of
the Terrestrial Paradise still remains a matter of uncertainty.

How diverse have been the views of learned men respecting the site
of Paradise is evinced by the fact that they have located it almost
everywhere on the earth, above the earth, and under the earth. Some,
following the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, have contended that the
home of the first parents was in the third heaven; others that it was
in the fourth; others still that it was in the heaven of the moon, or
in the middle region of the air, or in some hidden place far removed
from the knowledge of mortals. Others again with a great display of
erudition have attempted to prove that it was situated in Syria, or
Palestine, or Arabia, or Persia, or Armenia, or Assyria, or India,
or China, or Tartary. Still others, who were a little more specific
in their speculations, placed the Garden of Eden on the banks of the
Ganges, in the Canaries, or in Ceylon, or on the Mountains of the Moon,
where the Nile was supposed to have its source. Hebron, Jerusalem,
Damascus, and Babylon have each been considered as being on the
identical spot where our first parents were created and where they fell
from their high estate.

The Benedictine, Ralph Higden, who follows the opinion of some of
the Fathers of the Church, tells us in his _Polychronicon_ that
the Terrestrial Paradise is in an inaccessible region in Eastern
Asia. Gautier de Metz, in his _Image du Monde_, is in essential
agreement with the learned Benedictine as to the location of the
Garden of Eden. It is, he avers, surrounded by flames, and access
to it through its single gate is precluded by an armed angel who is
always on guard. Lambertus Floridus describes the primeval home of
our race as an island in the Eastern ocean--_Paradisus insula in
oceano in oriente_. But, like Gautier de Metz, he declares it to be
inaccessible because it is surrounded by a wall of fire.

Peter Lombard, the famous Master of the Sentences, who is followed by
other mediæval writers, teaches that Paradise is located on a very high
mountain in Eastern Asia--so high that the waters of the Deluge, which
rose above the summit of Ararat, submerged only its base.[462] Another
author informs us that “Paradise is neither in heaven nor on earth....
It is forty fathoms higher than Noah’s flood was and it hangeth between
heaven and earth wonderfully, as the Ruler of all things made it....
There is there neither hollow nor hill; nor is there frost nor snow,
hail or rain, but there is _fons vitæ_, that is, the well of
life.... There is there neither heat nor hunger, nor is there ever
night, but always day. The sun there shines seven times brighter than
on this earth. Therein dwell innumerable angels of God with the holy
souls till doomsday.”[463]

Of similar import is the description of Paradise contained in
an Anglo-Saxon poem--a translation of the “De Phœnice” of the
Pseudo-Lactantius--in which the poet declares:

_I have heard tell_
_That there is far hence_
_In eastern parts_
_A land most noble_
_Amongst men renowned._
_That tract of earth is not_
_Over mid earth_
_Fellow to many_
_Peopled lands;_
_But it is withdrawn_
_Through the Creator’s might_
_From wicked doers._
_Beauteous is all the plain,_
_With delight blessed,_
_With the sweetest_
_Of earth’s odors._

From the time of Indicopleustes, who flourished in the sixth century,
to our own, travelers and explorers have sought for the Garden of Eden,
and geographers have indicated on their maps the places they imagined
it should occupy. Some were satisfied with a conjectural location,
but others, basing their speculations on the data given in the second
chapter of Genesis, were minded that the problem was so simple that it
could be answered off-hand. They were quite like Hudibras who

_Knew the seat of Paradise,_
_Could tell in what degree it lies,_
_And as he was disposed could prove it_
_Above the moon or below it._

In a letter purporting to have been written to the Emperor Manual
Comnenus, the mythical king Prester John declares that Paradise is
situated within three days’ journey of his own empire, but whether this
empire is in Asia or Africa is not made clear.

The river Indus which issues out of Paradise [he writes] flows
among the plains through a certain province and it expands,
embracing the whole province with its various windings. There
are found emeralds, sapphires, topazes, chrysolites, onyx,
beryl, sardius and many other precious stones. At the base of
Mount Olympus, located in the dominions of Prester John, there
is [the king continues] a marvelous fountain and from hour to
hour and day to day the taste of this fountain varies and its
source is hardly three days’ journey from Paradise from which
Adam was expelled. If any man drinks thrice of this fountain he
will from that day feel no infirmity and he will, as long as he
lives, appear of the age of thirty.

Sir John Mandeville, the reputed author of a celebrated travel book,
which, he assures us, was “proved for true” by the Pope’s councils,
places Paradise “beyond the lands and isles and deserts of Prester
John’s lordship.”...

Of Paradise [he tells us] I cannot speak properly, for I was
not there.... I repent not going there, but I was not worthy.
But [he continues] Terrestrial Paradise, as wise men say, is
the highest place of the earth; and is so high that it nearly
touches the circle of the moon there as the moon makes her turn.

You shall understand [he writes] that no mortal may approach
to that Paradise; for by land no man may go, for wild beasts
that are in the deserts and for the high mountains and great,
huge rocks that no man may pass by for the dark places that are
there; and by the rivers may no man go, for the water runs so
roughly and so sharply, because it comes down so outrageously
from the high places above, that it runs in so great waves that
no ship may row or sail against it; and the water roars so and
makes so huge a noise, and so great a tempest, that no man may
hear another in the ship, though he cried with all the might
he could. Many great lords have essayed with great will many
times to pass by those rivers towards Paradise with full great
companies, but they might not speed on their voyage; and many
died for weariness of rowing against the strong waves; and many
of them became blind and many deaf from the noise of the water;
and some perished and were lost in the waves, so that no mortal
man may approach to that place without the special grace of
God.[464]

Columbus, as we learn from his letters, thought he had found the site
of the Garden of Eden in the northern part of South America. True, he
was not aware that he had discovered a new continent. He was under
the impression that he was on the east coast of Asia, the ocean-laved
shores of far-off Cathay. He accepted as true one of the traditional
beliefs which located Paradise in farther India, or yet more to
the eastward and was fully persuaded that he had, in the Orinoco,
discovered one of the rivers that watered Eden.

Writing to his Royal patrons, Ferdinand and Isabella, of the region at
the headwaters of the Orinoco, he says:

I have no doubt that, if I could pass below the equinoctial
line, after reaching the highest point of which I have spoken,
I should find a much milder temperature and a variation in the
stars and in the water; not that I suppose that elevated point
to be navigable, nor indeed that there is any water there;
indeed I believe it impossible to ascend thither, because I am
convinced that it is the spot of the Earthly Paradise whither no
one can go but by God’s permission.

[Continuing, he adds] There are great indications of this being
the Terrestrial Paradise, for its site coincides with the
opinions of the holy and wise theologians whom I have mentioned;
and moreover the other evidences agree with the supposition,
for I have never either read or heard of fresh water coming in
so large a quantity in close conjunction with the water of
the sea; the idea is also corroborated by the blandness of the
temperature; and, if the water of which I speak does not proceed
from the Earthly Paradise, it appears to be more marvelous, for
I do not believe that there is any river in the world so large
and so deep.

The more I reason on the subject [he concludes] the more
satisfied I become that the Terrestrial Paradise is situated
on the spot I have described; and I ground my opinion upon the
arguments and authorities already quoted. May it please the
Lord to grant your Highnesses a long life and health and peace
to follow out so noble an investigation in which I think our
Lord will receive great service, Spain considerable increase of
its greatness and all Christians much consolation and pleasure,
because by this means the name of the Lord will be published
abroad.[465]

But Columbus was not the only one to locate the original home of our
race in South America. Only a few years ago a patriotic Bolivian
scholar, Emeterio Villamil, maintained that the site of the Garden of
Eden was on the eastern slope of the mighty Sorata, while the Argentine
geologist, Dr. Ameghino, contended that the mother region of mankind
was within the shadow of Monte Hermoso, in southern Argentina. There
could be no doubt about it. For did he not here discover the skeleton
of the first man? And did he not testify to the faith that was in him
by giving to the Argentine Adam the imposing name of _Tetraprothomo
Argentinus_?

According to M. Mayo, however, all those who would place humanity’s
first hearthstone in Asia, or in Europe, or in America were entirely
mistaken. In an ingenious study on “Les Secrets de Pyramides de
Memphis”[466] he argues that the desert of Sahara embraces what was
once the Garden of Eden. True, it is now a bleak and arid desert, but
he believes it was once a land of marvelous beauty and fertility.
There was a time, he avers, when it was watered by large rivers and
meandering streams; when it was covered with rich verdure and luxurious
vegetation; when it was densely populated and the happy home of a
peaceful and prosperous people. A new reading of Genesis, in the light
of certain hieroglyphical inscriptions of the twelfth dynasty regarding
the pyramid of Cheops will, he assures us, solve the mystery that has
so long enshrouded the famed monument of Gizeh and reveal the reason
why all attempts hitherto made to localize the Paradise of Scripture
have proved futile. The Nile, he will have it, formerly flowed through
the Sahara where it divided into four branches, constituting the
quadrifurcate river of Genesis. At this time the people of Egypt,
who even then were a powerful and highly civilized nation, suffered
from lack of water and cast about to increase their supply of this
all-important element. They obtained it by deflecting the course of
the Nile and directing it through their own country. By making a large
cut or ditch through an elevation near Khartoum they appropriated to
themselves the waters of the great reservoirs of equatorial Africa
and shut off from their neighbors in the Sahara the only source of
irrigation on which their country could depend. It was thus, according
to this quixotic Frenchman, not God but man who closed Paradise and
made entrance into it impossible by taking from it the water that gave
it fecundity and life.

“Fudge,” vociferates Ignatius Donnelly. “Amen,” ejaculates Unger.
Paradise according to these worthies was not situated in any of the
existing continents, for its seat, as can be proved, was in the lost
Atlantis. Accepting Plato’s account of the Atlantis, as given in
the Timæus, as veritable history, the paradoxical Donnelly attempts
to show that Atlantis was not only the Garden of Eden but also the
only possible center of distribution for the various races which now
people the Old and the New World. And more than this. Not only, he
asseverates, “was it the original home of mankind but it was likewise
the focus whence have eradiated all our cereals and most useful plants
and fruits and all our domestic animals.”[467] Here, too, he claims,
many of the most valuable inventions which ever blessed our race had
their origin. In a word, if we are to believe this plausible author,
Atlantis was the home of art, science, and literature and the people
who inhabited it not only enjoyed all the peace and happiness of which
the ancient poets speak as being the lot of the privileged mortals of
the Golden Age but they were the prototypes of the gods, demi-gods, and
heroes of a later and less fortunate period.

“Nonsense,” exclaim Dr. Warren, Count Saporta, and the German
astronomer, Herr Kohl. Basing their opinions on certain forced
interpretations of various ancient legends and traditions and on the
results of scientific explorations of the regions within the Arctic
Circle, these gentlemen reach the startling conclusion that the first
home of our race was in the circumpolar North.

The investigations of botanists, they remind us, declare the singular,
but as yet inexplicable fact, that “all the floral types and forms
revealed in the oldest fossils in the earth, originated in the region
of the North Pole and thence spread first over the northern and then
over the southern hemisphere, proceeding from north to south.” The
same may also be said of numerous and important representatives of the
world’s fauna. Why then, they inquire, are we not justified in placing
humanity’s birthplace where the animals and plants which serve man and
on which he subsists and which have accompanied him on his migrations
over the earth’s surface are known to have originated? “Only from
the circumpolar regions of the North,” affirms Count Saporta, “could
primitive humanity have radiated as from a center to spread into the
several continents at once and to give rise to successive emigrations
toward the south. This theory best agrees with the presumed march of
the human races.”[468]

At the North Pole of the earth, therefore, “the sacred quarter of the
world,” “the navel of the earth,” “the mesomphalos,” “the _umbilicus
orbis terrarum_,” are we to look for the long lost Eden, for the
cradle of mankind. There where the _aurora borealis_ is seen in
all its splendor, under a canopy formed by palpitating and wafting
draperies, quivering curtains and shining streamers of primatic hues of
varying intensity and matchless brilliancy our first parents spent the
first happy days of their existence and there, amid a frozen desolation
lie buried the “hearthstone of Humanity’s earliest and loveliest
home.”[469]

But the views of those who have located Paradise in “the fairie North”
have been no more satisfactory than the contentions of those who have
placed it on the elevated plateau of the Andes, or on the top of a
cloud-piercing mountain of farther India or beneath the shifting sands
of the Sahara or in the fabled Atlantis or in some mythical Hyperborean
land which has been ice bound for a million years or more. Far from
it. So fascinating, however, is the subject that men of science still
continue the quest of humanity’s original dwelling place and still
elaborate theories respecting its location that are quite as fantastic
as were those of the speculators and paradox mongers of the past. Thus,
according to Hasse, it was in Prussia on the shores of the Baltic;
Herder imagined it to have been in Cashmere; Livingstone sought it in
equatorial Africa and hoped to find it at the headwaters of the Nile,
if he could be fortunate enough to discover them. Daumer maintained
that it was in Australia whence man emigrated to America and thence, by
way of Behring’s Straits, to Asia and Europe.

The eminent anthropologist, Quaterfages de Bréau, is disposed to
consider the lofty plateau of Pamir as the original hearthstone of
mankind.[470] This is also the view of the distinguished Orientalist,
François Lenormant, whose investigations have led him to believe
that the four rivers--the Phison, the Gehon, the Tigris, and the
Euphrates--which watered Gan-Eden, or Paradise, were what are now known
as the Indus, the Oxus, the Tarin, and the Jaxartes.[471]

Here, too, curiously enough, on this “Roof of the world”; on this
“central Boss of Asia,” is the spot where the puranas locate the holy
Mount Meru, the primeval Aryan Paradise; the center, according to the
traditions of the Parsees, whence radiated the first Aryan migrations,
and one of the regions of the earth which even Mohammedan teaching has
assigned as the cradle-land of our species.[472]

From the foregoing opinions entertained by divers authors the reader
can infer how prominent a part wild conjecture, unbridled fancy, and
love of learned paradox have played in the numerous investigations
which at various times have been made with a view of determining the
geographical seat of Paradise. And, be it remembered, allusion has
been made to only a few of the opinions that have in times past been
promulgated respecting humanity’s pristine home. Nearly a hundred
different theories regarding the birthplace of our race have been
advocated at one time or another, practically all of which are now
discarded as highly fanciful or supremely ridiculous.

Must we, then, as many have done, look upon the Garden of Eden as
a religious or a philosophic myth? Has modern research--especially
research in the domain of the new science of Assyriology--done nothing
toward clearing up the mystery which has so long enveloped the site of
the Biblical Paradise, or are we forever to renounce all hope of even
an approximate solution of the great enigma? Not at all. We can still
say with the Florentine Poet, Leonardo Dati:

_Asia è la prima parte dove l’unomo,_
_Sendo innocente stava in Paradiso._

And leaving out of consideration the vagaries of certain transformists
and polygenists and the lucubrations of certain noted paradoxers like
those just referred to, it may be asserted of a truth that the general
consensus of the highest and most trustworthy authorities is agreed in
locating the cradle of humanity somewhere in that part of Asia which is
embraced by the Tigris and the Euphrates.

There would, probably, never have been much doubt about this matter,
at least on the part of Scriptural scholars, had it not been for the
imperfect geographical knowledge of early Christian writers and for the
errors that had been given currency by The Seventy in their version of
the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek. They made no mistake about
the Tigris and the Euphrates, which were well known to them, but when
it came to the Phison and the Gehon they went completely astray and
gave to these two rivers an interpretation which was accepted without
question by even the most learned Biblical exegetes for more than a
thousand years. For, in their identification of the Phison with the
Ganges and the Gehon with the Nile, they so confused all researches
respecting the actual site of the Terrestrial Paradise that it was not
until long centuries afterwards that students of the Genesiac narrative
bethought themselves of making a more serious study of the Sacred Text.

Reading carefully the second chapter of Genesis they discovered that
many had been misled by a misunderstanding of the eighth verse. There,
according to the Vulgate, it is stated that “the Lord God planted
a paradise of pleasure from _the beginning_.” But a careful
examination of the Hebrew word, _mid-quedem_, which is here
made to signify the beginning, should, they found, indicate space
rather than time. The real sense of the words above quoted should,
therefore, be: “The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden.” And
they furthermore discovered that the word _mid-quedem_ meant
_eastward_ from Palestine and not, as some had imagined, eastward
from Babylonia.[473]

The site of Eden, it now seemed clear, should be sought for eastward
of Palestine where the writer of the Genesiac narrative lived and
somewhere between the well-known rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates.
This greatly reduced the area in which the Terrestrial Paradise was
presumed to have been located. For, if the Biblical account of Eden
was to be interpreted literally, it necessarily followed that it must
have been placed somewhere in that peninsular tract of land which is
included between the Tigris and the Euphrates and which extends from
their sources--very near each other--in the highlands of Armenia to
their confluence in the lowlands of Babylonia near the Persian Gulf.

Guided by these indications of the narrative of Genesis, the learned
Benedictine, Dom Calmet, fancied that the seat of Paradise was in
the rich plateau of Armenia where even to-day are found some of the
most fertile valleys in the world. This opinion, it is avouched by
the followers of the distinguished Benedictine, is corroborated by a
popular tradition in Armenia which locates the Garden of Eden in the
oasis of Ordubad, on the right bank of the Aras.[474]

The four rivers, according to Dom Calmet’s theory, which watered
Paradise, are the Tigris and the Euphrates--whose sources are only an
hour’s journey from each other--and the Phasis and Araxes mentioned by
Pliny and Strabo. It is interesting to note that the sources of all
four of these rivers are very near one another, but it is still more
interesting to observe that the land which is watered by the Phasis and
which is supposed, according to Calmet’s theory, to be the Hevilath of
Genesis, “where gold groweth,” corresponds with the Colchis whither the
Argonauts sailed in quest of the Golden Fleece.

An objection to this theory is that it does not harmonize with the
words of Genesis which declare that the river which went out of
Paradise “is divided into four heads,” that is, into four branches. The
natural meaning of these words is that the four rivers mentioned in
the Edenic narrative had one and the same source. But each river, as
has been said, has its own distinct source. The only answer that the
defenders of the theory have been able to give is one that is warranted
by no known fact--namely that past revolutions of the earth’s surface
have materially changed the topography of the original site of the
Garden of Eden.[475]

There were many other objections to the theory which located the
Paradise of Delights at the headwaters of the Tigris and the Euphrates.
Not the least of these was the rigorous climate of the Armenian
uplands. For this reason, and for others that need not here be
specified, scholars began to consider more favorably the hypothesis
which placed the Garden of Eden somewhere in southern Babylonia. Among
the first of these was John Calvin. He identifies the Gehon and the
Phison with the Tigris and the Euphrates, in as much as he gives the
names Gehon and Phison to the two lower reaches of these rivers, which
connect the Shat-el-Arab with the Persian Gulf.[476] But Calvin’s
theory regarding the location of Paradise is at variance with the
words of the Sacred Text while his assumption of the antiquity of the
two channels which connect the Shat-el-Arab with the Persian Gulf is
completely negatived by the teachings of science respecting the recent
formation of these watercourses.

The first one who ventured to state precisely in what part of
Babylonia Eden was located was Pierre Daniel Huet, the learned bishop
of Avranches. This he did in his celebrated _Tractatus de Situ
Paradisi_, a book which had so great a vogue that it passed through
many editions and was translated into several languages. So clear to
him were the indications of the Genesiac narrative respecting the site
of Paradise that he declares “I have often marveled that interpreters
have shut their eyes to them and have worried with many and so various
conjectures which were so little in keeping with the plain words of
the Sacred Text.” As for himself he had no doubt about the site of the
Garden of Eden. He was sure he could indicate the exact spot where the
first pair lived before the fall. It was, he opined, in a bend of the
river now known as the Shat-el-Arab and at a point which, according
to Ptolemy’s map, is located in latitude 32° 39´ and in longitude 80°
10´. This, as the map drawn to illustrate his view shows, was near
Aracca--the Erech of Scripture.

Huet’s view as to the location of Paradise was essentially the same
as that of Calvin whose theory was closely followed not only by the
theologians of Louvain but also by Joseph Scaliger--the father of
modern chronology--and by other scholars innumerable. But, although
the good bishop thought he had determined the exact spot where the
first human pair first saw the light of day and, although very many
of his contemporaries seemed to share his views, it was not long
until other hypotheses were promulgated regarding the much disputed
site of humanity’s original home. Not counting, however, the fanciful
and ingenious speculations of certain authors already mentioned, the
general consensus of scholars, since the time of Dom Calmet, seems to
have favored southern Babylonia as the land in which “the Lord God
planted” the ever-mysterious, the ever-elusive Garden of Eden.

This is particularly true since investigators have had the powerful aid
of the new and all-important sciences of geology and Assyriology. They
have eliminated many fantastic notions that so long marred the works of
the most serious men of science and have shown that certain assumptions
formerly made by exegetes must now be regarded as quite impossible.
And the general trend of these two sciences has been to illumine and
corroborate the much debated statements of the second chapter of
Genesis in the most unexpected manner.

Thus, one of the oldest accounts of Creation, as given in a cuneiform
inscription discovered some decades ago by the noted Orientalist, T.
F. Pinches, “carries us directly to Babylonia. In this the creation
of the earth is but a preparation for that of the Garden which stood
eastward in Eden, in the center, it would seem of the world. The garden
was watered by a river which after fulfilling its work was parted into
‘four heads’ and flowed in four different streams. Of these two were
the great rivers of the Babylonian plain, the Tigris and the Euphrates;
the others bear names which have not yet been identified with certainty.

“The scenery, however, is entirely Babylonian. The Eden itself,
in which the garden was planted, was the plain of Babylonia. This
we know from the evidence of the cuneiform texts. It was called
by its inhabitants Edinu, a word borrowed by the Semites from the
Accado-Sumerian _edin_, ‘the (fertile) plain.’ To the East of it
lay the land of the ‘nomads,’ termed Nod in Genesis and Manda in the
inscriptions. The river which watered the Garden was the Persian Gulf,
known to the Babylonians as ‘the river,’ or more fully ‘the bitter’ or
‘salt river.’ It was regarded as the source of the four other rivers
whose ‘heads’ were the spots where they flowed into the source which at
once received and fed them.”[477]

Regarding the rivers which are mentioned in the Edenic narrative, Mr.
Sayce, the distinguished Orientalist, seems to have no doubt. Chief
among them are the Tigris and the Euphrates whose names date back to
early Accadian times. “Though it is questionable,” he writes, “whether
the names of the Pison and the Gihon have hitherto been detected on
the cuneiform monuments, it is not difficult to determine the rivers
with which they must be identified.“[478] These rivers, he endeavors
to show, must have been the Kerkhah, the Choaspes of the classical
writers, and a stream which is now represented by the Pallakopas Canal.
In the first of these two rivers he sees the Gehon of Genesis which
”compasseth the whole land of Cush,” while in the second he recognizes
the Phison which “compasseth the whole land of Havilah.”

As to the location of Eden it was, according to Accado-Sumerian
inscriptions, near the sacred city of Eridu which, some six thousand
years ago, was “the great seaport of Babylonia,” but of which nothing
now remains but “the rubbish heaps of Abu-Shahrein.” “When Eridu still
stood on the seacoast,” continues Sayce, “not only the Tigris but other
rivers also flowed into the Persian Gulf. The great salt ‘river,’ as
it was termed, received the waters of four in all at no great distance
from the walls of Eridu.”[479]

As seen from the foregoing paragraphs, Sayce like Calvin, Huet, and
many other scholars, also places the Garden of Eden in southern
Babylonia and only about twenty miles from the spot so confidently
indicated by the scholarly bishop of Avranches as the site of the
Terrestrial Paradise.

No less interesting than Sayce’s view, which is based entirely on
the teachings of Assyriology, is the conclusion arrived at by the
noted Canadian investigator, J. W. Dawson, from data supplied by the
science of geology of which he was a recognized master. With Sayce he
agrees that the Kerkhah is the Gehon of Genesis but contends that the
river Karun, instead of the Pallakopas Canal, as his English confrère
maintains, is the Phison.

We thus find, that if we place our ancient geographer [the
author of the second chapter of Genesis] where he places
himself, and suppose he refers to the Euphrates and the three
principal rivers confluent with it near its entrance into the
Persian Gulf, we obtain a clear idea of his meaning and find
that, whatever the sources of his information respecting the
antediluvian Eden, he had correct ideas of the Idinu of his own
time and of its surrounding inhabitants. According to him, the
primitive seat of man was in the south of the Babylonian plain,
in an irrigated district of great fertility and having in its
vicinity mountain tracts abounding in such mineral products as
were of use to primeval man.[480]

Curiously enough, it is near the locality designated by Huet and Sayce
and Dawson as the site of the Garden of Eden that an age-old tradition
of the Babylonian Arabs has located the Terrestrial Paradise. For
it is at Kurna at the present confluence of the Euphrates and the
Tigris, a spot noted for its beautiful and stately date palms--trees so
characteristic of southern Babylonia where its fruit has always formed
the staple food of its inhabitants--that this tradition places the
pristine home of Adam and Eve. Aside from any legends that might have
been associated with it, its lovely palm grove must have made so strong
an impression on the swarthy sons of the desert that they naturally
concluded that it could have been naught else but a beautiful vestige
of the original Garden of Eden where the first human pair enjoyed
supreme happiness during their short life of original innocence.

The great difficulty in localizing the site of the Terrestrial Paradise
has hitherto arisen from the impossibility of identifying with any
degree of certainty the rivers Gehon and Phison. Assyriologists,
however, are optimistic enough to believe that some document will
eventually be discovered among the cuneiform inscriptions still
buried beneath the ruins of ancient Babylonia that shall settle this
long controverted question to the satisfaction of the most critical
investigator.

But, in the absence of the tablet or monument which is to supply us
with the eagerly sought information respecting these two puzzling
rivers, exegetes and historians, geologists and archæologists,
Assyriologists and anthropologists still continue their quest of some
clue that may enable them to solve the riddle which has hitherto so
completely baffled every attempt at its solution.

Among the most distinguished of recent scholars who have essayed to
clear up the mystery are the German savants, E. Glaser and F. Hommel.
The former, as the result of a careful study of the geographical
indications given in the cuneiform inscriptions, arrives at a
conclusion which, so far as it respects two of the rivers named in
the Biblical account of Eden, is _toto cœlo_ different from that
of any of his predecessors in this fascinating field of inquiry. For
he insists, surprising as it may seem, that the Gehon is the Wadi
al-Rummah and the Phison the Wadi Dawasir which, in early post-glacial
times were two great rivers that, after flowing eastward through
central Arabia, became confluent with the Tigris and the Euphrates at
a point near the Persian Gulf. This was, we are told, when Arabia,
now a sun-parched desert, was a land of magnificent forests and
luxuriant vegetation; of extensive and fertile prairies watered by
frequent rains; of a temperate and equable climate--an ideal home for
a people who were yet ignorant of the arts of civilized life and whose
only shelter was abodes of the most primitive type. Glaser, however,
agrees with those of his predecessors who locate the Garden of Eden in
southern Babylonia.[481]

Professor Hommel, of Munich, goes still farther for, not content with
identifying the Gehon and the Phison with the two wadis demanded by his
learned compatriot’s novel theory, he contends that the Hiddikel of
Genesis--usually called the Tigris--was none other than the Wady Sirhan
which traverses northern Arabia and anciently emptied its waters into
the Euphrates near Kufah.[482] According to this theory, the three
Arabic rivers mentioned formerly discharged their waters into a shallow
estuary at points not far distant from one another. This estuary has
long since been replaced by the alluvial land of southern Babylonia and
through it the lower bed of the Euphrates now passes on its way to the
Persian Gulf. Like Huet, Sayce, Dawson, and Glaser, Hommel also teaches
that the Garden of Eden must be sought in the Babylonian lowland
and somewhere near the confluence of the three Arabian rivers just
mentioned with the lower Euphrates.

All these eminent exegetes and men of science--and countless others
might be named--are at one with Prince Caetani--justly esteemed for his
contributions to our knowledge of the Near East--when he declares that
the description of the Terrestrial Paradise, as given in the Sacred
Text, in no wise “alludes to an imaginary place, but, on the contrary
delineates with great precision a real and determinate locality in
western Asia. This it does not only by naming the four rivers which
arise in it but also by specifying the countries watered by them and by
giving a list of their principal products.

“It is clear that the author of the Genesiac narrative had in view a
place that was well known and that he took pains to describe it so
minutely that there could be no doubt whatever regarding the country
which he wished to indicate.”[483]

But of all the recent works which locate the site of Eden in Babylonia
none has attracted more attention or produced a profounder impression
than Professor Delitzsch’s masterly _Wo Lag das Paradies_. The
fact that its author is recognized as the most eminent of contemporary
Assyriologists and as one who has in lower Mesopotamia made a careful
and special topographical study of the region which he designates as
Gan-Eden and in which he places the Terrestrial Paradise, gives to his
interpretation of the Genesiac record respecting the Garden of Eden
an importance that no one can ignore. In his opinion the four rivers
mentioned in the second chapter of Genesis are the Euphrates, the
Tigris, and the two watercourses now known as the Shatt en-Nil, which
he maintains corresponds with the Gehon, and the Pallakopas Canal which
he identifies with the Phison. I refer the reader to the author’s work
for his reasons for arriving at these conclusions. The interesting fact
is that he agrees with the other eminent scholars above-mentioned in
placing Gan-Eden--the Hebrew name for the Garden of Eden--in Southern
Babylonia, although slightly farther northward than do some of the
other noted workers in the same field of research. According to the
interesting map, at the end of the volume, with which the learned
professor has illustrated his book, Gan-Eden occupied the tract of land
between Bagdad and Babylon. This is where the Tigris and the Euphrates
most nearly approach each other before their final confluence much
farther towards the south.[484]

Were we, then, really traversing the Garden of Eden on our way from
the city of the Caliphs to the capital of Nebuchadnezzar? Tradition
and legend, history, geology and Assyriology, as interpreted by the
most eminent scholars of our time answer in the affirmative. Needless
to say, I loved to think so. Indeed, during our entire journey through
this mysterious land which has filled so large a page in the annals of
our race, I thought of little else. Fancy was active. I needed only to
close my eyes to surrounding realities to feel that I was literally
wandering through the fragrant and mystic groves of Paradise. I was
as a music lover under the spell of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony or as
one entranced by the sublime harmonies of Wagner’s Parsifal. Oblivious
of my actual environment and indifferent, for the time being, to the
theories and hypotheses of men of science respecting the site of
the Terrestrial Paradise, I thought only of the simple narrative of
Genesis and the pictures, based upon it, which, in my early youth, my
imagination was wont to portray of the home of our first parents. I
recalled Dante’s description of the beauties of the Paradise where he
met his beloved Beatrice, from whom he had been so long separated and
where he was made

_Pure and disposed to mount unto the stars_.[485]

Yes, youthful impressions and poetic fancies embalmed in immortal
verse meant more to me than did the latest teachings of geologists and
Assyriologists with all their display of learning and cocksureness.
This was particularly true when we first caught sight of the
palm-fringed Euphrates and the sand-mantled ruins of Babylon. The
Euphrates is the one river which the great majority of serious students
have always held was, without doubt, one of the four rivers of Eden.
And Babylon, I hardly know why, I have always looked upon as being as
intimately associated with the cradle of our race as is the Euphrates.
Both of them were then to me tangible landmarks on the site of the
Terrestrial Paradise and when I read _Wo Lag das Paradies_ I could
not but hope that future researches would prove that the scholarly
Berlin Professor had at last succeeded in locating the site of
humanity’s birthplace and, in so doing, had definitively solved one of
the greatest riddles of the ages.

And as we came near to Hillah--which is supposed to have formed a part
of Babylon in the days of its greatness--and caught our first view of
its magnificent groves of date palms, I loved to fancy that they were,
as the Talmud teaches, the actual scions of those which flourished in
the “Garden of God” and which supplied food and shelter to the father
and mother of mankind.

But a more charming sight was awaiting us. It was a beautiful garden
adjoining the home where a kindly and well-to-do Arab gave us
hospitality while we visited Babylon and its vicinity. In this garden
were stately date palms, waving lazily in the soft and scented breeze,
orange and other trees laden with golden fruits, and the plantain named
the _Musa Paradisaica_[486] and countless flowers of most gorgeous
colors and most grateful fragrance. How vividly this garden recalled
the one by God “in the East of Eden planted,” of which Milton sings:

_In this pleasant soil_
_His far more pleasant Garden God ordain’d;_
_Out of the fertile ground he caused to grow_
_All trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste._

And how a favored nook, distinguished by a riot of flowers, caused this
fair garden to remind us still more vividly of the blissful bower where
our first parents found their happiest and most blissful home! Watered
by “many a rill” of the Edenic river which flowed gently by it,

_It was a place_
_Chosen by the sov’reign planter, when he framed_
_All things to man’s delightful use; the roof_
_Of thickest covert was inwoven shade,_
_Laurel and myrtle, and what higher grew_
_Of firm and fragrant leaf; on either side_
_Acanthus and each odorous, bushy shrub,_
_Fenced up the verdant wall, each beauteous flower,_
_Iris all hues, roses and jessamin_
_Rear’d high their flourish’d heads between and wrought
Mosaic; under foot the violet,_
_Crocus and hyacinth with rich inlay_
_Broider’d the ground, more color’d than with stone_
_Of costliest emblem._[487]

Yes, as I contemplated the stately trees and ravishing shrubs and
blooms of this lovely garden on the sweetly murmuring Euphrates, I
wished to believe that the tradition which located Paradise at or near
this spot was well founded and that I was actually gazing on some of
the floral and arboreal descendants of those which here sheltered

_Adam, the goodliest man of men since born_
_His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve._

I wished also to believe that we here saw a remnant of that spot
which was a prototype of the Garden of the Hesperides, the Elysian
Fields, the Isles of the Blessed and what was a type and figure of the
Celestial Paradise and of the home of Our Father in Heaven.

CHAPTER XVIII

BABYLON

_A labyrinth of ruins, Babylon_
_Spreads o’er the blasted plain;_
_The wandering Arab never sets his tent_
_Within her walls; the shepherd eyes afar_
_Her evil towers, and devious drives his flock._
_Alone unchanged, a free and bridgeless tide,_
_Euphrates rolls along,_
_Eternal nature’s work._
SOUTHEY.

Hillah was founded by the Arabs in the eleventh century of our era and
is said by some to occupy the southern part of the site of ancient
Babylon. Aside from its interesting legends and traditions--many
of them connected with the Tower of Babel and the famed capital of
Nebuchadnezzar--its chief attraction for us was the number and beauty
of its date palms. Some of them were, doubtless, descendants of those
noble trees which once graced the gardens and orchards of Babylon in
the meridian of her splendor and which supplied her people with an
important part of their nutriment. And, if Delitzsch’s theory regarding
the site of the Garden of Eden be true, it is reasonable to suppose
that some of the stately palms that now adorn the gardens of Hillah are
scions of trees that once raised their graceful fronds high above the
humbler plants and shrubs of the Terrestrial Paradise.

Nowhere in the world, not even in the valley of the Nile or in the
fertile oases of Algeria, will one find such magnificent groves of date
palms as one sees along the lower course of the Euphrates. On the west
bank of the Shat-el-Arab, in the humid district of Pasra, there are
more than sixty varieties of date palms while the number of trees is
estimated to run into hundreds of millions. It is, indeed, from this
region that are exported most of the dates of commerce.

But these nourishing and delicately flavored fruits are not a modern
staple of commerce. Way back in early Babylonian times “dates of
Akkad,” as they are called in cuneiform invoices of the period, were
exported in exchange for gold, sheep, and oxen. With corn and flocks
and herds they were among the principal sources of the country’s
wealth. The early Babylonian kings specially encouraged the development
of date plantations and it is related of a certain governor that he
considered the planting of palms as among the most notable achievements
of his administration.

And there was reason for attaching so much importance to the
cultivation of the palm, because it is not only “the prince of the
vegetable world,” as Humboldt declared, but also the most useful of
all known trees. For it not only supplies the oriental with one of his
chief articles of diet but also furnishes him with bread and wine, meal
and vinegar, sugar and fuel, matting and cordage, cages and baskets,
chairs, benches, beds, and other articles of household furniture and
material for the construction of the house in which he lives. So
manifold, indeed, are the uses of the date palm that Strabo informs us
that a Persian poem enumerates no fewer than three hundred and sixty
valuable properties of the palm.

We have seen how dependent the oriental is on the horse and the camel,
especially the latter. But the date palm is no less essential to his
well-being than the camel. What an incomparable blessing it is in his
eyes is evinced by an eastern saying: “The palm is the camel and the
camel the palm of the desert.” And so highly does he revere it as a
gift of God that he would regard the wanton injury of the palm tree as
nothing less than a mortal sin.

“Honor the palm,” enjoins Mohammed, “for it is your maternal aunt;
on the stony soil of the desert it offers you a fruitful source of
sustenance.” And it is to be noted that this noble tree has followed
Islam in all its conquests and is now to be found in every clime which
is favorable to its growth in which the followers of the Prophet have
made their homes. But the high estimation in which this useful tree
is universally held in the East is shown by an Arabian legend which
declares that it was from the slime that surrounded a date palm that
God formed the first man.

It is not, then, surprising that a tree that plays so important a
rôle in the life of the oriental should never be long absent from his
thoughts, especially when away from the land of his fathers. For, as
the Swiss when abroad longs for his native mountains, so does the Arab
pine for the stately palms whose feathery and umbrageous crowns are to
him synonyms of home and sweet repose.

Abd-er-Rahman I, the founder of the Ommiad Caliphate of Cordova, was
unable to endure in Spain the absence of the beautiful tree which
had been the delight of his youth. He, accordingly, had a young palm
brought from Syria and planted in the garden of his villa at Rusafah.
It was to this tree, the lovely reminder of his native land, that the
homesick Caliph addressed these pathetic verses:

_Oh, Palm, like me a stranger here,_
_An exile in the alien west,_
_Driven from home and dispossessed--_
_But, ah! thou’rt mute, nor canst thou shed a tear._

_Happy to have no sentient soul!_
_Heart-ache like mine thou canst not know;_
_Could’st thou but feel, thy tears would flow_
_In yearning love and grief, without control._

_Aye, homesick tears for eastern groves_
_That shade Euphrates; but the tree_
_Forgets; and I, compelled to flee_
_By hate, almost forget my former loves._

When one reads these impassioned verses, one recalls the touching
lines of the poet Juvenal who, in his exile in Dyene, wrote:

_Mollissima corda_
_Humano generi dare se Natura fatetur_
_Quæ lacrymas dedit; hæc nostri pars optima sensus._[488]

The words of the exiled Roman seem almost a commentary on those of the
homesick Arab.

As we were leaving Hillah for the ruins of Babylon, our attention
was arrested by a group of happy, laughter-loving children. Having
always been specially interested in the children of the Near East,
particularly in those of Anatolia and Mesopotamia, we stopped to learn
the cause of their mirth. We found them intently engaged in various
games which seemed to afford them the keenest delight. But what was our
surprise to find that the favorite games of these sunburnt children in
the immediate vicinity of the ruins of Babylon were just the same as
the games that are so popular among the boys and girls of America. And
stranger still, many of them were quite the same as I had frequently
seen played by Indian children on the plateau of the Andes and in
the wilds of Brazil. The boys played ball and marbles and leap-frog,
while the girls were equally preoccupied with tag, cat’s cradle, and
hopscotch.

It would be interesting to know if there was any Babylonian blood
in these Hillah children--they seemed to be pure Arabs--and if the
games which afforded them such exquisite pleasure were in vogue among
the young folk of Babylon in the days of Paltasar and Hammurabi. I
commend these subjects to those ardent folklorists who love to trace
the nursery tales which so delight the child of to-day back to times
primeval.[489]

Our first objective, after leaving Hillah, was the mound of Babil which
lies in the northern part of the ruins of Babylon. Most of the land
between Hillah and the ruins of the ancient world capital is desolate
in the extreme. Not a single human habitation is visible. And yet we
were traversing what was during thousands of years the richest and most
carefully cultivated tract of land in the world and the one, too, that
had the densest population. Now it is untilled and as abandoned as the
Arabian desert but a few miles to the westward. The only evidence that
we were actually on the site of a once great city were the fragments of
pottery and inscribed bricks and the heaps of rubbish which cumbered
the ground and the innumerable mounds, high and low, which covered a
region many square miles in area.

We saw nothing to remind us of the majestic ruins of Pæstum or
Girgenti; no magnificent temples, no stately columns, or impressive
pediments or friezes or entablatures. In the mounds which have not yet
been changed by the pick and spade of the explorer we could note only
occasional traces of brick walls but not the slightest vestige of stone
or marble. No remains of temples or palaces or buildings of any kind.
All the marvelous structures described by Ctesias and Herodotus had
long since disappeared beneath the drifting sands of the desert.

As one contemplates these mounds, beneath which lay the ruined palaces
and temples and strongholds of the proud Kings of Chaldea, they have,
in the words of the illustrious German explorer, Dr. Robert Koldewey,
“the appearance of a mountainous country in miniature; heights,
summits, ravines and tablelands are all here.”[490] The landscape is,
indeed, such as one might fancy to exist on the planetoid Ceres or
Vesta.

We asked an Arab who accompanied us how the potsherds and fragments
of vitrified bricks which littered the ground were brought here and
he promptly replied--“By the Deluge.” “A foolish answer,” one will
say, but it is the same answer that was given by learned men only a
few generations ago to account for the occurrence of fossils on the
summit of the Alps. And it is the same explanation that was given by
the distinguished geologist, Buckland, of the remains of early man,
which were found in many of the caverns of Europe. They were _reliquæ
Diluvianæ_--relics of the Noachian Deluge--and the majority of the
scientific men of his day were disposed to accept his conclusion as
correct. It is, then, not so long ago that savants gave answers to
questions that were quite as naïve as that of the untutored Arab of
to-day.

But the Arabs who live in the neighborhood of Babylon tell more
fantastic stories. They assure one that the ruins are haunted by evil
spirits and by malignant jinn and that it is dangerous to wander among
the ruins after nightfall.

They also declare that there is at the foot of one of the mounds here
a rocky pit, although quite invisible to mortals, in which the wicked
angels Harut and Marut were condemned by the Almighty to be suspended,
in punishment for their sins, until the day of judgment.[491]

But more remarkable is their belief in the existence hereabouts of
satyrs--creatures which are usually supposed to be creations of the
mythologies of Greece and Rome. The natives are said to hunt them with
dogs and to eat their lower half, although they decline to partake of
the upper part on account of its resemblance to the human species.

As one contemplates the utter ruin and desolation which are here so
overpowering and listens to the strange stories of the Arabs, one
recalls the words of Isaiah--I quote from the King James version:

And Babylon, the glory of the kingdoms, the beauty of the
Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and
Gomorrah.

It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from
generation to generation; neither shall the Arabian pitch tent
there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there.

But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses
shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there,
and satyrs[492] shall dance there.

Babil is one of the loftiest eminences in southern Babylonia and it is
for this reason that we visited it before any of the other parts of the
ruined Chaldean capital. From its summit, which towers seventy-one feet
above the surrounding plain, one has a magnificent view not only of the
ruins as a whole but also of many notable features in their immediate
vicinity. To the west and southwest are the palm-fringed Euphrates and
a number of Arabian villages and gardens along its banks. Several miles
southward is Hillah with its gleaming minaret, while some six miles
towards the southwest of it is the famous tower of Borsippa, called by
the natives Birs Nimrud, and long supposed by many European travelers
to be identical with the tower of Babel “the top whereof was to reach
to heaven.”[493]

The prospect that greets the vision of the spectator from Babil is
always interesting, but to the student of sacred and profane history
the word _interesting_ but feebly expresses one’s emotions. This
is particularly true when, at the hour of sunset, the long amethystine
shadows cast on the dun-colored plain, bring out into bold relief
the rich golden lines of the spell-weaving ruins of that great city
which, in her glory, ruled over the kings of the eastern world. Then
the prospect is absolutely thrilling. Then one loves to be _in media
solitudine_--such a solitude as Babylon is to-day--to watch the
magnificent sunset--a burnished-gold splendor shading up starward into
delicate rubies and emeralds--to be alone with one’s thoughts while
musing on the vanished glories of what was once earth’s proudest and
most powerful capital, where for centuries

_The gorgeous East with richest hand_
_Show’red on her Kings barbaric pearl and gold_--

but of which all we can now say is contained in the words of a Greek
comic poet, quoted by Strabo,--“the great city is a great desert.”[494]

Babil--from the old Semitic name Bab-ili--which signifies “The Gate of
the Gods,” was the ancient name of the city of Babylon. As locally used
it now designates the most northerly mound of the great city. It is,
doubtless, because of its name that many travelers have mistaken it for
the Tower of Babel spoken of in the eleventh chapter of Genesis.

Thus John Eldred, an English merchant-traveler, who, in the sixteenth
century, made three journeys from Aleppo to Bagdad--which he calls New
Babylon--speaks of seeing not only “at his goode leisure many olde
ruines of the mightie citie of Babylon” but also of having “sundry
times” visited “the olde tower of Babell.”[495] From his description,
however, one would infer that the ruin which he took for the tower of
Babel, was not the Babil of which we have been speaking but rather
the imposing ruin of Akerkuf which is a few miles to the northwest of
Bagdad, and which is locally called Nimrod’s Tower.[496]

The first European to give an elaborate description of Babil was Pietro
della Valle.

Its situation and form [he writes] correspond with that pyramid
which Strabo calls the Tower of Belus.... The height of this
mountain of ruins is not in every part equal, but exceeds the
highest palace of Naples. It is a misshapen mass, where there is
no appearance of regularity. In some places it rises in sharp
points, craggy and inaccessible; in others it is smoother and
of easier ascent. There are also traces of torrents, caused by
violent rains, from the summit to the base.[497]

The picture of this mound, which he had made by an artist who
accompanied him, gives one a very good idea of what has been considered
by many to be the Tower of Babel but which, after the noble Roman’s
visit to it, was long known as Della Valle’s Ruin.[498]

But the excavations of the “Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft” under the
direction of Dr. Koldewey have completely exploded all the theories
that have hitherto obtained regarding the mound of Babil. Far from
being the Tower of Babel, or Nimroud or Belus, as has been asserted
by many writers and travelers, it is now demonstrated to be the ruin
of one of the numerous palaces of Nebuchadnezzar. And it is highly
probable that it is the structure to which this monarch refers in one
of his inscriptions, in which he declares:

On the brick wall towards the north my heart inspired me to
build a palace for the protection of Babylon.... I raised
its summit ... with bricks and bitumen. I made it high as a
mountain. Mighty cedar trunks I laid on it for roof. Double
doors of cedar wood overlaid with copper, threshholds and hinges
made of bronze did I set up in its doorways. That building I
named “May Nebuchadnezzar live, may he grow old as the restorer
of Esagila.”[499]

There were, however, other ruins that have at various times been
identified with the Tower of Babel. Among these, as has been stated,
was that of Borsippa, commonly called Birs-Nimrud, which lies some
six miles southwest of Hillah. Benjamin of Tudela, who visited these
parts in the twelfth century, speaks of it as “the tower built by the
dispersed generation” and declares that it was struck by a heavenly
fire which “split it to the very foundation”[500]--a description that
is quite applicable to its present appearance.

The distinguished explorers Carsten Niebuhr, Claudius Rich, and Robert
Ker Porter were also of the opinion that in Birs-Nimrud “we see the
very tower of Babel, the stupendous artificial mountain erected by
Nimrod in the plain of Shinar and on which in after ages Nebuchadnezzar
raised the temple of Belus.”[501]

That the tower of Babel and that of Belus [writes Porter, in
the work just quoted from] were one and the same, I presume
there hardly exists a doubt. And that the first stupendous work
was suddenly arrested before completion we learn not only from
the Holy Scriptures but from several other ancient authors in
direct terms ... and almost every testimony agrees in stating
that the primeval tower was not only stopped in its progress but
partially overturned by the Divine wrath, attended by thunder
and lightning and a mighty wind, and that the rebellious men who
were its builders fled in horror and confusion of face before
the preternatural storm.... In this ruined and abandoned state
most likely the tower remained till Babylon was refounded by
Semiramis; who, in harmony with her character, would feel a
proud triumph in repeopling the city with a colony from the
posterity of those who had fled from it in dismay and, covering
the shattered summit of the great pile with some new erection,
would there place her observatory and altar to Bel.[502]

But the tradition which identifies the tower of Birs-Nimrud with
that of Babel, which is often spoken of as “the oldest building in
the world,” rests on no better foundation than does that which would
make Babil the tower whose progress was arrested by “the confusion of
tongues.” The researches of Assyriologists, which have thrown such a
flood of light on many Scriptural subjects, have so far been unable to
identify the Tower of Babel, or to indicate where the famous structure
was located. Neither the renown of the tower of Babil nor that of
Borsippa proves that either of them was the famous tower begun by the
ambitious descendants of Noah in the plain of Shinar, for the populace,
especially in the East, “is fickle-minded in this as in other matters
and holy fanes have the periods when they are in the fashion, just like
everything else.”[503]

Incredible as it may seem, as much ignorance long prevailed among the
learned of Europe respecting the site of the city of Babylon as about
that of the tower which was generally supposed to be located either
within its walls or in its immediate neighborhood. Writing about the
famed capital of Nebuchadnezzar at the beginning of the last century,
a learned English scholar declared, “Well indeed may the glory of this
renowned place be said to have departed when even its site cannot
with precision be ascertained and when the antiquary and the traveler
are alike bewildered amid the perplexity of their researches.”[504]
The same author expresses the same opinion in different words when he
writes of Babylon, called Babel by the Arabs, that “its vast remains
lay for ages in the depths of time as much forgotten by the learned of
Europe as if it had been a city of the antediluvians.”[505] Even the
Turkish geographer, Djihannuma, was so in the dark about the location
of the ruins of Babylon that he placed them at Teluja, nearly eighty
miles northwest of their actual site.

How great was the ignorance of Europeans during the Middle Ages
regarding the capital of the ancient world may be gathered from a
statement of Sir John Mandeville, who tells his readers that “Babylone
is in the grete desertes of Arabye, upon the waye as men gon toward the
kyndome of Caldee. But it is fulle longe sithe ony man durste neyhe
to the toure, for it is alle deserte and full of dragons and grete
serpentes and fulle deverse veneymouse bestes alle abouten.”

Even in the second part of the last century the distinguished
Orientalist, Oppert, head of the French expedition to Mesopotamia in
the years 1851 to 1854,[506] was entirely in error as to the site of
Babylon. Influenced, no doubt, by the accounts of Herodotus, Diodorus
Siculus, and other classical writers regarding the vast extent of
Babylon, he made it to embrace both Babil and Birs-Nimrud, which are
full fifteen miles apart from each other, and to include an area that
the researches of the “Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft” have demonstrated
to be preposterously large.[507]

But, in order fully to realize how greatly the size of Babylon was
exaggerated by the ancient writers and to understand how this capital
of thousands of years was able, throughout the ages, to cast so great a
spell upon the peoples of the earth, one must briefly consider some of
their statements respecting its vastness and magnificence. Only in this
way is it possible to appreciate the glamour that has so long attached
to it and to discover the reasons for the countless legends and
romances to which it has given rise since the days of Nebuchadnezzar
and Semiramis.

Of the ancient writers who have given us the most minute descriptions
of Babylon, Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus are the most deserving of
notice. As Herodotus spent some time in the city and was an eye-witness
of what he describes he is, notwithstanding the charges of credulity
and exaggeration which have frequently been made against him in certain
of his statements, more trustworthy than are those authors who wrote
only from hearsay.

What most impressed the writers of antiquity who have given us the most
graphic descriptions of the Babylonian capital was its stupendous walls
and the vast area which the city embraced. According to Herodotus, who
is followed by Pliny, who evidently accepted the measurements of the
Greek historian, the wall which girdled this wonderful metropolis was
seventy-five feet in thickness and three hundred feet in height.

On the top, along the edges of this wall were constructed
buildings of a single chamber facing one another, leaving
between them room for a four-horse chariot to drive round. In
the circuit of the wall are a hundred gates, all of brass, with
brazen lintels and side-posts.[508]

Such a prodigious wall seems impossible, but when we remember the
Great Wall of China, which has nearly thirty times the length of that
which Herodotus says surrounded Babylon, we cannot insist that the
historian’s account is inherently improbable. But when we know that the
Babylonian wall was composed almost exclusively of sun-dried bricks
we feel compelled to doubt the writer’s measurements for the simple
reason that it was quite impossible for the material used to support
a structure of so great a height. It is true that Nebuchadnezzar,
in a notable inscription, describes his wall as “mountains high,”
but this is a bit of hyperbole in which the self-glorifying monarch
was wont frequently to indulge. His statement is quite as much of an
exaggeration as that of Diodorus Siculus,[509] who declares that
Semiramis, to whom he attributes this colossal work, employed two
million men in building the wall of Babylon and that she built it at
the rate of a furlong a day and had it completed in the space of a
single year.

The circumference of the immense wall of Babylon, according
to Herodotus, measured no less than four hundred and eighty
statia--somewhat more than fifty-three miles. Ctesias, however, makes
the circuit of the city but a trifle more than forty miles. In either
case the area enclosed by the wall was enormous and far greater than
that included within the extended walls of Paris or within those of
Nanking, which is the largest city site in China.

The city of Babylon [writes Herodotus] is an exact square, but
certain recent investigators maintain that it was in the form
of a rectangle twelve miles wide and fifteen miles long. But
whatever the form of the city, the estimates given of its area
by ancient authors have appeared to many modern scholars so
staggering that they have contended that it was an inclosed
district rather than a regular city, the streets which are said
to have led from gate to gate across the area being no more
than roads through cultivated land over which buildings were
distributed in groups and patches.[510]

Quintus Curtius asserts positively “that the enclosure contained
sufficient pasture and arable land to support the whole population
during a long siege.”[511]

If such was the case we should be forced to conclude that the
population of the city was out of all proportion to its size. The
English geographer, Rennell,[512] is disposed to allow to Babylon
during its most flourishing period a population of a million and a
quarter, but this is but a surmise, and all estimates of the number of
inhabitants in the great city are, at best, the merest conjectures.

For nearly twenty-five centuries the accounts of Ctesias, Strabo,
Herodotus, and the writers who accompanied Alexander the Great to the
East were our sole authorities respecting the size and the magnificence
of the great capital on the Euphrates. Since, however, the “Deutsche
Orient-Gesellschaft” have begun to publish the results of their
carefully conducted excavations we find that we must greatly modify
many of our views concerning the city about which there has been so
much legend and romance, and envisage it in the light of the cold,
scientific facts which have been submitted to us, as the results of
long research, by Dr. Koldewey and his scholarly associates. While many
of the descriptions of Herodotus and other early writers are found to
be accurate, it is now clear that many of their measurements require
very considerable revision. Thus, in lieu of the fifty-three miles
which Herodotus has given as the circuit of the city and the forty
miles at which Ctesias has estimated it, Dr. Koldewey finds that these
figures must be reduced to eleven miles. The learned investigator
noting that the circumference given by Ctesias approximates closely to
four times the correct measurement is lead to suspect that the Greek
writer “mistook the figures representing the whole circumference for
the measure of one side of the square.”[513]

The excavations of the “Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft” seem, therefore,
to prove conclusively that Babylon, far from covering an area so
large that both Paris and London could find place within it, side by
side, was in reality, as Delitzsch declares, no larger than Munich or
Dresden.[514]

But in spite of the great reduction that Koldewey found himself
compelled to make in the measurements of the classical writers he
does not hesitate to declare “that, in any case, the city, even in
circumference, was the greatest of any in the ancient East, Nineveh,
which in other respects rivalled Babylon, not excepted.” He also
pertinently observes that “it must always be remembered that an
ancient city was primarily a fortress of which the inhabited part
was surrounded and protected by the encircling girdle of the walls.
Our modern cities are of an entirely different character; they are
inhabited spaces open on all sides. A reasonable comparison can,
therefore, only be made between Babylon and other walled cities and,
when compared with them, Babylon takes the first place, as regards the
extent of its enclosed and inhabited area, not only for ancient but
also for modern times.”[515]

After spending some time on and round about the mound of Babil we
proceeded to explore the ruins in the southern part of the city. On our
way thither we strolled along the east bank of the Euphrates which, in
places, is fringed with stately palms whose feathery crowns are always
a delight to the eye. Indeed, the palm is so indispensable a feature
of an eastern landscape that no picture of a town or a river seems
complete without groves and clumps of this most picturesque of oriental
trees. I was glad to find so many of them bordering the Euphrates and
the western ruins of Babylon, as I had always imagined that they must
here, more than anywhere else, be an essential part of the environment.
But, although I was delighted to find so many of these noble trees,
it was not for them that I was then specially looking. I was seeking
rather a specimen of the weeping willow--the graceful _Salix
Babylonica_--which, in my mind, has always been associated with what
is the most pathetic threnody ever written in any language. I refer to
the plaintive elegy of the Children of Israel during their captivity
in Babylon. Seating myself under an umbrageous palm near a cluster of
delicate weeping willows, I said to myself: “This is the one place in
the world where one can best appreciate the overmastering sadness of
the homesick exiles when their captors asked them to sing the songs
of their native land.” And, taking my breviary from my pocket, I read
again and again what then seemed to me the most affecting lines ever
composed. Put yourself, in fancy, gentle reader, on the bank of the
Euphrates in sight of the ruined palace of Nebuchadnezzar and read
aloud the lamentation of the disconsolate Hebrews, as given in Psalm
137:

Upon the rivers of Babylon there we sat and wept: when we
remembered Sion:

On the willows in the midst thereof we hung up our instruments.
For there they that led us into captivity required of us the
words of songs.

And they that carried us away said: Sing ye to us a hymn of the
songs of Sion.

How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a strange land?

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten.

Let my tongue cleave to my jaws if I do not remember thee:

If I make not Jerusalem the beginning of my joy.

Is it possible to put in words a more soul-subduing “Home Sweet Home”
than this affecting _Super flumina Babylonis_ of the heart-broken
captives of Israel? But it is only when it is sung in its beautifully
rhythmic Hebrew that one can fully appreciate its depth of pathos and
exceeding beauty of expression.

Our walk from Babil southward was one of rare delight and interest. It
was through gardens and cultivated fields and attractive palm groves
which occupied the greater part of the narrow strip of fertile land
which separates the Euphrates from the great city of ruins. The methods
employed in tilling the soil here are the same as those used in the
days of the Jewish Captivity. There is the same primitive plow, the
same process of treading out and winnowing grain, the same methods of
irrigating the land as obtained when the prophets Daniel and Ezekiel
were here the teachers and the consolers of their exiled countrymen.

The width of the Euphrates varies according to the season. As the
rainfall in this subtropical land is rarely more than three inches a
year, the river is quite shallow, except when its bed is filled by the
annual flood from the mountains of Armenia. At Babylon it is rarely
more than four hundred feet wide; and during the dry season its surface
is considerably below its banks. For this reason the inhabitants from
the earliest times have, in order to irrigate their lands, had recourse
not only to canals but also to various devices for lifting water from a
lower to a higher level. Among these contrivances are the _dolab_
or chain pump, the _na’ura_ or water wheel, and the _djird_,
a huge leather bag, which, when filled with water is, by means of
a simple machine operated by an ox, lifted the desired height and
automatically emptied into the channel by which the field or garden is
irrigated. The strident notes of these various water elevators and the
accompanying songs of the native attendants are often the only sounds
that penetrate the solemn stillness which reigns amid the venerable
ruins that cover the ground from the mound of Babil on the north to the
village of Djumdjuma in the southern part of Babylon.

Herodotus tells us that in his time the Euphrates divided the city
into “two distinct portions.” But the present bed of the shifting
river is considerably to the westward of that which existed in his
day. As a result of this shifting, the western part of the city has
almost completely disappeared, for nothing of it now remains on the
right side of the present channel except slight vestiges of its once
massive walls. The same writer also tells us that the two halves of
the city were connected by a stone bridge which spanned the river near
the center of the metropolis. He attributes this feat of engineering
to Queen Nitocris, but, as there is no record of this queen, either
in Berosus or in the Babylonian inscriptions, it is probable that
Herodotus was misinformed about her existence, or that he had in
mind Queen Amuita, the Median wife of Nebuchadnezzar, who is said to
have suggested to her royal consort the construction of the famous
hanging gardens which were long ranked among the seven wonders of
the world. Diodorus,[516] however, will have it that the bridge was
due to Semiramis, to whom antiquity ascribes many other of Babylon’s
most notable works. But in spite of the determination of the ancient
historian to give the credit of this remarkable achievement to a woman,
and in spite of the denials of many modern writers that such a bridge
ever existed, or that its construction was even possible in the age in
which it is said to have been built, the “Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft”
in 1910 actually discovered incontestable remains of the much disputed
bridge and demonstrated that its construction was due not to Nitocris,
or Amuita, or Semiramis, but to the renowned Nebuchadnezzar or to his
father, Nabopolassar.

At the spot once occupied by the eastern bridgehead of this notable
structure we found ourselves on the famous Procession Street which
was long one of the most remarkable features of Babylon. This was the
street along which passed the great processions of Marduk-Merodach--the
tutelar deity of the Chaldean capital, and of Nabu-Nebe--his son. In
this respect it served the same purpose as the magnificent _Via
Sacra_, which extended from Athens to Eleusis and which was used
by the solemn Panathenaic procession which was annually held for the
celebration, in the great Elusinian temple, of the impressive mysteries
of Demeter, Iacchus, and Persephone. An inscribed brick recently found
informs us of the part Nebuchadnezzar had in the construction of the
Sacred Way of Babylon and gives us the characteristic prayer that he
addressed to his gods, which reads:

Nabu and Marduc, when you traverse these streets in joy, may
benefits for me rest upon your lips; life for distant days and
well being for the body.... May I attain eternal age.[517]

Passing eastwards along Procession Street we soon find ourselves
between the two ruins of the great temple of Merodack and of the famous
Tower of Babylon.

In the temple, according to Herodotus, there was a sitting statue of
Zeus--the name he gives to the god Merodach--all of gold. “Before the
figure stands a large golden table and the throne whereon it sits and
the base on which the throne is placed are likewise of gold”--the
weight of the gold of these divers objects aggregating eight hundred
talents.

Nebuchadnezzar, speaking of this temple, of which he calls himself
“the fosterer,” says he adorned it with the wealth of the sea and the
mountains and all conceivable valuables,--gold and silver and precious
stones. The shrine of Merodach, he declares, “I made to gleam as the
sun. The best of my cedars that I brought from Lebanon, the noble
forest, I sought out for the roofing of the chamber of his lordship,
which cedars I covered with gleaming gold. For the restoration of this
temple I make supplication every morning to Merodach, the king of the
gods, the lord of lords.” To judge from his inscriptions, it would be
difficult to find a pagan king who was more prayerful or who exhibited
greater devotion to his gods than did this proud ruler of old Babylonia.

It was in one of the sanctuaries of this temple, apparently in that
of the god Ea, lord of wisdom and life and healer of the sick--whom
the Greeks identified with Serapis--that the generals of Alexander the
Great “asked the god whether it would be better and more desirable
for Alexander,” who was then lying critically ill in a palace but a
bowshot away, “to be carried into his temple in order as a suppliant
to be cured by him. A voice issued from the god saying that he was
not to be carried into the temple but that it would be better form to
remain where he was. This answer was reported by the Companions and
soon after Alexander died as if, forsooth, this were now the better
thing.”[518]

Alexander had planned to make Babylon the capital of his world empire,
but, shortly after taking possession of the city, his meteoric career
in the prime of youthful manhood, was cut short by death, the only
invincible foe he had ever encountered. His death was the downfall of
the city whence he purposed to rule both Asia and Europe. One of his
generals, Seleucus Nicator, succeeded him as ruler of Babylonia and
soon thereafter transferred his capital from the banks of the sluggish
Euphrates[519] to a new city, Seleucia, named after himself, which
he had founded on the banks of the swift-flowing Tigris. And it was
not long after this that the great metropolis of Babylonia, which for
nearly two thousand years had been the leading capital of the ancient
world and which had so long been “the glory of the kingdoms and the
beauty of the Chaldees excellency” had literally, in the words of
Isaiah, become the habitation of the wild beasts of the desert and was
reduced to such a state of decay that, according to St. Jerome,[520]
its walls, once the marvel of the world, served only to enclose a
hunting park for the diversion of the Parthian Kings.

A furlong to the north of the temple of Merodach is the ruin of the
famous tower of Babylon, which by many has been considered identical
with the Tower of Babil. So colossal was it that the Babylonians called
it “the foundation stone of heaven and earth,” and Nebuchadnezzar,
who contributed materially towards its restoration and enlargement,
declared in an inscription that he had raised the top of the tower
“to rival heaven,” but this was a form of oriental exaggeration in
which this monarch frequently indulged. Herodotus tells us that it was
a stadium--six hundred feet “in length and breadth, upon which was
raised a second tower and on that a third, and so on up to the eighth,
above which there is a great temple.”[521] According to Strabo,[522]
this quadrangular pyramid was “five hundred feet high”--nineteen feet
higher than the great pyramid of Gizeh. As, however, the existing ruin
of the tower of Babylon has not yet been excavated it is impossible,
by actual measurements, to control the statements of ancient writers
regarding its magnitude. But, from an old inscribed tablet which has
been translated by the noted Orientalist, G. Smith, and more recently
by Father Scheil, the distinguished French Dominican, we gather that
the estimates of the Greek writers were probably excessive, for,
according to the tablet in question, the summit of the tower was only
three hundred feet above the surrounding plain.

Diodorus[523] informs us that this tower was used by the Chaldeans as
an astronomical observatory. In the thick, dust-laden atmosphere of
Babylonia, where sand storms are so frequent, such a lofty structure
would be quite a necessity for the successful observations of the
priest astronomers of Babylonia. “The greatly renowned clearness of
the Babylonian sky,” as Koldewey truly observes, “is largely a fiction
of European travelers who are rarely accustomed to observe the night
sky of Europe without the intervention of city lights.”[524] Cicero,
therefore, was quite as mistaken as modern travelers when he thought
that the broad plains of Chaldea, where the sky was visible on all
sides,[525] were specially favorable to star-gazing and the cultivation
of astronomy. Equally misled was the poet who sang of Chaldean
shepherds who

_Watched from the centre of their sleeping flocks_
_Those radiant Mercuries that seemed to move,_
_Carrying through ether, in perpetual round,_
_Decrees and resolutions of the gods;_
_And, by their aspects, signifying works_
_Of dim futurity to man revealed._

No, it was not those shepherds “in boundless solitude” who “made report
of stars,” but the Babylonian priests who, from the summits of their
zikurrats, or temple-towers, laid the foundations, broad and deep,
of the sublime science of astronomy centuries before Hipparchus and
Ptolemy began those admirable investigations which have rendered them
immortal.

All the ruins of Babylon which we had hitherto inspected had greatly
impressed us, but we did not yet have a concrete idea of the greatness
and splendor of the capital of the Babylonian Kings until we visited
that part which the Arabs still call the _Kasr_, or castle. It was
the great palace which was begun by Nabopolassar and completed by his
illustrious son, Nebuchadnezzar. By the Roman historians it was called
the Arx, by the Greeks the Acropolis. It served not only as a citadel
but also as the favored residence of the king and as the approach to
the great temple of Merodach, already referred to, which was the most
famous sanctuary in Babylonia.

Not until we saw the wonderful ruins of the Kasr, which have in great
measure been excavated, were we able to appreciate the enormous amount
of work which Dr. Koldewey and his associates have here accomplished
and the splendid contributions which they have made to the science of
Assyriology and to our knowledge respecting the greatest capital of the
ancient world.

The massiveness of the walls of the citadel--some of them more than
fifty feet in thickness--and the vastness of Nebuchadnezzar’s palace
with its countless chambers were amazing. But even more noteworthy were
the remnants of the Sacred Way, which were once adorned with scores
of life-size figures of lions made of brilliantly enameled bricks, and
the great Ishtar Gate which spanned Babylon’s _Via Sacra_, where
it entered the older city. The hundreds of bulls and dragons, in brick
relief, which cover the walls, and the delicate modeling of the figures
prove conclusively that the glyptic art of the Neo-Babylonian period
must have attained a very high degree of perfection.

Before the discovery of these wonderful works of art, Koldewey was
disposed to be quite skeptical about the traditional splendor of
Babylon, but, when he unearthed the marvels of the Sacred Way and the
Ishtar Gate, which is “the largest and most striking ruin of Babylon,”
he was compelled to admit that the fabled splendor of the city was not
without foundation.

Adjoining Ishtar Gate are what are supposed to be the remains of the
famous Hanging Gardens which antiquity classed among the Seven Wonders
of the World. But a view of the semicircular arches which are said
to have supported these gardens makes it difficult to understand why
they were called hanging--_pensiles hortus_--as described by
Quintus Curtius[526] and other ancient writers. So far as one can judge
by an inspection of the ruins now visible, this wonder of antiquity
was nothing more than an elevated garden court and far less of a
_miraculum_, as the Roman historian calls it, than is an ordinary
roof garden on one of our modern “sky-scrapers.”

In the same palace, of which the Hanging Gardens formed so conspicuous
an ornament, is shown the large throne room of the Babylonian Kings.
Speaking of this Dr. Koldewey does not hesitate to say that “it is
so clearly marked out for this purpose that no reasonable doubt can
be felt as to its having been used as their--the Kings’--principal
audience chamber.” And he furthermore adds: “If anyone should desire
to localize the scene of Belshazzar’s eventful banquet, he can surely
place it with complete accuracy in this immense room.”[527]

Among the other objects of interest among the marvelous complexus of
ruins are a huge lion of basalt, the remains of Persian and Parthian
buildings and the débris of a Greek theater which, one may believe,
was founded by Alexander the Great for the benefit of his countrymen
who, in this remote capital of the East, would have been quite loath to
forego those intellectual amusements to which they had been so devoted
in the land of their birth.

So much has our knowledge of Babylon been increased by the excavation
of one-half of the city that we hope that Dr. Koldewey and his
scholarly associates will be able to uncover the other half. Should
anything interfere with their completion of the great undertaking in
which they had already achieved such splendid results, both science and
history would suffer a loss that cannot easily be estimated.

From an examination of the ruins of Babylon, that which most impresses
one is the immense size of the city, of its walls and palaces and
temples, and that tower of Belus which “the Jews of the Old Testament
regarded as the essence of human presumption.” Compared with these
colossal ruins the remains of such celebrated cities as Delphi and
Sparta and Olympia fade almost into insignificance.

From the descriptions of the Babylonian capital left us by the writers
of antiquity, the dominant impression made on us is that of the
wealth and splendor and magnificence of this famous metropolis. This
impression is emphasized by the inscriptions of its kings, who tell us
how lavishly their palaces and temples were embellished by the rarest
woods of the East and by vast quantities of ivory and silver and gold.
Thus Asurbanipal proudly declares, “I filled Esagilla with silver and
gold and precious stones and made Ekua to shine as the constellations
in the sky.” And Nebuchadnezzar rejoices in the treasures of art and
learning which he had accumulated in his palace for “the amazement of
mankind.”

But how are these grandiloquent statements of monarchs and
historians substantiated by the investigations of the “Deutsche
Orient-Gessellschaft”? That Babylon

_Far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind_;

that, as a trade center, its activities extended from

_Indus to the Nile
Or Caspian wave or Oman’s rocky shore_,

there is no room for doubt. But from the glowing descriptions of the
Greek and Latin writers, we are also led to infer that the buildings
of the city--especially its temples and palaces--rivaled in beauty
and grandeur the imposing structures of Athens under Pericles and the
sumptuous edifices of Rome under Augustus. The discoveries, however, of
the German excavators compel us greatly to revise many of our notions
regarding the famed palm-embosomed capital on the Euphrates.

One of their most startling revelations is that, so far as their
investigations enable them to determine, hewn stone was employed “in
bulk for building,” only in the construction of the northern wall of
the Kasr, the Sacred Way, the bridge over the Euphrates and in the
arches that supported the Hanging Gardens. In this respect Babylon was
far behind Nineveh, its great Assyrian rival, where stone was a common
building material. Nearly all of its buildings, even its most lauded
temples, were composed chiefly of sun-dried bricks. Only in certain
parts of the larger temples were kiln-dried bricks employed. What a
contrast between such mud structures and the superb marble temples of
Baalbec and Palmyra, or the highly polished granite fanes of Thebes
and Abydos on the banks of the Nile! What a contrast, even, between
the mud temple of Marduk--the greatest in Babylonia--and the immense
stone Temple of the Sun erected by the Incas of Peru in their capital
of Cuzco!

The dwelling houses of Babylon, according to Herodotus, were mostly
three or four stories high. So far, however, the evidence based on
excavations goes to prove that private houses were of but a single
story. They were probably, like most of the one-story houses in
Babylonia to-day--with flat mud roofs which served as dormitories
during the intense heat of summer. Such dwellings were almost exactly
like the modern one-story adobe houses everywhere visible in New and
Old Mexico. The Mexican houses, however, have windows, while those
in Babylon had none--at least on the side facing the street. In this
respect, however, they were not unlike so many dwelling houses seen in
the Near East to-day.

As I contemplated the large mud buildings of ancient Babylon, I could
not but compare them with those of the Great Chimu, whose ruins are
now among the most remarkable remains of pre-Hispanic Peru. To look
at them one would imagine that some jinnee had picked up a section of
the Babylonian city and transported it to the far-distant shore of the
South Pacific.[528]

With the exception of the Sacred Way and a few other streets, the
thoroughfares of Babylon were unpaved. But none of them, not even the
great _Via Sacra_, although polished by long and continuous use,
exhibits any trace, as do the pavements of Pompeii, of having ever
been used for wheeled traffic. This would seem to indicate that such
traffic, even in the Neo-Babylonian period, was rare or nonexistent.

Still more surprising is the fact that the excavations, outside of some
of the larger buildings, show but few traces of a drainage system. How
so large and flourishing a city could have endured so long without one
is a mystery that remains to be solved.

In the light, then, of the German excavations, it is apparent that
Babylon, on whose splendor and magnificence the old classical writers
so loved to dilate, and concerning whose beauty and grandeur legend and
tradition have long spun such wonderful fairy tales, was a city that
was remarkable rather for the vastness of its public buildings than for
their elegance of design or beauty of execution. Even the temples and
palaces were low, squat structures with flat mud roofs and were, from
an architectural point of view, quite inferior to many caravanseries
that one may now find in various parts of the East. Such ornaments as
they possessed were evidences of barbaric richness and prodigality and
showed none of the purity of taste that so characterized the matchless
creations of Phidias and Ictinus.

But, although Babylon was, in its architectural features, a much
overrated city, it has, nevertheless, deserved well of the world and
has contributed to the advance of civilization as did few other cities
before the rise of Athens and Rome. For, as has been observed, Babylon
is “the oldest seat of earthly empire.” And “when the West was shrouded
in a darkness that neither history nor tradition can penetrate, ...
while wild beasts or naked savages roamed over the future sites of
Athens and Rome and Florence and London,”[529] Babylon was laying the
foundations of art and science, of law and literature and of that
civilization which was subsequently developed and elaborated by the
great nations of the West.

Trade and commerce and agriculture [asserts Delitzsch] were at
their prime and the sciences--geometry, mathematics, and, above
all, astronomy, had reached a degree of development which again
and again moves even the astronomers of to-day to admiration and
astonishment. Not Paris, at the outside Rome, can compete with
Babylon in respect to the influence which it exercised upon the
world throughout two thousand years.[530]

It has been the custom, time out of mind, to speak of Egypt as the
cradle of civilization. And there was reason for this. For her
venerable monuments--her pyramids and temples and obelisks and colossal
rock--sculptures--which seemed to be coeval with the dawn of history,
appear to justify the theory that our race here took its first steps
forward in its great career of material and intellectual development.
But recent investigations among the ruins along the Euphrates prove
that Babylonia is entitled to the honor which has so long been so
freely accorded to the valley of the Nile.

The proofs of this thesis are as numerous as interesting; and, so
far as inductive evidence goes, are practically conclusive. But most
of them are of so recondite a character that they can be properly
discussed only in special works bearing on the archæology and
prehistory of the two countries in question. One may, however, be
permitted to indicate a few of the more obvious reasons which have
led Orientalists to conclude that the civilization in the land of the
Pharaohs had its origin in Babylonia.

Thus, recent discoveries in Upper Egypt seem to prove beyond doubt
that there was intercourse between the two countries in prehistoric
times and that, as a result of this early communication, wheat was
first introduced from the valley of the Euphrates to that of the
Nile. Another consequence of the intercourse between the two lands
was that the Egyptians became acquainted with the Babylonian system
of irrigation--a system which had rendered the soil of Babylonia the
most productive in the then known world. Babylonian engineers, there is
reason to believe, introduced into Egypt the shadoff and the sakieh or
water wheel, both of which were Babylonian inventions, as is clearly
attested by early Assyrian bas-reliefs and by still earlier Sumerian
inscriptions.

Yet more exhaustive researches regarding the early script used in the
two countries and the relations of the language of Babylonia, which was
a Semetic tongue, to that of Egypt lead to the same conclusion as do
investigations respecting the introduction of wheat from the land of
the Euphrates, where it still grows wild, into that of the Nile, and
the identity of the irrigation machines which have been in continuous
use in both lands for thousands of years.

It may, indeed, be admitted that no one of these facts is, of itself,
sufficient to demonstrate that the culture and the engineering science
of Egypt were Babylonian in origin; but, when they are all found
to point in the same direction, the argument based on them has a
cumulative force that is quite unassailable. Dr. Sayce gives judgment
in a single sentence when he declares “it is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that the Semitic-speaking people who brought the science of
irrigation and the art of writing to the banks of the Nile came, like
the wheat they cultivated, from the Babylonian plain.”[531]

Those, however, who are interested in this fascinating theory, which
ascribes to Babylonia not only Egyptian civilization but also the
ancestors of the historical Egyptians, should read the remarkable work
on the subject by Professor Hommel--a work[532] of profound scholarship
and one which has convinced many of the most eminent Orientalists that
there can no longer be any doubt that the civilization and culture of
Egypt came originally from Babylonia.

But interesting as are the discoveries respecting the cultural
relations between the two countries in question, no notice of Babylonia
would be complete without some reference to her contributions to the
science of astronomy. Here we have more positive information than has
hitherto been available regarding the primeval intercourse between the
peoples of the Euphrates and the Nile. As one might expect, however, in
dealing with subjects carrying us back into the mists of antiquity, we
find that the question of Babylonian astronomy is one that is deeply
involved in myth and legend, but such myths and legends as help to
corroborate the findings of historians and archæologists concerning the
labors of the astronomers of old Chaldea.

Even in the question regarding the origin of astronomy, as in that
concerning the beginnings of civil engineering in Egypt, we note the
same old debate among the learned as to who were the more ancient
astronomers, the Egyptians or the Babylonians. The people of the
Nileland boasted that Hermes or Osiris was the founder of their
astronomical system, while the Chaldeans, that is the Babylonians,
claimed that the first astronomer was Belus,[533] the son of Nimrod,
who was the grandson of Noah and the reputed builder of the Tower of
Babel. This tower, often confused with the tower of Bel described by
Herodotus, was, according to Chaldean legend, the first astronomical
observatory.

It was not, however, thousands of years before the Christian era,
as certain writers would have us believe, that Chaldean astronomy
became an exact science. This was not possible and for a very simple
reason--the absence of a strict chronology to which the Chaldean
observers of the heavens did not attain until 747 B. C., when they
adopted what is known as the era of Nabonnassar. Previously there could
be no certainty regarding the calculation of time. Not, indeed, until
the first recorded eclipse, March 21, 721 B. C., was astronomy raised
to the dignity of an exact science.

In fact, during the first twenty or thirty centuries of
Mesopotamian history [writes the distinguished Belgian savant,
Franz Cumont] nothing is found but empirical observations,
intended chiefly to indicate omens, and the rudimentary
knowledge which these observations display is hardly in advance
of that of the Egyptians, the Chinese or the Aztecs.[534]

It is only during the last quarter of a century that we have been
able to determine the advances made by astronomy at different periods
of Babylonian history and we owe this knowledge almost entirely to
the persistent labors of three Jesuits, Fathers Epping, Kugler,
and Straszmaier.[535] By a long and careful study of the cuneiform
inscriptions bearing on astronomy, many of which they have deciphered,
interpreted, and published, they have, for the first time, put the
history of Babylonian astronomy on a firm, scientific basis. And they
have at the same time completely dissipated the poetical fancy of
“Chaldean shepherds discovering the causes of eclipses while watching
their flocks” and the oft repeated fable that it was Babylonian
astronomers who discovered the precession of the equinoxes--an
achievement that was due to the genius of Hipparchus of Nicæa.

Thanks, however, to the researches of the three savants named, it
must now be conceded that certain discoveries which have hitherto
been attributed to Hipparchus should be credited to the astronomers
of Babylonia. Among these were discoveries regarding the inequalities
of the lengths of the seasons, the methods of determining in advance
the phenomena of the five known planets, the duration of their synodic
revolutions, and the dates of the phases and eclipses of the moon. In a
remarkable cuneiform inscription, dated as early as 523 B. C., is given
what is practically a monthly ephemeris not only of the sun and moon
and eclipses but also the more notable phenomena of the planets. With
reason does Father Kugler consider this “the oldest known document
of the scientific astronomy of the Chaldeans.” And so greatly is he
impressed by the marvelous astronomical tables which were constructed
by the priest astronomers of Babylonia that he declares:

One does not know which to admire the more, the extraordinary
accuracy of the periods which is implied by the drawing up of
each of the columns of figures or the ingenuity with which
these old masters contrived to combine all the factors to be
considered.[536]

Recent research has also shown that some of the very accurate
calculations of lunar periods which, from the time of Ptolemy, have
been attributed to Hipparchus, should in reality be ascribed to the
astronomers of Babylonia.[537] That these ancient observers, who had
none of the instruments of precision which are now available in our
observatories, should have been able to make so exact calculations is
marvelous in the extreme.

Equally noteworthy were the discoveries of the hellenized Chaldean,
Seleucus, who proved that the movement of the tides is due to the
action of the moon and who, contrary to the view which then generally
prevailed, taught the helio-centric theory of the solar system--nearly
two thousand years before the epochal achievements of Copernicus and
Galileo.

The foregoing paragraphs clearly evince that it was the Babylonians
who laid the foundations of astronomy, and not, as Buckle, Draper, and
others would have us believe, the Arabians under the Caliphate. “The
place of honor in science, therefore,”--a place which for ages was
conceded to the Babylonians and which, through Father Epping’s studies,
has been won for them anew--“will henceforth remain to them uncontested
and incontestable.”[538]

In order, however, to have a correct idea of the far-reaching influence
of Babylonian civilization, one must know more about it than its
contribution to science, art, and literature. One must know something
about the social condition of the people and of their manners and
customs as described in their history and reflected in their laws. For
this a few words will suffice and these will be based on the wonderful
code of Hammurabi, the king who ruled over Babylonia more than two
thousand years before our era and who was the real founder of her
greatness.[539]

It is true that the great legal code which bears his name was, like
all other ancient codes, based to a great extent on precedent and on
earlier collections of laws, some of which, there is reason to believe,
antedated Hammurabi’s great compilation by more than a thousand years.
But it is because it is chiefly a codification of preëxisting laws that
the great code of the Babylonian King is so valuable and instructive.
We find that, unlike the warlike Assyrians, the Babylonians were not
only a peaceable and intelligent but also a very humane and deeply
religious people. In the words of one who has made a special study of
the history and laws of the people over whom Hammurabi bore rule for
forty-three years:

It is startling to find how much that we have thought distinctly
our own has really come down to us from that great people who
ruled the Land of the Two Streams. We need not be ashamed
of anything we can trace back so far. It is from no savage
ancestors that it descends to us. It bears the “hall mark”
not only of extreme antiquity but of sterling worth.... A
right-thinking citizen of a modern city would probably feel more
at home in ancient Babylon than in mediæval Europe.[540]

Among the laws of the great Babylonian legislator that are especially
remarkable are those which safeguard the rights and privileges of
married women. That such laws should have been enacted and enforced
more than four thousand years ago shows better than anything else the
high plane of social progress to which the Babylonians had thus early
attained. To quote from the distinguished Orientalist, L. W. King, they
“throw an interesting light on the position of the married woman in the
Babylonian community, which was not only unexampled in antiquity but
compares favorably in point of freedom and independence with her status
in many countries in modern Europe.”[541]

One of the many results of the discovery of Hammurabi’s Code was,
curiously enough, completely to demolish a favorite argument of
certain Biblical critics respecting the laws of Moses. So elaborate
a legislative code as that attributed to the Jewish lawgiver was,
they contended, quite improbable at the early date assigned to it,
and it must, therefore, have had its origin at a subsequent period
when society was more highly organized. It must, then, the critics
maintained, have been the work of the Jewish priesthood in the later
days of Israel, who, in order to give it the necessary sanction,
falsely attributed it to Moses. What then must have been their surprise
and confusion, on the appearance of Father Scheil’s translation of
Hammurabi’s Code, to find that it was more than five hundred years
older than that of Moses, and that with its two hundred and eighty-two
enactments it revealed a more elaborate social organization than that
described in the violently attacked Book of Exodus? But this is only
one of many similar surprises which the Higher Critics have found
in the monuments of Babylonia. And in proportion as the cuneiform
inscriptions continue to disclose their long-withheld secrets, so also,
we may feel sure, will they, in all essential matters, be found to
verify and corroborate the declarations of the Sacred Text.

Our last bird’s-eye view of the abomination of desolation that was
Babylon was from the highest accessible point of the great royal palace
on the Kasr. It was at the hour when the noonday sun was pouring his
irradiating beams on the scattered and crumbling ruins of temples
and palaces and citadels, which seemed to have been blasted by the
lightnings of a wrathful heaven and to be lying under a major anathema
maranatha of an offended Deity. In this accursed haunt of serpents
and scorpions,--and the Arabs add--dragons and satyrs--the earth was
absolutely verdureless. No four-footed thing trod the earth; no winged
creature circled through the air; not a tree or a shrub adorned the
brown, sun-baked mound. Where once stood the Hanging Gardens that
were the glory of an arrogant potentate and the wonder of a marveling
world; where once were gorgeous halls, with throne of ivory and gold;
where kings and nobles feasted in bejeweled robes; where loud choruses
swelled to the joyous notes of harp and cymbal and psaltery; where
brazen bacchanals drank to Bel from golden goblets looted from Salem’s
desecrated temple, there now was the silence and the vacuity and the
oblivion of the tomb. Desolation was everywhere made desolate. Of a
truth has Babylon the great, “the mother of the abominations of the
earth,” “been thrown down and shall be found no more at all.”[542]

We stood on a spot which must have been near that occupied by
Nebuchadnezzar when, in the pride of his heart, he exultantly exclaimed:

Is not this the great Babylon which I have built to be the seat
of the kingdom, by the strength of my power and in the glory of
my excellence?

And while the word was yet in the King’s mouth a voice came down
from heaven: To thee, O King Nebuchadnezzar, it is said: Thy
kingdom is taken from thee.[543]

But before this word was uttered the Prophet Jeremias, speaking with
all the detail of an eye-witness, had foretold what would be the fate
of the proud and wicked city on the Euphrates. How literally true are
his predictions, let the reader judge from the following verses:

Thus saith the Lord of hosts: That broad wall of Babylon shall
be utterly broken down, and her high gates shall be burnt with
fire, and the labors of the people shall come to nothing, and of
the nations shall go to the fire and shall perish.[544]

And Babylon shall be reduced to heaps, a dwelling place for
dragons, an astonishment and a hissing, because there is no
inhabitant.[545]

Thou shalt say: O Lord, thou has spoken against this place to
destroy it; so that there shall be neither man nor beast to
dwell therein, and that it should be desolate forever.[546]

Reading these graphic words of the inspired prophet in the presence of
the ruins of Babylon as they appear to-day, one can but exclaim with
the Royal Psalmist:

“Forever, O Lord, thy word standeth firm in heaven.”[547]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PARTIAL LIST OF THE MORE IMPORTANT WORKS
CITED IN THIS VOLUME

ABD-EL-KADER, _Rappel à l’Intelligent, Avis à l’Indifférent_
(Paris, 1858).

AINSWORTH, W. F., _Travels and Researches in Asia Minor,
Mesopotamia, Chaldea and Armenia_ (London, 1842); _Travels in
the Track of the Ten Thousand_ (London, 1844).

ANDRÆ, W., _Die Festungswerke von Assur_ (Leipsic, 1913).

ARNOLD, T. W., _The Preaching of Islam, a History of the
Propagation of the Muslim Faith_ (London, 1913).

ASSEMANI, J. S., _Biblotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana_
(Rome, 1719–1725).

AUBLÉ, ÉMILE, _Bagdad, Son Chemin de Fer, Son Importance, Son
Avenir_ (Paris, 1917).

BAICOIANU, C. I., _Le Danube, Aperçu historique, Économique et
Politique_ (Paris, 1917).

BARKER, W. B., _Lares et Penates, or Cilicia and its Governors_
(London, 1853).

BATUTA, IBN, _The Travels of_, translated by S. Lee (London,
1829).

BEATTIE, W., _The Danube_ (London, 1843).

BELL, GERTRUDE, L., _From Amurath to Amurath_ (London, 1911).

BEVAN, E. R., _The House of Seleucus_ (London, 1902).

BONOMI, J., _Nineveh and Its Palaces, The Discoveries of Botta
and Layard Applied to the Elucidation of Holy Writ_ (London,
1852).

BOOTH, A. J., _The Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual
Cuneiform Inscriptions_ (London, 1902).

BRÉHIER, L., _Le Schisme Oriental du XI Siècle_ (Paris, 1899).

BUDGE, E. A. WALLIS, _By Nile and Tigris_ (London, 1920).

BUNBURY, E. H., _A History of Ancient Geography among the Greeks
and Romans from Earliest Ages to the Fall of the Roman Empire_
(London, 1883).

BURCKHARDT, J. L., _Travels in Syria and the Holy Land_ (London,
1822).

BURTON, ISABEL, _Inner Life of Syria_ (London, 1884).

BURTON, RICHARD, _Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to
El-Medinah and Meccah_ (Boston, 1858).

CAETANI, LEONE, _Annali dell’Islam_ (Milan, 1905–1912).

CANALE, M. G., _Nuova Istoria della Repubblica di Genova, del
Suo Commercio e della Sua Letteratura dalle Origini all’Anno
1797_ (Florence, 1858).

CANDOLLE, ALPHONSE DE, _Géographie Botanique Raisonnée_ (Paris,
1885).

CASTRIES, HENRY DE, _L’Islam, Impressions et Études_ (Paris,
1912).

CHAPOT, V., _La Frontière de l’Euphrate de Pompée a la Conquête
Arabe_ (Paris, 1907).

CHATEAUBRIAND, F. DE, _Voyage en Orient_ (Brussels, 1835).

CHÉRADAME, ANDRÉ, _Le Chemin de Fer de Bagdad_ (Paris, 1915).

CLEMENTE DA FERZORIO, P., _Le Missioni dei Minori Cappuccini_,
Vol. VI (Rome, 1920).

CHESNEY, F. R., _Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition carried
on by Order of the British Government during the Years 1835,
1836 and 1837_ (London, 1868).

COX, W., _History of the House of Austria from the Foundation of
the Monarchy by Rhodolph of Hapsburg to the Death of Leopold the
Second_ (London, 1820).

CUMONT, F., _Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans_
(New York, 1912).

DAWSON, J. W., _Modern Science and Bible Lands_ (New York, 1889).

DELITZSCH, F., _Babel and Bibel_ (London, 1903); _Im Lande des
Einstigen Paradieses_ (Stuttgart, 1903); _Wo Lag das Paradies?_
(Leipsic, 1881).

DEMORGNY, G., _La Question du Danube, Histoire, Politique du
Bassin du Danube_ (Paris, 1911).

DENZINGER, H., _Enchiridion Symbolorum et Definitionum
Declarationum Quae de Rebus Fidei et Morum_
(Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1911).

DIEULAFOY, JANE PAULE, _La Perse, La Chaldée et la Susiane_
(Paris, 1887).

DJUVARA, T. J., _Cent Projets de Partage de la Turquie,
1281–1913_ (Paris, 1913).

DODD, ANNA B., _In the Palaces of the Sultan_ (New York, 1903).

DOUGHTY, C., _Travels in Arabia Deserts_ (Cambridge, 1888).

DUSCHENSNE, L., _The Churches Separated from Rome_ (New York,
1907).

DUVAL, R., _Histoire Politique, Religieuse et Littéraire
d’Édesse jusqu’à la Première Croisade_ (Paris, 1892).

DWIGHT, H. G., _Constantinople Old and New_ (New York, 1915).

ELIOT, C., _Turkey in Europe_ (London, 1908).

EPPING, J., _Astronomisches aus Babylon, oder das Wissen der
Chaldaer über den gestirnten Himmel_ (Freiburg-im-Breisgau,
1889).

EUSEBIUS OF CÆSAREA, _Ecclesiastical History_.

EVETTS, B. T., _New Light on the Bible and the Holy Land_ (New
York).

FERGUSSON, J., _History of Architecture_ (London, 1867).

FERRIMAN, Z. D., _Turkey and the Turks_ (New York, 1911).

FINLAY, G., _History of Greece from its Conquest by the Romans
to the Present Time_ (Oxford, 1877).

FORTESCUE, A., _The Orthodox Eastern Church_ (London, 1908);
_The Lesser Eastern Churches_ (London, 1913).

FREEMAN, E. A., _Historical Essays, Third Series_ (London,
1879); _The History and Conquests of the Saracens_ (London,
1877).

GARNETT, LUCY, _Turkey and the Ottomans_ (New York, 1911).

GELZER, H., _Vom Heiligen Berge und aus Makedonien_ (Leipsic,
1904).

GIBBON, E., _The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire_.

GIBBONS, H. A., _The Foundation of the Ottoman Empire_ (New
York, 1916).

GLASER, E., _Skizze der Geschichte und Geographie Arabiens von
den ältesten Zeiten bis zum Propheten Muhammed_ (Berlin, 1890).

GOBINEAU, M. A. DE, _Les Religions et les Philosophies dans
l’Asie Centrale_ (Paris, 1865).

GOLDZIHER, I., _Mohammed and Islam_ (New Haven, 1917).

HALID, HALIL, _Diary of a Turk_ (London, 1903).

HALL, H. R., _The Ancient History of the Near East from the
Earliest Times to the Battle of Salamis_ (London, 1916).

HAMMER-PURGSTALL J. DE, _Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman, depuis
son Origine jusque à nos Jours_ (Paris, 1835–1841).

HERBELOT, BARTHÉLEMY D’, _Bibliothèque Orientale_ (The Hague,
1777).

HERGENRÖTHER, J. CARDINAL, _Handbuch der Allgemeinen
Kirchengeschichte_ (Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1884).

HEUSSI, K. and MULERT, H., _Atlas zur Kirchengeschichte_
(Tübingen, 1919).

HEYD, W., _Geschichte des Levant-handels im Mitterlalter_
(Stuttgart, 1879).

HILPRECHT, H. V., _Explorations in Bible Lands During the
Nineteenth Century_ (Philadelphia, 1903).

HOGARTH, D. G., _Carchemish_ (London, 1915); _The Nearer East_
(New York, 1902).

HOMMEL, F., _Aufsätze und Abhandlungen_ (Munich, 1901); _Der
Babylonische Ursprung der ägyptischen Kultur_ (1892).

HOTTINGER, J. H., _Historia Orientalis_ (Zurich, 1660).

HOWORTH, H., _History of the Mongols_ (London, 1888).

HURGRONJE, C. SNOUCK, _Mohammedanism_ (New York, 1916).

JAMES, G., _A History of the Life of Richard Cœur-de-Lion, King
of England_ (London, 1854).

JASTROW, M., _The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria, Its
Remains, Language, History, Religion, Commerce, Law, Art, and
Literature_ (Philadelphia, 1915).

JOHNS, C. H., _Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and
Letters_ (New York, 1904).

JONQUIÉRE, VICOMTE DE LA, _Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman_ (Paris,
1914).

KINNS, S., _Graven in the Rock_ (London, 1891).

KOLDEWEY, R., _The Excavations at Babylon_ (London, 1914); _Die
Tempel von Babylon und Borsippa_ (Lepsic, 1911).

KUGLER, F., _Die Babylonische Mondrechnung_
(Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1900).

LABOURT, J., _Le Christianisme dans l’Empire Perse sous la
Dynastie Sassanide_ (224–632) (Paris, 1904).

LANE-POOLE, STANLEY, _Studies in a Mosque_ (London, 1893).

LAURENT, J. C., _Perigrinatores Medii Ævi Quatuor_ (Leipsic,
1864).

LAYARD, A. H., _Discoveries Among the Ruins of Nineveh and
Babylon, with Travels in Armenia, Kurdistan and the Desert_ (New
York, 1856).

LEHMANN-HAUPT, C. F., _Die Historische Semiramis und ihre Zeit_
(Tübingen, 1910).

LENORMANT, F., _Histoire Ancienne de l’Orient_ (Paris, 1881).

LE STRANGE, G., _Baghdad During the Abbassid Caliphate from
Contemporary Arabic and Persian Sources_ (Oxford, 1900);
_Palestine Under the Moslems_ (London, 1890).

LETHABY AND SWAINSON, _The Church of Sancta Sophia
Constantinople_ (London, 1894).

LOTI, PIERRE, _Turquie Agonisante_ (Paris, 1913).

MACDONALD, D. B., _Aspects of Islam_ (New York, 1911).

MARRACCI, LODOVICO, _Alcorani Textus Universus_ (Padua, 1698).

MARRIOTT, J. A., _The Eastern Question_ (Oxford, 1917).

MICHAUD, J. F., _The History of the Crusades_ (New York).

MICHÆLIS, A., _A Century of Archæological Discoveries_ (New
York, 1908).

MÜLLER-SIMONIS, P., AND HYVERNAT, H., _Du Caucase au Golfe
Persique a travers l’Arménie, le Kurdistan et la Mésopotamie_
(Washington, 1892).

MUTINELLI, FAVIO, _Del Commercio dei Veneziani_ (Venice, 1835).

NEUBAUER, A., _La Géographie du Talmud_ (Paris, 1868).

OHSSEN, MOURADJA D’, _Tableau Général de l’Empire Othoman_
(Paris, 1790).

OPPENHEIM, M. VON, _Vom Mittelmeer zum Persischen Golf_ (Berlin,
1900).

OPPERT, J., _Expédition Scientifique en Mésopotamie_ (Paris,
1859–1861).

PALGRAVE, W. G., _Essays on Eastern Questions_ (London, 1872);
_Personal Narrative of a Year’s Journey Through Central and
Eastern Arabia_ (London, 1869).

PERROT, G., AND CHIPPIEZ, C., _Histoire de L’Art dans
L’antiquité_ (Paris, 1884).

PINCHES, T. G., _The Old Testament in the Light of the
Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia_
(London, 1908).

POLO, MARCO, _The Book of Ser Marco Polo_, translated by H. Yule
(London, 1903).

PORTER, R. K., _Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia and Ancient
Babylonia_ (London, 1822).

RAMSAY, LADY, _Everyday Life in Turkey_ (London, 1897).

RAMSAY, W. M., _Impressions of Turkey During Twelve Years’
Wanderings_ (London, 1897); _The Historical Geography of Asia
Minor_ (London, 1890).

RASSAM, HORMUZD, _Asshur and the Land of Nimrod_ (New York,
1897).

RAWLINSON, G., _The Five Great Monarchies_ (New York, 1881).

RECLUS, ÉLISÉE, _The Earth and Its Inhabitants_ (New York, 1885).

RELAND, A., _De Religione Mohammedica_ (Utrecht, 1705).

RENNELL, J., _The Geographical System of Herodotus_ (London,
1830).

RICH, C. J., _Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan and on the
Site of Ancient Nineveh with a Journal of a Voyage down the
Tigris to Bagdad_ (London, 1836).

ROGERS, R. W., _A History of Babylonia and Assyria_ (New York,
1915).

SAYCE, A. H., _The Higher Criticism and the Verdict of
Monuments_ (London, 1894); _The Archæology of the Cuneiform
Inscriptions_ (London, 1908).

SCHLIEMANN, H., _Troy and Its Remains_ (New York, 1876); _Ilios_
(New York, 1881); _Troja_ (New York, 1883).

SCHUCHHARDT, C., _Schliemann’s Excavations and Archæological and
Historical Studies_ (London, 1891).

SILBERNAGEL, I., _Verfassung und gegenwartiger Bestand
sämtlicher Kirchen des Orients_ (Ratisbon, 1904).

SMITH, R. B., _Mohammed and Mohammedanism_ (London, 1876).

SPRENGER, A., _Das Leben und Lehre des Mohammed_ (Berlin, 1862).

ST. HILAIRE, J., BARTHÉLEMY, _Mahomet et le Coran_ (Paris, 1865).

TAVERNIER, J. B., _Voyages en Turquie, en Perse et aux Indes_
(Paris, 1679).

THEVENOT, JEAN DE, _Voyage au Levant_ (Amsterdam, 1727).

TIXERONT, L. J., _Les Origines de l’Église d’Édesse et la
Légende d’Abgar_ (Paris, 1888).

TOZER, H. F., _Highlands of Turkey_ (London, 1860).

VADAL, A., _Napoleon et Alexander, L’Alliance Russe sous le
Premier Empire_ (Paris, 1896).

VALLE, PIETRO DELLA, _Viaggi_ (Brighton, 1843).

WALPOLE, F., _The Ansayrii and the Assassins_ (London, 1851).

WHITMAN, SIDNEY, _Turkish Memories_ (London, 1914).

ZAHM, J. A., _Evolution and Dogma_ (Chicago, 1896); _Bible
Science and Faith_ (Baltimore, 1895); (H. J. Mozans) _Along the
Andes and Down the Amazon_ (New York, 1911).

_Les Missions Catholique Françaises au XIX Siècle_, publiés sous
la Direction du J. B. Piolet, Tom. I (Paris).

_Mishcat-ul-Masabih, or a Collection of the Most Authentic
Traditions Regarding the Actions and Sayings of Mohammed_,
translated from the Original Arabic by A. N. Mathews (Calcutta,
1809).

_Recueil des Historiens des Croisades_ (Paris, 1879).

_Patrologia Græca_, Migne edition (Paris, 1857–1866).

_Patrologia Latina_, Migne edition (Paris, 1844–1855).

_The Book of The Thousand and One Nights_, translated by John
Payne (London, 1884).

INDEX

“Aaron the Just,” 418

Abbasside Caliphate, the, 172

Abd-el-Kader, Algerian ruler, 249

Abd-er-Rahman I, 473

Abdul Hamid I, Sultan, 110, 159

Abdul Hamid II, Sultan, 50, 110, 268

Abgar, King, 285, 296

Abraham, Patriarch, 253, 275, 294

Abydas, Strait of, 77

Abyssinia, 312

Achilles, Ashes of, 36

Adadinari IV, 386

Adana, commercial center, 197

Aegean Sea, 90

Afium-Kara-Hissar, 122

Agamemnon, “King of Men,” 87

Agostino, Padre, 263

Aimée Dubuc de Rivery, 110

Albertus Magnus, 6

Alcæus, 105

Aleppo, 255, 263

Alexander I, of Russia, 78

Alexander the Great, 27, 46, 78, 83, 194, 217, 400

Alexandria, 289

Alfold, great central plain of Hungary, 19

Ali, first legitimate Caliph, 445

Al-Khader, 260

Allah, 237

Al-Mamun, Caliph, 420

Al-Mansur, founder of Bagdad, 409

Ameghino, Dr., 453

America, does not know or care about the truth about Turkey, 211

Ammianus Marcellinus, 297

Amru, 316

Amuita, Queen, 488

Anadoli Kavak, 45

Anathema Maran-atha, 327

Anatolia, 183
life of the Osmanlis, 121
ruins of, 106

Anatolian Railway, 99, 121, 157

Anazarbas, 199

Andrae, Dr. Walter, 379

Angel de Villarubbia, Fra, 292

Anglo-French press, hostile to Bagdad railway, 166

Antakia, 255

Anthimos VII, Œcumenical Patriarch, 336

“Antioch the Beautiful,” 218, 255, 289

Antipater, 201

“Apostle and Proto-Martyr among Women,” 172

“Apostle of the Gentiles,” St. Paul, 202

Arabian horses, 441

Arabians, life of the, 442

Arab robbers, protection against, 266

Aracca, the Erech of Scripture, 461

Aramaic language, 272

Aratus, 201

Archimedes, 201

Argonauts, 42

_Argos_, 44

Arianism, 232

Aristarchus of Samothrace, 106

Aristotle, 83

Armenian question, 208

Armenians, business ability of, 271
massacre of 1909, 205
responsible in great part for massacres, 207

Arrians, 101, 305

Artemidorus, 201

Ashbelkala, 380

Ashurnasirpal III, 380

Asia Minor, 183
great trouble of, 149
rich in natural resources, 184

Aspasia, wife of Pericles, 104

Asshur, city of, 294

“Association Laws,” 292

Assuerus, King, 353

Asur, builder of Nineveh, 345, 379

Assyrian Empire, 347

Astronomy, foundations and practice of, by Babylonians, 501

Asurbanipal, the Grand Monarch of Assyria, 353

“A Thousand Nights and a Night,” 261

Attica, 104

Attila, 23

Augustine of Hippo, 369

Augustus, Emperor, 11

Aurelian, Emperor, 217

Babil, mound of, 475, 477

Babylon, 471–508
bird’s-eye view of desolation of, 506
descriptions of, by ancient writers, 483
great wall of, 483
hanging gardens of, 282, 494
present day, 486
tower of, 491

Bagdad, 41, 260, 402–436
ancient glories of, 412
bazaars of, 432
Carmelite priests of, 403
etymological names of, 410
fall of, 425
founding of, 409
modern, 427
periodically visited by the plague, 431
population one-fourth Jewish, 432
the future of, 435
the women of, 432

Bagdad railway, 151
aim and purpose of, 168
completion of, held up by World War, 370
Germany gets concession for, 158
meeting of Czar and Kaiser in 1910 in regard to, 164
source of far-reaching political cataclysm, 169
splendidly built, 167
tunnels of the, 255

Balkan peninsula, 22
peoples of, hated one another, more than the Turks, 22

Barbarossa, Frederick, 78, 121

Barmecides, Slaughter of the, 419

Barnabas, 171

Basra, 264

Bayazid I, Sultan, 46

Bazaars of Bagdad, 432

Beaconsfield, Earl of, 63

Beames, William, 265

Bedouins, 268
life of, 442

Beirut, 310

_Beith Allah_, house of God, 235

Belgrade, 19

Belus, first astronomer, 501

Benjamin of Tudela, 414, 480

Berosus, priest of Bel, 348

Berlin, 1

Bessarion, Cardinal, 335

Bethsabee, 275

Bianca Capello, 110

Bilejik, 122

Bir, 281

Birs-Nimrud, 477

Black Forest, 5

Black Obelisk of Salmanasar II, 200

Black Sea, 30

Black Stone, worshiped by Mohammedans, 235

“Blue Mosque,” 175

Bohadin, 417

Borsippa, 480

Bosphorus, 161
plan for tunnel under, 166
proposed bridge over, 166

Bossuet of Meaux, 369

Botta, Paul Emil, 349

Bourse, the, 163

Bozanti Khan, 188

Bralia, 31

Bréau, Quaterfages de, 456

Bronze Horses of Lysippus, 58

Bruin, Cornelius de, 358

Brusa, 94

Budapest, 18

Bukcovitz, Stephen, 114

Bukharest, city of, 29

Bulgar Dagh, the, 189

Burckhardt, discovers black basaltic block, 275

Burnouf, Eugène, 362

Byron, Lord, 43

Byzantine liturgy, 313

Byzantines, 305

Byzas, son of Neptune, 67

Cæsaropapism, 326

Caetani, Prince, 466

Caliphs, triumphs of the, 281

Callicolone, 87

Calmet, Dam, the Benedictine, 459

Calycadnus, the, 191

Camels, trains of, 185

Canals,
Danube-Elbe, 34
Danube-Oder, 34
Danube-Salonica, 34
Ludwig, 33
Suez, 153

Canon law of Mohammedanism, 244

Cantacuzenos, introduces the Osmanlis into Europe, 113

Capistrau, St. John, 20

Capuchins, the, 291

Caravans, 186
kept in communication with friends by homing pigeons, 267
protection against Arab robbers, 266
trade, 264

Carchemish, the, 276, 282

Carmelite priests, of Bagdad, 403

Cassandra, 91

Castle of Simeon, 256

Catherine de Medici, 110

Catherine II, of Russia, 61, 383

Caulaincourt, French Ambassador, 79

Cerularius, Michael, 325

Chalcedon, 97

Chaldean church, 307

Champollion, Jean François, 356

Chansans de Geste, untruths in, concerning Mohammedanism, 222

Chardin, Jean, 358

Charlemagne, 10, 324

Chateaubriand, 52

Chesney, Colonel, 152

Chilat, 298

Chosroes I, 194, 281, 287

Christianity,
in relation to Mohammedanism, 247
need of change of attitude of the West toward the East, 251

Chrysopolis, the golden city, 96

Chrysostom, St. John, 71

Churches of the East, 303–340

Church of Holy Wisdom, 56

Cicero, 171

Cilician Plain, or _Cilicea Campestris_, 189
population of, 198
the Garden of Eden, 214
three decisive battles of the world fought on, 194

Citadel, at Aleppo, 273

“City of Delight,” the, 29

“City of the Blind,” the, 97

“City of the Saints,” Bagdad, 260

Cleopatra, 204

Code of Hammurabi, 345, 364, 504

Coffee, great beverage of the Moslems, 179

Coffeehouse, Oriental, 181

Columbus, 452

Comnena, Princess Anna, 72

Conquest of Constantinople, 328

Constantine IX, Emperor, 325

Constantine Paleologus, 68

Constantine Porphyrogenitus, 414

Constantine the Great, 68, 321

Constantinople, 51
people of, 65

Constanza, 37

Consul Lirius, 84

Coptic church, 312

Copts, of Egypt, 312

Corinth, 217

Cos, 105

Council of Florence, 327

Crassus, 297

Creation, one of the oldest accounts of, discovered, 462

Crescent and the Cross, 27

Crimean War, 99

Crœsus, King of Lydia, 184

Cross and the Crescent, 27

Crusaders,
castles built by, 257
in Phrygia and Lycaonia, 187
in the footsteps of the, 171
route of the, 257

Crusade, Fourth, 327
time has come for a new but different, 252

Cunaxa, battle of, 375

Cyaxares, 345

Cydnus, 203

Cydnus, the, 190

Cyrus, Bishop, 297

Cyrus the Great, 433
army of, 171

Cyrus the Younger, 281

Dacia, 26

Dacians, the, 30

Damascus, 289, 313

Damoclean sword, 331

Dandolo, Henricus, 68

Dante Alighieri, 247, 295

Danube, 4, 31

Darius, 194, 281

Darius Hystaspes, 31

“Dates of Akkad,” 472

Dati, Leonardo, 457

David, King, 275

Dawson, J. W., 463

Debora, nurse of Rebecca, 298

Deggendorf, 8

De Lesseps, and the Suez Canal, 165

Delitzsch, Friedrich, 363, 369, 448

Delta of the Nile, 317

Dervishes,
dancing or whirling, 173
howling, 96

_Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft_, 387

Devil’s Wall, 9

Diana, Temple of, 217

Diering, Professor, on the Germans, 168

Diocletian, 100

Diodorus Siculus, 201, 483

Dionysides, 201

Dioscur, Patriarch of Alexandria, 315

Disraeli, and the Suez Canal, 153

Djerabis, 282

“Doctrine of Addai,” 286

Dominican Sisters of the Presentation of Tours, 308

Dominicans of Mosul, 307

_Drang nach osten_, Trend toward the East, 155

Duke Leopold, of Austria, 10

Dunkelboden, 7

Earthquakes, 218

Eastern Churches, 303–340
reunion with the Mother Church, 334

Edessa, 284
legend connected with, 284
school of, 297

Egyptian monophysites, 312

Eldred, John, 265, 478

El Farruch, Earth-Divider, 74

Elgin, Lord, 57

Endocia, Empress, 257

Enoch, the Hermes Trismegistes of the Orientals, 284

_Entente Cordiale_, 165

Ephesus, 103

Epicureans, 201

_Ermeni Millet_, 318

Eski Bagdad, old Bagdad, 398

Eski-Shehr, 122

Etchimiadzin, monastery of, 311

Eudocea, Empress, 71

Euphrates, the, 278, 488

Eusebius of Cæsarea, 285

Eutyches, 309

Eutychianism, 309

Euxine Sea, 5, 35

Father Damien, 247

“Father of Medicine,” 105

Fatihah, first chapter of the Koran, 96

Feringees, 319

Figueroa, Don Garcia de Sylva y, 357

Fourth Crusade, 327

Fra Diavolo, 195, 196

Fragistan-Europe, 319

France, as a protector of Turkey, 160
fate of the French railway in Near East, 160
has always encouraged scientific research, 349
not willing to give recommendations to Bagdad railway project, 163
on friendly terms with Ottoman Government, 155

Franciscan friars, 262

Francis I, of France, 155

Frankish States, 328

Fra Oderic of Pordenone, 39

Galambocz, 24

Galata, 65

Galatz, 31

Garden of Eden, 214
location of, 447
motoring in the, 437
one of the oldest accounts of creation discovered, 462

Gargar, valley of, 298

Genghis Kahn, 113

Germans, determined to build Bagdad railway unaided, 166

Germany, dream of world power in the East, 155
gets concession for Bagdad railway, 158

Ghazzali, 417

Girgenti, ruins of, 475

Gisdhubar, 281

Giurgero, 29

Gladstone, William, 64

Glaser, E, 465

Glorietta of Schönbrunn, 12

Godefroy de Bouillon, 121

Golden Fleece, 44

Golden Horn, 47

Gordianus III, 297

Goths, the, 217

Gourea, Antonio de, 357

“Granary of Northern Syria,” 278

Grand Opera House, of Paris, 55

“Great Assassin,” Abdul Hamid, 159

Great Britain and the Gold Coast, 250
attitude toward Bagdad railway, 160
attitude toward Turks, 159
does not wish to know the truth about Turkey, 211
fear of protectorate over Turkey by Teutonic powers, 162
not willing to give recommendation to Bagdad railway project, 163

Great Cemetery, 96

Great Chimu, 497

“Great Idea,” 332

“Great Schism,” 325

Great Sweet Water, 48

Great Wall of China, 483

Greece, people of, in ancient days, 274

Greeks, business ability of, 271

Gregorians, 310

Gregory of Nyssa, 369

Grotefend, Georg Friederich, 360

Hadj, annual pilgrimage to Mecca, 244

Haidar Pasha, military hospital, 98

Hainburg, 14

Halicarnasus, 217

Halil Halid, the Anatolian, 210

Hamme, Frère Lieven de, 263

Hammurabi, Code of, 345

Hanging gardens of Babylon, 282, 494

Hannibal, 94

Haran, city of, 293

Harem, explanation of, and meaning, 126–129

_Haremlik_, 126

Harnack, Professor, 338

Harpies, 44

Harum-al-Rashid, 46, 417

Hazret, Mevlana, 175

Hebron, 275

Hedja railroad, 267

Hellespont, the Thacian, 77

Heraclius, 194, 281

Herbert, Thomas, 358

Hergenroether, Cardinal, 229

Herodotus, 281, 347, 488

Hieron, city of, 46

Higden, Ralph, the Benedictine, 449

Hillah, village of, 349, 471

Hincks, Edward, 362

Hipparchus of Nicæa, 105, 502

Hippocrates, 105

Hippodrome, in Constantinople, 58

Hissarlik, hill of, 86

Hittites, language of undecipherable as yet, 276
third great empire with Egypt and Babylonia, 275

Hogarth, David G., on the Armenian question, 208

Holy City of Jerusalem, 187

Holy Directing Synod, 331

Homer, 36, 81

Hommel, F., 465

Howling Dervishes, 96

Hudibras, 450

Huet, Pierre Daniel, 460

Hugo, Victor, on the Danube, 5

Hulagu Khan, 426

Hunyady Janos, 20

Ibrahim, 117

Iconium, now Konia, 122, 151

Iconoclasts, doctrine of, 102

Ida, 87

_Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, 81

Illock, 20

Imam, the, 236

Iman Dura, town of, 397

Imperial Museum of Constantinople, 273

Independent Church of the Monastery of Mount Sinai, 331

Indicopleustes, 450

International Commission, for regulation of traffic, 33

Io, priestess of Hera at Argos, 45

Ionia, 104

Irene, Empress, 102

Iron gate, 26

Irrigation, of Babylon, 499

Isaac, 295

Ishtar gate, 494

Islam, creed of, 227
liberal policy of, 116
not opposed to influence of foreign science, law or theology, 243
past and present, 220
“the lay religion par excellence,” 233

Island of Achilles, 36

Ismid, 100

Italy, recent campaigns in Tripoli, 250

Jacobites, 309

Jacob, Patriarch, 284

Janissaries, corps of, 114

Jappa, Gate of Jerusalem, 262

Jason, 44

Jebel Hamrin, 389

Jebel Makhul, 389

Jebel Sinjar, 300

Jelal-ed-din-Rumi, tomb of, 172

Jenghiz Khan, 216

Jerablus, 278

Jerusalem, 263

Jinn, land of the, 261

Joachim III, Œcumenical Patriarch, 334

Joan of Arc, 247

Joseph II, Emperor of Austria, 61

Joseph of Burgos, Fra, 292

Judas Iscariot, 295

Julian, the Apostate, 10

Julius Cæsar, 84

Justinian, 321

Kaaba at Mecca, the, 235

Kadi Keni, town of, 97

Kaempfer, Engelrecht, 358

Kaffa, city of, 41

Kaif, favorite pastime of the Moslems, 138

Kalah Sherghat, mound of, 378

Kalat el Gebbar, 389

Kalat Makhul, 389

Kapist, Count, 154

Katholicos, head of the Nestorian church, 306

Kelek, a trip down the Tigris on a, 370–401

Kerbela, sacred shrine of, 444

“Key of the Danube,” the, 24

Khabur, valley of, 298

Khanikin, 154

Khatti, the, 275

Kheta, the, 275

Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, 217

Kohl, J. G., 17

Koldewey, Dr. Robert, 379, 475

Konia, 151
ancient Iconium, 122
inhabitants of, 176
situation and climate of, 174

Koran, 96, 116
contains many beautiful things, 248

Kublai Khan, 40

Kufah, 466

Kurdish race, 208

Kurdistan, 306

Kutchuk Ali Uglu, 194

Kuyunjik, 365

Lane-Poole, Stanley, 243

Language of Babylonia, 500

Latin Empire in Constantinople, establishment of, 327

Latin, language of Hungary for many years, 16

_Latin Millet_, 318

Layard, Austen Henry, 350

Leah, 294

Lebanon, 313

Lebanon Range, 294

“Legend of Abgar,” 285

Lemnos, 87

Lenormant, François, 456

Leo, the Mathematician, 423

Leo XIII, Pope, 334, 338

Lesbos, 105

_Liberator of Bulgaria_, 29

Library of Asurbanipal, 354

Linschoten, John Huyghen Van, 265

Little Sister of the Poor, 248

Little Sweet Water, 48

Lloyd George, David, 64

Lombard, Peter, 449

Loti, Pierre, on the Turks, 140, 144

Louis VII, of France, 121

Lucian, the Greek Voltaire, 346

Lucullus, 297

Ludwig I, of Bavaria, 6

Ludwig Kanal, 33

Lully, Raymond, 252

Mahmud II, Sultan, 110, 156

Malabar, 310

Malik al-Ashraf, 217

Mandeville, Sir John, 378, 451, 482

Manzoni, 8

Marco Polo, 39, 304, 412

Marcus Aurelius, 14

Mardin, city of, 304

_Mare Magnum_ or _Majus_, 39

Margaret de Valdemar, Queen of Norway, Sweden and Denmark, 383

Maria Theresa, Queen, 15

Marie-Joseph, Father, 405

Mark Anthony, 204

Marmora, Sea of, 77

Maronites, 313

Marquise de Pompadour, 110

Marracci, Padre Lodovico, 221, 226

Mar Shimum, Lord Simon, 306

Mar Yohannan, 308

Mausolus, King of Caria, tomb of, 184

Mayo, M., 453

McGahan, Januarius A, 27, 28

Mecca, hadj, or annual pilgrimage to, 224

_Medak_, or story-teller, 177

Medes, the, 345

Mehemet Ali, 189

Melchites, 310

Merodach, temple of, 490

Mesopotamia, 283

Metz, Gautier de, 449

Mevlana, tomb of, 172

Meyer, Professor Wilhelm, 361

Michael Cerularius, 325

Michael Prellos, 326

Midas, King of Phrygia, 184

Moawiah, Saracen, 61

Mohammed, accomplishments of, 230
and his followers, 224
creed of, 227
erroneous notions concerning, 224
preaches monotheism, 230
reformation of his countrymen by, 229

Mohammedanism, campaign of vilification against, 225
changeless in doctrine, 242
Christianity in relation to, 247
has a reverence for our Saviour, 249
much to respect and admire in, 270
not on the wane, 240
“the lay religion par excellence,” 233
theologians comment on, 238

Mohammed II, Sultan, 57, 68, 108, 311, 321

Mohammed V, Sultan, 125

Monogamy, 125

Monophysitism, 309

Monotheism, preached by Mohammed, 230

Montague, Lady Mary Wortley, on the Turkish women, 181

Mopsuestia, city of, 197, 199

Moslems, by law not allowed to erect tombstones, 259
characteristics of, 134
creed of the, 227
forbidden tobacco, 178
great use of coffee, 179
of a deeply religious nature, 221
orthodox, do not like the dervishes, 173
piety and devotion of, 124
prayers, 237
regard paintings and statues as impious, 175
women, their place in things, 129

Mosques, the, 234

Mosul, 298, 299, 303

Mount Athos, community of, 331

Mummius, 217

Murad II, Sultan, 108

Muslin, derivation of the word, 298

Mustansiriyah College, 417

Nabonnassar, era of, 501

Nabopolassar, 345

Nahr Belikh, 293

Napoleon, 78

Nazienzus, St. Gregory, 71

Near East question, modified by the Bagdad railway, 151

Nebuchadnezzar II, 281, 397, 490

Nehi Yunus, 365

Nejef, sacred shrine of, 444

Nestor, 201

Nestorianism, 297, 305

Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, 305

Nibelungenlied, 11

Nicæa, 101

Nicene Creed, 102

Nicomedia, 101

Niebuhr, Carsten, 349, 358, 480

Nightingale, Florence, 98

Nimrod, 284

Nimrod’s tower, 478

Nimroud, general aspect of, 376
ruins of, 376

Nineveh, 341–369
built by Asur, 345
early history of, 345

“Niobe of nations,” 310

Nippur, ruins of, 364

Nisibis, 289, 296

Nitocris, Queen, 488

Nizamiyah College, 417

Noachian deluge, 351

Nod, land of, 462

Novatians, 305

Norris, Edwin, 362

“Oak of Weeping,” 298

Obbanes, 281

Œcumenical councils, 102

Œcumenical Patriarchs, 330

Olympus, 90

Omar Khayyám, 417

Opis, 400

Oppert, head of French expedition to Mesopotamia, 482

_Orientalium Dignitas Ecclesiarum_ of Pope Leo XIII, 340

Orkhan, second ruler of the Osmanlis, 95
son of Osman, 107

Orthodox churches, 320

Osman, founder of the Osmanli dynasty, 107

Osmanlis, characteristics of, 133
great sin, one of omission rather than commission, 219
plea for more tolerance to, 150

Oshœne, kingdom of, 284

Ottoman women, 49

Pæstum, ruins of, 475

Pagans, 304

Palace of the Star, 49

Paleologus, Theodore, 114

Palgrave, on Mohammedanism, 241

Palmyra, 217

Pan-Islamism, a force which Christianity must reckon with, 243
greater missionary force than ever, 244
the strengthening of, 268

Parthenon, 57

Parthian Kings, 491

Parthians, 297

Passau, 7

Patriarch of Alexandria, head of the Copts, 312

_Patriarchus Antiochenus Maronitarum_, 314

Paulinists, 305

Paul-Simon, Father, 403

Perez, Father, 403

Pergamus, kingdom of, 185

Peripatetics, 201

Persepolis, 356

Persian Gulf, 466

Persian Kings of the Achæmenian dynasty, 356

Persian satraps, 310

Persian shiites, 445

Persians, school of the, 290

Pescennius Niger, 194

Peter the Great, 331

“Peuteringian Table,” 298

Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, 232, 252

Petervarad, 20

Phanar, the Vatican of the Orthodox church, 330

Philetism, love of one’s race, 330

Photius, 71, 323

Phrygian language, 171

Pietro della Valle, 263

Pillars of Hercules, 325

Pinches, T. F., 462

Plague, in Bagdad, 431

Platonists, 201

“Plato the Divine,” 172

Pliny the Younger, 94

Polygamy, 125

_Pontus Axenus_, 39

Pool of Abraham, 291

Porter, Robert Ker, 480

Potsdam, meeting at, in 1910 of Czar and Kaiser, 164

Poverello of Assisi, 142

Pozsony, 18

_Præclara_, 335

Prayer, of the Moslems, 237

Priam, city of, 88

Primate of the Melchites, 313

Princes Islands, 99

Prophet Daniel, 375

Prophet Jonas, mound of, 352

Prophet Zephaniah, 345

Psametik, King of Egypt, 171

_Pylæ Ciliciæ_, or Cilician Gates, 188

_Pylæ-Tauri_, gate of Taurus, 189

“Queen of the East,” 194

Rachel, 294

Railway, construction of, across Mesopotamia, 152

Rameses II, the greatest of the Pharaohs, 274

Ramsay, Lady, 129

Ramsay, Sir W. M., 129

Raphael’s Madonna of San Sisto, 3

Rashid ud Din, 413

Rassam, Ormuzd, 351

Ratisbon, city of, 3

Rawlinson, Sir Henry, 361, 411

Rebecca, 294

Reign of Terror in France, 212

Rhazes, Mussulman physician, 416

_Rhenus Superbus_, 8

Rhine, river, 11

Richard Cœur de Lion, 10

Rich, Claudius James, 349, 480

Ricouard, Marie, 404

Rio de Janiero, 66

“Rite of Malabar,” 314

Robinson, Reverend Paschal, 141

Romans, road builders of antiquity, 254

Roumania, 26

Roxalana, the Muscovite, 109

Royal Art Gallery of Dresden, 3

“Royal Road,” 121, 253

_Rum Millet_, 318

Russia, attitude toward the Bagdad railway, 160
campaigns in the Transcaucasia, 250
waives all share in Bagdad railway, 164

Russian Nihilist, Armenian revolutionists inspired by, 206

Russians, 28

Safia, the Venetian, 110

St. Athanasius of Alexandria, 335

St. Augustine, 228

St. Basil’s liturgy, 340

St. Bernard, 299

St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, 315

St. Dominic, Sons of, 341

St. Ephrem, 290

St. Francis, Sons of, 142

St. George and the dragon, 24

St. Gregory Mazienzen, 333

St. Gregory the Illuminator, 310

St. Jerome, 232, 299

St. John of Chrysostom, 333

St. John of Damascus, 231

St. John of Jerusalem, Knights of, 217

St. Mary of Kanobin, 314

St. Paul, 171, 189
life and career of, 202–205

St. Peter of Alcantara, 406

St. Prosper of Aquitaine, 216

St. Simeon Stylites, 257

St. Stephen, cathedral of, 12

St. Thecla, 172

St. Theodore of Studium, 339

St. Theresa, 247

St. Thomas, church of, in Malabar, 314

St. Vincent de Paul, 247

Sainte-Thérèse, Father Bernard de, 404

Saladin, Sultan, 223
birthplace of, 393

Salmanassar I, 376

Salmanassar II, black obelisk of, 200

Salmanassar III, 386

Sammuramat, or Semiramis, 381

Samothrace, 87

San Marco, Cathedral of, 58

San Stephano, treaty of, 63

Santa Sophia, church of, 53

Sapor I, 297

Sappho, 105

Saracens, 317

Sardanapalus, 203

Sargan II, 386

Sarzec, M. Ernest de, 363

Satyrs, 476

Saulcy, M. de, 362

Schneider, Siegmund, German engineer, 166

Scholarios, George, 328

School of Edessa, 297

“School of the Persians,” 290

Schrader, Eberhard, 363

Second Council of Lyons in 1274, 327

See of Constantinople, 325

_Selamlik_, 127

Seleucia, city of, 491

Seleucia-Ctesiphon, 305

Seleucids, the, 316

Seleucus Nicator, 491

Seleucus, the Chaldean astronomer, 503

Selim I, Sultan, 108, 117

Seljuk Sultans of Rum, 172

Semiramis, 381
family and connections of, 386

“Semiramis of the North,” the, 61

Sennacherib, 375

Septimus Severus, 14, 194, 297

Serbians, against the Turks, 148

Serpent Column from Delphi, 59

Seven Sleepers, legend of the, 197

Shamsi-Adad V, 380

Simeon, castle of, 256

“Siren of the Nile,” 205

Sister of Charity, 247

Sisters of St. Francis from Lons, 292

Skobeleff, General, 28

Smith, George, 351

Sobieski, John, 13

Solyman the Magnificent, 108

Solyman Pasha, 78

Sons of St. Dominic, 303

Sons of St. Francis, 142

Sanusiyahs, the, 246

Stamboul, 48

Stanley, Dean, 337

Stoics, 201

Stone of Nebi Yunus, 352

Strabo, 201

Suez Canal, 153

Sunnites, the, 445

Syrians, the, 272

Syrian Uniates, 310

Tabriz, city of, 41

Tallyrand, 34

Tarsus, 190, 202
once the center of Greek thought and knowledge, 201

Tartars, 306

Taurus Mountains, 183

Tekrit, 392

Telloh, city of, 364

Temple of Fame, 6

Tenedos, 87

Ten Thousand Greeks, the, 171

Terrestrial Paradise, dispute as to, 447

“Testament of Leo XII,” 335

Teufelsmauer, Devil’s Wall, 9

Teutonic Powers, 162

Thaddée, Father, 403

Thapsacus, 281

Thare, 294

“The Great River” of the Jews, 282

Theodora, daughter of Cautacuzenos, 114

Theodora, Empress, 102

Theodosius II, Emperor, 257

“The Round City,” 411

“The Terrible Turk,” 148

Thévenot, Jean de, 391

“Thirty pieces of silver,” 295

Thracian Hellespont, 77

Tiglath-Pileser I, King of Assyria, 293, 386

Tigris, the, 278

Timok River, 27

Timur, 113, 216

Tobacco, use of, forbidden by Moslems, 178

Tomi, 37

Tonietti, Sig. A., 154

Tower of Babel, mound of Babil not the, 479

Trade routes of the Near East, 253

Trajan, Emperor, 298

Trampe, Herr, 168

Treaty of San Stephano, 63

Trojan War, 319

Troubadours, the, 222

Troy, glory of, immortal, 93
plain of, 88

“Turk,” applied by Osmanlis when referring to a brutal man, 112

Turks, propaganda against, 123
treatment of the women, 131

Turkey, Great Powers cannot, without trouble, treat, as pariah
nation, 213

Tyre, city of, 217

Uniate Copts, 313

Uniates, 308

Urban VIII, Pope, 404

Urfa, 284

“Uriah the Hittite,” 275

Ur of the Chaldees, 294

Vale of Bozanti, 188

Valle, Pietro della, 357, 478

Vasco da Gama, 73, 264

Venice, 58

_Via Sacra_, of Babylon, 497

Vienna, 13

Villamil, Emeterio, 453

Violet, M. H., 399

Vladimir, King of Russia, 339

Volga River, 32

Voltaire, 269
on the Koran, 225

von Bieberstein, Baron Marschall, 158

von Hammer-Purgstall, 304

von Moltke, 156

von Pressel, Wilhelm, German engineer, 166

von Siemens, Dr. George, 156

Wahabis, the, 179

Wallachians, 114

Whirling dervishes, 173

“White City” of Serbia, 21

Whitman, Sidney, on the Turks, 147

Wiseman of Westminster, 369

_Wo Lag das Paradies_, 466

Wolf of the Capitol in Rome, bronze, 59

Worship, freedom of, allowed by the Turks, 145

Xenocrates, 97

Xenophon, 46, 189, 281

Xerxes, 59, 77, 83

Yashmak, veil worn by Moslem women, 128

Zab, the, 388

Zenobia, “Queen of the East,” 194

Zeno, Emperor, 201, 297

Zeus, 45, 91

Zikr ul Aawaze, 376

Zobeide, tomb of, 440

Zoroaster, religion of, 256

FOOTNOTES:

[1] When in meditation during the solitary night, I contemplate the
waves, there arises in the bright moonlight the pretty water nymph from
the Danube, from the beautiful blue Danube.

[2] He loved to wander over unknown places and to see unknown rivers,
his curiosity lessening the fatigue.

[3] _Le Rhin_, Letter XIV.

[4] Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, IV, 294, 295.

[5] 01., III, 13–15.

[6] _The Danube_, p. 71 (by W. Beattie, London, 1843).

[7] _Cf._ _A History of the Life of Richard, Coeur de Lion, King of
England_, Vol. II, p. 419 (by G. P. James, London, 1854).

[8] Adventure XXII.

[9] _History of the House of Austria from the Foundation of the
Monarchy by Rhodolph of Hapsburgh to the Death of Leopold the Second_,
Vol. IV, pp. 440, 441 (by W. Cox, London, 1820).

[10] _Cf._ Voltaire’s _Précis du Siècle de Louis_ XV, Chap. VI
(Paris, 1828). The application to Maria Theresa of the title
_Rex_--King--instead of _Regina_--Queen--was in accordance with a
peculiar custom in Hungary which required that her signature on all
public documents should be Maria Theresa Rex.

[11] Fraser’s _Magazine_, Vol. XXII, p. 692. Another Englishman
declares: “The Latin is so common in Hungary that during my travels I
frequently heard the servants and the postillions converse and dispute
with great fluency in that language.” Cox, _op. cit._, Vol. V, p. 440.

[12] _Tour of Austria_, p. 372 (London, 1844).

[13] Another saying frequently accompanies this, to wit: _Nullum vinum,
nisi Hungaricum_--Hungarian is the only wine.

[14] Nevill Forbes, in _The Balkans, A History of Bulgaria, Servia,
Greece, Roumania, Turkey_, p. 48 (Oxford, 1915).

[15] _The Balkans_, p. 6 (Oxford, 1915).

[16] It is curious to remember that Attila’s first attack upon the
Roman Empire “was delivered at the very spot upon the Danube where the
Germanic powers in August, 1914, began their offensive. Attila directed
his armies upon the frontiers of modern Servia at the point where the
Save joins the Danube, where the city of Singidunum rose then and where
to-day Belgrade stands.” _Cf._ _Attila and the Huns_, p. 37 (by Edward
Hutton, New York, 1915).

[17] See the _Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti_, pp. 411–419 (by C. W.
Russell, London, 1858).

[18] _Cf._ _Historical Geography of Europe_, p. 70 (London, 1881).

[19] Ibid., p. 71.

[20] While I knew the honesty and truthfulness of McGahan too well
ever to question his statements regarding the cruelties of the Turks
which he so vividly described, I have never had any doubt that most of
the atrocities that so shocked the world at the time were provoked by
the people of the Balkans themselves. Serbs, Bulgars, and Greeks had
organized a systematic propaganda for the dismemberment of Macedonia
and “when those methods flagged a bomb would be thrown at, let us
say, a Turkish official by an _agent provocateur_ of one of the three
players, inevitably resulting in the necessary massacre of innocent
Turks, and an outcry in the European press.” _Cf._ Nevill Forbes, _op.
cit._ p. 66.

“The Bulgarian Atrocities,” according to another well-informed writer,
“were a clever and unscrupulous piece of diplomacy on the part of the
Russian Foreign Office and of the Pan-Slavist Committees. In May,
1876, the Bulgarian Committees at Bukharest and Odessa organized an
insurrection which broke out simultaneously in many of the large
towns of Bulgaria, accompanied by abominable atrocities on Moslems,
‘designedly committed by the insurgents as being the means best
calculated to bring on a general revolution in Bulgaria, by rendering
the position of the Christians, however peaceably inclined, so
intolerable under the indiscriminate retaliation which the governing
race were sure to attempt, as to force them in self-defence to rise.’”
W. E. D. Allen in _The Turks in Europe_, p. 166 (London, 1919).

[21] “Of all the men,” writes Forbes, “who have gained reputation as
war correspondents I regard McGahan as the most brilliant.” “He used to
be called ‘The Cossack correspondent’ because of the swiftness of his
movements. Frank Millet names him ‘Will-o’-the-wisp of war writers.’
George Augustus Sala pronounced him one of the most cosmopolitan men he
had ever met--‘a scholar, a linguist, a shrewd observer, a politician
wholly free from party prejudice, a traveler as indefatigable as
Schyler, as dashing as Barnaby, as dauntless as Stanley.’” “No man
of his age in recent years,” avers his friend, Lieutenant Greene,
“has done more to bring honor on the name of America throughout the
length and breadth of Europe and far into Asia.--I suppose that he and
Skobeleff stood at the head of their respective professions.

“Year after year the praises of this bold adventurer and vivid writer
are chanted in rude verse by the peasants of the Balkans, and every
year the anniversary of his premature death is commemorated by the
singing of a requiem mass in the cathedral at Tirnovo, the ancient
capital of Bulgaria. When he was riding among the Bulgarian villages in
war time the peasants used to crowd about and kiss his hands, hailing
him as their liberator, and there were many of the Bulgars who agitated
for the choice of this wandering writer as the head of the principality
whose creation his dispatches had done so much to establish.” _Cf._
_Famous War Correspondents_, Chap. IV (by F. L. Bullad, Boston, 1914).

[22] After Trajan had conquered the Dacians he established in the newly
acquired territory a large body of Roman colonists. But they were by no
means all of Latin blood, for they were drawn, according to Eutropius,
from all parts of the Roman Empire--_ex toto orbe romano_. Numerous
votive inscriptions found in the country show that among the colonists
besides those from Italy, were representatives from Gaul, Germany,
Dalmatia, Phrygia, Galatia, Africa, Egypt, and far-off Palmyra, But,
notwithstanding this complexity of ethnical stock, it was always those
of Latin blood and Latin speech that dominated.

[23] For an illuminating account, with a map, of this much discussed
campaign of Darius against the Scythians, see _The Geographical System
of Herodotus_, Vol. I, sec. 7, 8 (by J. Rennell, London, 1830). _Cf_.
also _The Five Great Monarchies_, Vol. III, pp. 434, 435 (by G.
Rawlinson, New York, 1881); _The History of Herodotus_, Melpomene,
87–143; E. H. Bunbury’s _A History of Ancient Geography Among the
Greeks and Romans from the earliest Ages till the Fall of the Roman
Empire_, Vol. I., pp. 202–206, 217 (London, 1883).

[24] _Cf._ _Le Danube, Aperçu historique, économique et politique_,
Chap. II (by C. I. Baicoianu, Paris, 1917).

[25] See _Encyclopædia Britannica_ (11th ed.).

[26] _Cf._ _The Orient Question_, Appendix C (by Prince
Lazarovich-Hebelianovich, New York, 1913).

[27] _Cf._ Baicoianu, _op. cit._, p. 14. See also for an illuminating
discussion of this same subject _La Question du Danube, Histoire
Politique du Bassin du Danube; Études des divers régimes applicables à
la navigation du Danube_ (by G. Demorgny, Paris, 1911).

[28] A venerable legend has it that Achilles met here the shade of
Helen of Troy whom he had loved in life, by hearsay, although he had
never seen her.

[29] These alleged appearances of Achilles and the Dioscuri, referred
to by Arrian, were evidently the lambent electrical discharges known as
St. Elmo’s Fires. They are also called corposant, Helena, and, when in
pairs, the Dioscuri--namely, Castor and Pollux.

[30] _Tristia_, Lib. III, _Elegia_, III.

[31] _Tristia_, Lib. II, _Elegia_, IX.

[32] For the various names of the Euxine or Black Sea, _cf._ _The Book
of Ser Marco Polo_, Vol. I, p. 3 (trans, by H. Yule, London, 1903);
_Cathay and The Way Thither_, Vol. II, p. 98 (printed for the Hakluyt
Society, London, 1913).

[33] So paramount from the twelfth to the fifteenth century was the
commerce of Genoa and Venice that an Italian writer does not hesitate
to declare that, “during four centuries, the Genoese and Venetians
were the arbiters of the destinies of Europe; that they alone thronged
the trade-routes of Asia and Africa; that they alone controlled
the commerce of these continents; that they alone civilized their
barbarous inhabitants and dispelled the darkness of the Middle Ages.”
_Nuova Istoria della Repubblica di Genova, del Suo Commercio e della
Sua Letteratura dalle Origini all’ Anno 1797_, Vol. I, p. 7 (by
Michel-Giuseppe Canale, Florence, 1858).

In marked contrast to this division of the commerce of the world
between Genoa and Venice, the Venetian author, Fabio Mutinelli, would
claim a mercantile monopoly for his countrymen. “To them alone,” he
writes, “are earth and sea equally open; they alone are the channel of
all the riches and the furnishers of all the world which poured into
their hands all the money which it possessed.” _Del Commercio dei
Veneziani_, p. 126 (Venice, 1835).

For interesting accounts of the Euxine trade routes during the period
in question the reader may consult with profit _Histoire du Commerce de
la Mer Noire_ (by Elie de la Primaudaie); _Le Danube_, Chap. II (by C.
I. Baicoianu, Paris, 1917); _Intercourse Between India and the Western
World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome_ (by H. G. Rawlinson,
Cambridge, England, 1916); _Travels of Marco Polo_, Vol. I, Bk. I,
Chap. IX (by Henry Yule, London, 1903). This masterly work is specially
valuable for its numerous maps indicating the routes of Marco Polo, as
well as those of the elder Polos through Asia. See also _Geschichte
des Levantehandels im Mittelalter_, Vol. II, pp. 76, 78, 158 ff. (by
Wilhelm Heyd, Stuttgart, 1879).

[34] Canto V, strophe v. Compare Byron’s graphic description of a storm
on the Euxine with that given by Ovid in which he vividly portrays the
struggling winds as they furiously rush against one another from all
points of the compass.

[35] The Sweet Waters of Asia and the Sweet Waters of Europe on the
Upper reaches of the Golden Horn are so called in contradistinction to
the salt waters of the Bosphorus.

[36] _Constantinople_, Vol. I, p. 136 (by E. A. Grosvenor, Boston,
1895).

[37] Among the Ottomans and other eastern peoples the capital of
Turkey is usually known as Stamboul, or Istamboul, a corruption of
Constantinople. It is also called Constantineh. Frequently it is
referred to as _Roma Nova_--New Rome. In the official documents
of the Greek Patriarch this name is still retained. The Slavs love to
speak of it as Tsargrad--the Castle of Cæsar. To Mohammedan poets, who
are prodigal in the epithets which they apply to it, it is the City of
Islam, the Portal of Felicity, the Gate of Happiness, the Mother of the
World.

The municipal government of Constantinople embraces all the cities and
villages fringing the Bosphorus from the Euxine to the Sea of Marmora,
including the Princes Islands. But, although the superficial extent of
the municipality--counting the water expanse of the Strait, the Golden
Horn and the northern part of the Marmora--is quite large, its actual
land area is comparatively restricted.

[38] _Voyage en Orient_, Tom. III, p. 190 (Brussels, 1835).

[39] _Through South America’s Southland_, Chap. IV (New York, 1916).

[40] For an elaborate account of Justinian’s marvelous temple see
_The Church of Sancta Sophia Constantinople_, Chaps. III, IV, XI
(by Lethaby and Swainson, London, 1894).

[41] _Annalium_, Pars V, p. 498 (by M. Glycas, Bonn).

[42] _History of Architecture_, Vol. II, p. 321 (London, 1867).

[43] Byron, “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” Canto II, Stanza 77.

[44] The name given by the Italians to the official residence of the
Grand Signor in Constantinople. The Turks use the word _Serai_,
which is derived from the Persian serai, signifying palace--a word
which is applied to any residence of Sultan. In English seraglio is
frequently, but erroneously, confused with harem.

[45] _The Eastern Question_, p. 139 _et seq._ (by J. A. R.
Marriot, Oxford, 1917). Whatever may be said regarding the genuineness
of the famous “Political Testament” of Peter the Great “there can be
no question that it accurately represented the trend and tradition of
Russian policy in the eighteenth century. Constantinople was clearly
indicated as the goal of Russian ambition. The Turks were to be driven
out of Europe by the help of Austria; a good understanding was to be
maintained with England and every effort was to be made to accelerate
the dissolution of Persia and to secure the Indian trade. Whether
inherited or not these were the principles which for nearly forty years
inspired the policy of Peter the Great’s most brilliant successor on
the Russian throne, Catherine II.” Marriot, _op. cit._, p. 138.

[46] _Cf._ _Napoleon et Alexandre Ier_, Vol. I, p. 268 (by Albert
Vadal, Paris, 1869). The famous Field Marshal von Moltke expressed
a similar opinion when he wrote, in 1846, “Rom wurde eine Weltstadt
durch seine Männer, Konstantinople durch seine Weltstellung”--Rome
was a world-city because of her men, Constantinople because of her
world location. _Gesammelte Schriften und Denkwürdigkeiten des
General-Feldmarschalls_, Tom. I, p. 165 (by Grafen Helmuth von Moltke,
Berlin, 1892). Mr. D. G. Hogarth, in his valuable work, _The Nearer
East_, declares: “No other site in the world enjoys equal advantages,
nor perhaps ever will enjoy them. For the Isthmus of Suez is beset
by deserts, and that of Panama has a climate not to be compared.
Constantinople not only has an open and most fertile environment and
easy access to the interior of both Europe and Asia, but its position
between two seas and exposure on the side of Russia gives it an almost
northern climate. Add to this a dry, sloping site, a superb harbor,
an admirable outer roadstead, easy local communication by way of the
Bosphorus and an inexhaustible water supply, and it is easy to agree
that those who founded Chalcedon but left Byzantium to others, were
indeed blind.” Pp. 240, 241 (New York, 1902).

[47] Beaconsfield boasted on his return from Berlin to England
that he had secured “peace with honor.” McGahan, the brilliant war
correspondent, declared as soon as he read the treaty, that “it was
not worth the paper on which it was written.” An English writer, forty
years later, stigmatized it as a treaty that “was concluded in a spirit
of shameless bargain, with a sublime disregard of elementary ethics
and in open contempt of the right of civilized peoples to determine
their own future. It was essentially a temporary arrangement concluded
between rival imperialist states. And it sowed the seeds of the crop of
‘Nationalist’ wars in which the Balkan peoples were to be embroiled for
the next half century.” _The Turks in Europe_, p. 179 (by W. E. D.
Allen, London, 1919).

[48] _Cent Projects de Partage de la Turquie_, 1281–1913 (by T. J.
Djuvara, Paris, 1913).

[49] The distinguished Russian scholar, Prince Eugène Nicolayevich
Trubetskoy, expresses in a single sentence the dominant idea of his
countrymen when he declares: “The possession of the Straits”--the
Bosphorus and the Dardanelles--“may become indispensable for Russia
in order to secure her daily bread; the possession of Tsargrad as the
condition of her power and importance as a State.” See his lecture
_Saint Sophia, Russians’ Hope and Calling_, p. 8 (London, 1916).

[50] “The eternal Eastern Question,” writes the historian Freeman,
“will never be settled till the Greek nation once more has its own.
We claim for that nation that whole extent of land in Europe and Asia
where the Greek race and speech is the race and speech of the Christian
population; and with that we claim for them their own ancient capital,
the city of the Constantines, the Leos, and the Basils. We claim all
this on the score of simple justice, on the score of that general
philanthropy which, when Greeks are concerned, is not ashamed of the
name of philhellenism.”

Again, he declares: “The fact that Constantinople has been and is and
ever must be the head of South-eastern Europe is a practical fact which
stares us in the face. And while this fact may, with those who look
below the surface, awaken some fears which do not lie on the surface,
allay some fears which do. Constantinople can never be the head of a
province; it must be the head of an empire. But it does not follow that
it can now be the head of an universal empire. Its annexation by a
distant power would, in all moral certainty lead to the dismemberment
of the power that annexed it.” _Historical Essays, Third Series_, pp.
376, 277 (London, 1879).

[51] _Syria, the Desert and the Sown_, p. X (by G. L. Bell, London,
1908).

[52] _Constantinople_, Vol. I, p. 403 (by E. A. Grosvenor, Boston,
1895).

[53] This tragic event is vividly pictured by the poet Shelley when in
his lyrical drama, Hellas, he sings:

_A chasm_
_As of two mountains, in the wall of Stamboul;_
_And in that ghastly breach the Islamites,_
_Like giants on the ruins of a world,_
_Stand in the light of sunrise. In the dust_
_Glimmers a kingless diadem, and one_
_Of regal part has cast himself beneath_
_The stream of war. Another proudly clad_
_In golden arms spurs a Tartarian barb_
_Into the gap, and with his iron mace_
_Directs the torrent of that tide of men._
_And seems--he is--Mohamet._

[54] According to the eminent Austrian historian, Von Hammer-Purgstall,
the city sustained, from the time of its foundation until its capture
by Mohammed II, no fewer than twenty-nine sieges. _Histoire de l’Empire
Ottoman_, Tom. II, pp. 428, 521–523 (Paris, 1835).

[55] _Op. cit._ p. 251.

According to Augier de Busbecq, the scholarly Flemish diplomat, who, in
the middle of the sixteenth century, spent eight years at the Ottoman
Court, Constantinople “is a city which nature herself has designed to
be the mistress of the world. It stands in Europe, looks upon Asia, and
is within reach by sea of Egypt and the Levant on the south and the
Black Sea and its European and Asiatic shores on the north.” _Letters_,
Vol. I, p. 123 (trans. by D. Forster, Paris, 1881).

[56] Frederic Harrison, _The Fortnightly Review_, June, 1919, pp. 840,
841.

[57] Became a Greek by ceding to the Pastor. Paradiso, XX, 57.

[58] Frederic Harrison, _The Fortnightly Review_, April, 1894, pp. 439,
440.

[59] _Cf._ the author’s _Great Inspirers_, p. 16 (New York, 1917).

[60] _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, Vol. V, Chap. LIII.

[61] _Op. cit._, Vol. VI, Chap. LXVI. “Indeed,” declares a recent
writer, “when we consider that this state--the Byzantine Empire--was
for a thousand years the defence of Europe against Asiatic invaders,
which beat back the Arabs and Seljouks, and checked for a century the
advance of the Ottomans, when at the height of their power; that during
this period it represented civilization in the midst of barbarism, and
maintained a wide commerce by land and sea; that by its missionaries
both the Russians and the South Slavonic peoples were evangelized, and
the Cyrillic alphabet invented; that to its care in preserving and
multiplying manuscripts the existence of a great part of our classical
literature is due; and finally, that it was the birthplace of Italian
painting, and that its architecture has exercised a greater power than
any other style, reaching in its effects from Spain to India; we can
hardly overestimate its influence on the world’s history.” _History
of Greece From Its Conquest by the Romans to the Present Time, B.C. 146
to A.D. 1864_, Vol. I, p. vii (by George Finlay, Oxford, 1877).

[62] Among the more distinguished Hellenists besides Lascaris and
Chrysoloras, whose labors in Italy contributed enormously towards
initiating and developing the work of the Renaissance, and who
reflected undying honor on the Greek name, must be mentioned Theodore
Gaza, Gemistus Plethon, John Argyropoulos, George of Trebizond,
Demitrius Chalcondyles, and Cardinal Bessarion--who were all, as
Hody, the noted Hellenist of Oxford, declared, “_viri nullo ævo
perituri_.”

[63] Marriott, _op. cit._, Chap. II.

[64] _Napoleon et Alexander I, L’Alliance Russe sous Le Premier
Empire_, Tom. I, p. 306 _et seq._ (by Albert Vandal, Paris, 1896).

[65] Note to “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” Canto III, strophe XCI.

[66] How different is now the condition of the Trojan plain from what
it was in ancient times! Then according to Schliemann it contained
“eleven flourishing cities, all of which were probably autonomous and
of which five coined their own money. If we consider further that
the eleven cities, besides two villages, existed here simultaneously
in classical antiquity and that one of these--the city of Ilium
itself--had at least seventy thousand inhabitants, we are astounded
and amazed how such large masses of people could have found the means
of subsistence here, whilst the inhabitants of the present seven poor
villages of the plain have the greatest difficulty in providing for
their miserable existence. And not only had these ancient cities an
abundance of food but they were also so populous and so rich that they
could carry on wars and, as their ruins prove, they could erect temples
and many other public buildings of white marble; Ilium especially must
have been ornamented with a vast number of such sumptuous edifices.”
_Troja, Results of the Latest Researches and Discoveries on the Site
of Homer’s Troy_, pp. 345, 346 (New York, 1884).

[67] “The main contention was that the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ were
a collection of songs composed at different times and of very unequal
values and that, like the _Niebelungen Lied_, they could be resolved
into shorter lays, each celebrating the deeds of individual heroes. The
more famous of these heroes, Achilles for example, like Siegfried, had,
it was maintained, their ultimate origin in mythological personages,
once worshiped as divine.” _Schliemann’s Excavations, an Archæological
and Historical Study_, p. 17 (by C. Schuchhardt, London, 1891).

[68]

_Troy--O horror!--the common grave of Europe and Asia,_
_Troy--the untimely tomb of all heroes and heroic deeds._
LXVIIIA.

[69] Herodotus. Book VII, 43.

[70] Troy, or Ilium, as the excavations of Schliemann and Dörpfeld have
shown, was destroyed and rebuilt no fewer than seven times. During the
Roman period it was known as _Ilium Novum_ and was honored as the
city of Æneas and consequently, as the parent of Rome. It was because
of this fabulous origin of the Romans that Constantine first planned to
establish the seat of empire on the plain of Troy instead of locating
it on the site occupied by Byzantium between the Bosphorus and the
Golden Horn. Fortunately he gave his preference to the spot where has
since stood the noble city which still bears his name.

_Ilium Novum_ was for a long time the seat of a bishopric, but, since
it was plundered by the Turks, in the beginning of the fourteenth
century, it has lain in ruins.

For illuminating accounts of Schliemann’s epoch-making investigations
see, besides the _Troja_ above mentioned, his _Troy and its Remains_
(New York, 1876); _Ilios, the City and Country of the Trojans_ (New
York, 1881); and Schuchhardt’s work already quoted.

Dr. Schliemann has justly been acclaimed the creator of prehistoric
Greek archæology. “He has introduced,” writes Oxford’s distinguished
Orientalist, “a new era into the study of classical antiquity, has
revolutionized our conceptions of the past, has given the impulse to
that ‘research of the spade’ which is producing such marvelous results
throughout the Orient and nowhere more than in Greece itself. The
light has broken over the peaks of Ida and the long-forgotten ages of
prehistoric Hellas and Asia Minor are lying bathed in it before us. We
now begin to know how Greece came to have the strength and will for
that mission of culture to which we of this modern world are still
indebted. We can penetrate into a past of which Greek tradition had
forgotten the very existence. By the side of one of the jade axes which
Dr. Schliemann has uncovered at Hissarlik, the _Iliad_ itself
is but a thing of yesterday. We are carried back to a time when the
empires of the Assyrians and the Hittites did not as yet exist, when
the Aryan forefathers of the Greeks had not as yet, perhaps, reached
their new home in the south, but when the rude tribes of the neolithic
age had already begun to traffic and barter, and travelling caravans
conveyed the precious stone of the Kuen-lun from one extremity of
Asia to another. Prehistoric archæology in general owes as much to
Dr. Schliemann’s discoveries as the study of Greek history and Greek
art.” Professor A. H. Sayce, in the introduction to Dr. Schliemann’s
_Troja_, pp. viii, ix.

[71] According to Suetonius and Horace both Julius Cæsar and Augustus,
like Constantine the Great, contemplated making Ilium--Troy--the
capital of the Roman Empire.

Lucan not only makes Julius visit the Ilium of his day and “each
story’d place survey”--

_Circuit exustæ nomen memorabile Trojae_--

but also has him register a solemn vow to restore Priam’s city to its
ancient state and honors--

_Restituam populos, grata vice mœnia reddent_
_Ausomidæ Phrygibus, Romanaque Pergama surgent._

So proud, indeed, were the Romans of Ilium and of their descent from
Æneas that their countrymen, under the command of Cornelius Scipio
Asiaticus, on getting their first view of the home of their forefathers
from the Trojan shore, were so moved, Virgil informs us, that they
exultingly exclaimed:

_O patria, O divom domus Ilium et incluta bello_
_Mœnia Dardanidum!_

“The dignity and power of Ilium being thus prodigiously enhanced we
must find it but natural,” observes Grote, “that the Ileans assumed
to themselves exaggerated importance as the recognized parents of all
conquering Rome.” _History of Greece_, Vol. I, p. 328.

[72] Purgatorio, XXII, 102.

[73] _Troy, Its Legend, History and Literature_, p. 122 (by S. G.
Benjamin, New York, 1916).

[74] _Highlands of Turkey_, Vol. I, p. 22 (by H. F. Tozer, London,
1869). (2) Odyssey, Vi, 51 _et seq._

[75] So impressed was Kinglake, after visiting the Trojan plain, with
the accuracy of the poet’s description of the most salient features of
the landscape that he declared: “Now I know that Homer had _passed
along here_.” _Eothen_, Chap. IV.

[76] “He who would understand the poet must visit the poet’s country.”
Regarding Homer’s birthplace an anonymous poet long ago wrote:

_Smyrna, Rhodos, Colophon, Salamis, Chios, Argos, Athenæ,_
_Orbis de patria oertat, Homere, tua._

But in whichever of these place the immortal bard was born, if in
any of them, it is quite evident to even the casual visitor to Troy
that the poet was thoroughly familiar with its environment which he
describes with such marvelous precision.

[77] _Iliad_, XI, 89, 90.

[78] Thus the distinguished geographer, Elisée Reclus, in speaking of
the Mysian Olympus, says positively: “West of the Galatian Olympus,
this is the first that has received the name of Olympus, and amongst
the fifteen or twenty other peaks so named, this has been chosen by
popular tradition as the chief abode of the gods.” _The Earth and Its
Inhabitants_. _Asia_, Vol. IV, p. 261 (New York, 1885). “This,”
declares another writer, “is ‘the Olympus crowned with snow’ up ‘whose
lofty crags the everliving gods mounted, Jove first in ascension.’”
_The Sultan and his subjects_, Vol. II, p. 226 (by R. Davey, New
York, 1897). _Cf._ also _Constantinople_, Vol. I, p. 30 (by
R. W. Walsh, London, 1836). Lady Mary Wortley Montague calls the Mysian
Olympus:

_The Parliament seat of heavenly powers._

[79] Ibid., XIV, 251–257.

[80] Ibid., XIV, 317.

[81] Mr. Gladstone, that enthusiastic student of Homer and of

“_Immortal Greece, dear land of glorious lays_,”

in his preface to Dr. Schliemann’s notable work on Mycenæ does not
hesitate to declare: “There is no preliminary bar to our entertaining
the capital question whether the tombs now unearthed and the remains
exposed to view are the tombs and remains of the great Agamemnon or his
compeers who have enjoyed through the agency of Homer such a protracted
longevity of renown.... The conjecture is that these may very well be
the tombs of Agamemnon and his company.”

Dr. Schliemann, writing on the same subject, tells us: “I have never
doubted that a King of Mycenæ, by name Agamemnon, his charioteer
Eurymedon, a princess Cassandra and their followers were treacherously
murdered either by Ægisthus at a banquet, ‘like an ox at the manger,’
as Homer says, or in the bath by Clytemnestra, as the later tragic
poets represent; and I firmly believed that the murdered persons had
been interred in the Acropolis” of Mycenæ.... “My firm faith in the
traditions made me undertake my late excavations in the Acropolis and
led to the discovery of the five tombs with their immense treasures.”
_Mycenæ; a Narrative of Researches and Discoveries at Mycenæ and
Tyryns_, pp. 334, 335 (London, 1878).

[82] Plinii _Epistulae_ No. 97. “_Nequi enim dubitabam, qualecumque
esset quod faterentur, pertinaciam certe et inflexibilem obstinationem
debere puniri._”

[83] _The Koran: Commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed_, p. I
(Philadelphia, 1870).

[84] The reason why the Ottoman whose home is on the West of the
Bosphorus desires to be buried in the cemetery of Scutaria is that
“he considers himself a stranger and a sojourner in Europe and the
Moslem of Constantinople turns his last lingering look to this Asiatic
cemetery where his remains will not be disturbed when the Giaour
regains possession of this European city, an event which he is firmly
convinced will sometime come to pass. Thus the dying Turk feels a
yearning for his native soil; like Joseph in the land of Egypt he
exacts a promise from his people that ‘they would carry his bones
hence’ and like Jacob, says ‘bury me in my grave which I have in the
land of Canaan.’” _Constantinople_, p. 13 (by R. Walsh, London,
1836).

[85] Mohammed enjoined his followers to visit graveyards frequently.
“Visit graves,” he says, for “of a verity they shall make you think
of futurity.” Again, he declares: “Whoso visiteth the graves of his
two parents every Friday, or one of the two, he shall be written a
pious child, even though he might have been in the world, before that,
disobedient to them.”

[86] The world has long admired the noble qualities of heart and
mind of Florence Nightingale but admiration for her has been greatly
enhanced by the recent publication of certain letters of hers,
previously unknown, which she wrote to one of her associates in the
care of the sick and wounded soldiers of the Crimean War. I reproduce a
part of one of which she addressed to the Mother Superior of a band of
Catholic sisters who were her collaborators in the great work of mercy
to which she devoted herself with such sublime self-abnegation:

“Your going,” she writes, “is the greatest blow I have yet had. But
God’s blessing and my love and gratitude go with you, as you well
know. You know well, too, that I shall do everything I can for the
Sisters whom you have left me. But it will not be like you. Your
wishes will be our law. And I shall try to remain in the Crimea for
their sakes as long as any of us are here. I do not presume to express
praise or gratitude to you, Reverend Mother, because it would look
as if I thought you had done the work not unto God but unto me. You
were far above me in fitness for the General Superintendency, both
in wordly talent of administration, and far more in the spiritual
qualifications which God values in a superior. The being placed over
you in our unenviable reign in the East was my misfortune and not my
fault. Dearest Reverend Mother what you have done for the work no one
can ever say. But God rewards you for it with Himself. If I thought
that your valuable health would be restored by a return home, I should
not regret it. My love and gratitude will be yours wherever you go.
I do not presume to give you any tribute but my tears.” The letter
concludes with the words, “The gratitude of the Army is yours.” Dublin
_Review_, October, 1917.

[87] Anatolia is from the Greek word 'Ανατολπ which, like the Latin
_Oriens_, signifies the eastern land, the land of sunrise. It is
the modern name of Asia Minor which the Ottomans call _Anadoli_.

[88] For an interesting account of the two œcumenical councils of Nicæa
see Hefele’s scholarly _Histoire des Conciles_, Tom. I, Livre II
and Tom. III, Livre XVIII (trans. by Dom H. Leclercq, Paris, 1910).

[89] _Cf._ _The Historical Geography of Asia Minor_, p. 93 (by W. M.
Ramsay, London, 1890).

[90] “The fate of these cities,” observes a recent traveler in
Anatolia, “is that of numerous others whose names are a part of classic
history. Everywhere throughout Asia Minor decaying ruins mark the sites
where art and culture were united with barbaric power. Everywhere
are evidences of past refinement, splendor and greatness. And over
all the prostrate columns and broken entablatures, the domed mosques
and black-green cypresses, the fertile valleys and the great desert,
the dark-visaged men and the silent, veiled women lingers the spell,
undefinable but wondrously fascinating, of Asia; the cradle of the
human race, the land of luxurious magnificence, the abode of mighty
empires that rose and crumbled long before the western world had
emerged from darkness; the birthlace, too, of subtle mysticism and of
every religion that has soothed the soul in anguish and comforted it
with hope.” _Asia Minor_, p. 317 (by W. A. Hawly, London, 1918).

[91] See the author’s _Woman in Science_, p. 12 _et seq._ (New York,
1913).

[92] _Ionia and the East_, pp. 8, 9 (by D. G. Hogarth. Oxford, 1907).
Another eminent Orientalist, H. R. Hall, expresses substantially the
same view when he tells us that “It was in Ionia that the new Greek
civilization arose; Ionia, in whom the old Ægean blood and spirit most
survived, taught the new Greece, gave her coined money and letters,
art and poesy, and her shipmen, forcing the Phœnicians from before
them, carried her new culture to what were then deemed the ends of the
earth.” _The Ancient History of the Near East from the Earliest Times
to the Battle of Salamis_, p. 79 (London, 1916).

[93] _The Story of Turkey_, p. 78 (by Stanley Lane-Poole, New York,
1888).

[94] The historian Hammer-Purgstall tells us that the ablest
generals and statesmen under the reigns of Selim and Solyman the
Magnificent--those who raised the Ottoman Empire to its acme of
prosperity--were renegades. During this period no fewer than eight
out of ten of the grand viziers were likewise apostates. “Si donc la
puissance ottomane foula aux pieds tant de nations, ce resultat ne doit
pas être attribué au caractère indolent et grossier des Ottomans, mais
à l’esprit de ruse et de finesse qui distingue les peuples grecs et
slaves, a la témérité et a la perfidie des Allanais et des Dalmates, à
la persévérance et à l’opiniâtreté des Bosnien et des Croates, enfin à
la valeur et aux talents des renégats des pays conquis.” _Histoire de
l’Empire Ottoman_, Tom. VI, p. 452–454 (Paris, 1835).

[95] _The Story of the Barbary Corsairs_, p. 66 (by Poole and Kelly,
New York, 1893).

[96] _Op. cit._, Tom. I, p. 18.

[97] _Op. cit._, p. 346 _et seq._

[98] _Tableau Général de l’Empire Ottoman_, Tom. II, p. 217 (Paris,
1790).

[99] _The Foundation of the Ottoman Empire_, p. 117 (by H. A. Gibbons,
New York, 1916).

[100] Freeman writes to the same effect when he declares “between
renegades, Janissaries and the mothers of all nations, the blood of
many a Turk must be physically anything rather than Turkish.” _Op.
cit._, p. 187.

[101] _A History of Greece from its Conquest by the Romans to the
Present Time_, Vol. III, p. 475 (Oxford, 1877). Among these causes
Finlay indicates three which deserve special attention. “_First_,
the superiority of the Ottoman tribe over all contemporary nations in
religious convictions and in moral and military conduct. _Second_,
the number of different races which composed the population of the
country between the Adriatic and the Black Sea, the Danube and the
Ægean. _Third_, the depopulation of the Greek Empire, the degraded
state of its judicial and civil administration and the demoralization
of the Hellenic race.”

[102] Gibbons, _op. cit._, p. 173.

[103] No one is more familiar with the Ottoman people or their history
than Professor William Ramsay who does not hesitate to declare: “It has
almost always been by the strength and skill of Christian allies that
the Turks have vanquished the Christians:

_But Turkish force and Latin fraud_
_Would break their shield, however broad._”

_Impressions of Turkey During Twelve Years Wandering_, p. 271 _et seq._
(London, 1897).

“The Christians were crushed by the arts and arms of their own
brethren; Constantinople fell, not before the Saracen or the Turk but
before warriors of Greek and Slavonic blood.” _Op. cit._, p. 272.

[104] Gibbons, _op. cit._, p. 302.

[105] Ibid., p. 123.

[106] H. A. Gibbons, _op. cit._, p. 81.

[107] Sura II, 257.

[108] Sura X, 99, 100.

[109] The erudite Assemani, Librarian of the Vatican Library, writing
of certain persecutions of the Christians by Mohammedans, declares:
“Non raro persecutionis procellam excitarunt mutuæ Christianorum
ipsorum simultates, sacerdotum licencia, præsulum fastus, tyrannica
magnatum potestas, et medicorum præesertim scribarumque de supremo
in gentem suam imperio altercationes.” _Biblotheca Orientalis
Clementino-Vaticana_, Tom. III, Pars, II (Rome, 1719–1728).

[110] _The Preaching of Islam, a History of the Propagation of the
Muslim Faith_, pp. 422, 423 (by T. W. Arnold, London, 1913).

[111] Ibid., pp. 79, 80.

Of all who have made a careful study of the character and religion
of the Mohammedans of Asia, no one probably, is better qualified to
express an opinion on the subject under consideration than M. A. de
Gobiñeau. As the result of thorough investigation during several
years residence among them, he does not hesitate to declare that if
one separates religious doctrines from political necessity which has
often spoken and acted in its name, there is no religion that is more
tolerant, one might almost say more indifferent regarding mens’ faith
than Islam. “Cette disposition organique est si forte qu’en dehors des
cas ou la raison d’État mise en jeu a porté les gouvernments mussulmans
à se faire arme de tout pour tendre à unité de foi, la tolerance la
plus complète a été la regle fournie par le dogme.... Qu’on ne s’arrête
pas aux violences, aux cruautés commises dans une occasion ou dans
une autre. Si on regarde de prés, on ne tardera pas à y découvrir des
causes toutes politiques ou toutes de passion humaine et de tempérament
chez le souverain ou dans la population. Le fait religieux n’y est
invoqué que comme pretexte et, en réalité, il reste en dehors.” _Les
Religions et les Philosophies dans l’Asie Central_, pp. 24, 25 (Paris,
1865).

What has been said of the tolerance of the Osmanlis or of the peoples
of Central Asia the distinguished Orientalist, Prince Caetani, claims
for the Arabian followers of the Prophet. “Gli Arabi,” he writes in his
monumental work _Annali dell’ Islam_, Vol. V, p. 4 (Milan, 1912),
“nei primi anni non perseguitarono invece alcuno per ragioni di fede,
no si diedero pena alcuna per convertire chicchessia, sicche sotto
l’Islam, dopo le prime conquiste, i Christiani Semiti goderono d’una
tolleranza religiosa quale non si era mai vista da varie generazioni.”

[112] _L’España Sagrada, Teatro Geografico de la Iglesia de España_,
Tom. XXXVII, p. 312. Cardinal Hergenröther hold the same view when he
declares that Islam was a _Strafe_--punishment--for the degenerate
Christians of the Orient whose moral corruption, religious schism, and
desecration of sacred things through arbitrary state-power had paved
the way for it. _Handbuch der Allgemeinen Kirchengeschichte_, Tom. I,
p. 748 (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1884).

The distinguished historian, F. X. Funk, expresses a similar opinion
when he writes: “The Carthaginians were safely gathered under the
standard of the Prophet and the conquerors were free to continue their
victorious march on the Barbary States and the West of Africa, the many
divisions and enmities to which Christological disputes had given rise
among the Eastern Christians greatly facilitating their task.” _A
Manual of Church History_, Vol. I, p. 132 (London, 1909).

[113] “Estimates of population,” observes Marriott, “are notoriously
untrustworthy, but it seems probable that at a time when Henry VIII
ruled over about four million people the subjects of Sultan Suleiman
numbered fifty million.” _The Eastern Question_, p. 89 (Oxford, 1917).

“After the conquest of Constantinople,” writes Finlay, “the Ottomans
became the most dangerous conquerors who have acted a part in European
history since the fall of the western Roman Empire. Their Dominion,
at the period of its greatest extension, stretched from Buda on the
Danube to Bussora on the Euphrates. On the north, their frontiers
were guarded against the Poles by the fortress of Kamenietz, and
against the Russians by the walls of Azof; while to the south the rock
of Aden secured their authority over the southern coast of Arabia,
invested them with power in the Indian Ocean, and gave them the
complete command of the Red Sea. To the east, the Sultan ruled the
shores of the Caspian, from the Kour to the Tenek; and his dominion
stretched westward along the southern coast of the Mediterranean,
where the farthest limits of the regency of Algiers, beyond Oran, meet
the frontiers of the empire of Morocco. By rapid steps the Ottomans
completed the conquest of the Seljouk sultans in Asia Minor, of the
Mamlouk sultans in Syria and Egypt, of the fierce corsairs of northern
Africa, expelled the Venetians from Cyprus, Crete, and the Archipelago,
and drove the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem from the Levant, to find
a shelter at Malta. It was no vain boast of the Ottoman sultan that he
was the master of many kingdoms, the ruler of three continents, and
the lord of two seas.” _History of Greece_, Vol. V, p. 6 (Oxford,
1877).

[114] _The Historical Geography of Asia Minor_, p. 23 (by W. M. Ramsay,
London, 1890).

[115] _L’Islamisme et la Science_, p. 19 (Paris, 1883).

[116] Count Henry de Castries, in _L’Islam, Impressions et Études_, p.
121 (Paris, 1912).

[117] “It is an amusing fact,” writes an English woman who had an
intimate knowledge of Turkey, “that an idea of impropriety is attached
by Europeans who have never visited the East, to the very name of
harem, while it is not less laughable they can never give a reason for
their prejudice. How little foundation exists for so unaccountable a
fancy must be evident at once when it is stated that harem, or woman’s
apartment, is held so sacred by the Turks themselves, that they
remain inviolate even in cases of popular disturbance, or individual
delinquency; the mob never suffering their violence to betray them
into an intrusion on the wives of their victims; and the search after
a fugitive ceasing the moment that the door of the harem separates
him from his pursuers.” Julia Pardoe, in _The Bosphorus and the
Danube_, p. 126 (London, 1839).

Another English woman, Grace Ellison, who is familiar with the life of
the harem and who has given public lectures in London on Turkish life,
was seriously told by the secretary of a certain society: “You must not
put the word ‘harem’ on the title of your lecture. Many who might come
to hear you would stay away for fear of hearing improper revelations,
and others would come hoping to hear those revelations and go away
disappointed!” _Cf._ _A Turkish Woman’s European Impressions_, p. 16
(by Zeyneb Hanoum, Philadelphia, 1913).

[118] For an illuminating account of an Assyrian harem in the time of
Sargon, more than seven centuries B. C., see _Histoire de l’Art dans
Antiquité_, Tom. II, p. 435, _et. seq._ (by G. Perrot and Chipiez,
Paris 1884). See also the account of the prehistoric palace of the
Kings of Tiryns, as given in Schliemann’s _Tiryns_, p. 239, _et.
seq._ (New York, 1885). According to Dr. Dörpfeld and other eminent
archæologists this palace, the oldest in Greece, is distinctly
oriental in plan and its smaller megaron was obviously a harem. _Cf._
also Schuchardt’s _Schliemann’s Excavations_, p. 31. For interesting
descriptions of visits to harems in Turkey and Syria, consult the
_Bosphorus and the Danube_, p. 125, _et seq._ (by Julia Pardoe, London,
1839), and the _Inner Life of Syria_, Chap. XI (by Lady Isabel Burton,
London, 1884). Both of these women during their sojourn in the East,
had exceptional opportunities for studying the real life of the harem
where they were always cordially welcomed by its inmates.

The custom of wearing the veil, it may here be remarked, dates back
almost as far, if not fully as far, as the harem. _Cf._ Genesis,
xxii:65, and Isaiah, iii:23. Nor is the wearing of the veil in the
Orient to-day confined entirely to Moslem women. Christian and other
non-Moslem women wear it and have worn it from time immemorial. How
erroneous, therefore, is the statement, so often made, that it was
Mohammed that imposed the veil on the women of the Orient and inhumanly
incarcerated them in the harem!

[119] _Observations on the Mussulmans of India_, p. 168 (London, 1917).

[120] _Everyday Life in Turkey_, p. 108 (London, 1897).

The Princess Christina Belgiojoso who spent three years in making a
careful study of the people of Asia Minor writes: “The household of the
Turkish peasant resembles that of the Christian peasant and, I am sorry
to add, the former would often serve as a model for the latter. With
equal fidelity, the advantage is in favor of the Turk, for his fidelity
is neither imposed on him by civil or religious law, nor by public
opinion, nor by local manners, customs and usages; he is led to it
simply through the goodness of his nature to which any idea of causing
grief to his associate would be repugnant.

* * * * *

“The Turkish peasant cherishes his companion as parent and as
lover; never does he knowingly or willingly oppose her; there is no
provocation to which he will not cheerfully submit through love for
her.... I have seen women old, decrepit, infirm and hideous, led,
comforted and adored by fine old men with long, flowing, silvery
beards, strong, serene eye and as erect as mountain firs.” _Oriental
Harems and Scenery_, p. 108–110 (New York, 1862).

[121] A well-known English journalist, Sidney Whitman, who was
long on terms of intimacy with some of the most distinguished men
of the Ottoman Empire, tells us that “The stranger, whatever his
opportunities, only comes into contact with one-half of the Mohammedan
population; the other is barred from his observation, from his very
sight. In the course of all my visits to Turkey I never had an
opportunity of approaching a Turkish woman within speaking distance.”
_Turkish Memories_, p. 267 (London, 1914).

Writing from Constantinople, where she made a special study of the
Turks, their manners and customs, the gifted and brilliant Lady
Mary Wortley Montague, tells her correspondent in England, “It is
a particular pleasure to me here to read the voyages of the Levant
which are generally so far removed from the truth and so full of
absurdities. I am very well diverted with them. They never fail giving
you an account of the women whom it is certain they never saw and
talking wisely of men, into whose company they are never admitted,
and very often describe mosques which they dared not even peep into.”
_Letters_, Vol. II, p. 5 (London, 1793).

As wife of the British ambassador to the Porte, Lady Mary had the
_entrée_ of the homes of the Turks, rich and poor, where she was
always cordially received and hospitably entertained. Besides this, she
was familiar with the language of her hostesses of the harems which she
visited and was thus able to become far more intimately acquainted with
the people than those who must needs depend on unreliable interpreters.
For these reasons her sprightly pictures of the life of the Turkish
women have always had special value and one can easily understand
her admiration for them and for many of their customs which are so
different from those of her own country--England. She would have fully
endorsed what her distinguished countrywoman, Lady Isabel Burton wrote
many years afterwards: “As a rule I met with nothing but courtesy in
the harems and much hospitality, cordiality and refinement.” _The
Romance of Isabel Lady Burton: The Story of Her Life Told in Part by
Herself and in Part by W. H. Wilkins_, Vol. II, p. 452 (New York,
1897).

[122] _Turkey and the Turks_, p. 84, _et seq._ (by Z. D. Ferriman, New
York, 1911).

“There has been,” writes an American woman who has had exceptional
opportunities for studying the condition of women in Turkey, “a vast
amount of pity wasted upon the Moslem woman. It may surprise even the
woman suffragist to learn that the laws of Mohammed confer upon women
a greater degree of legal protection than any code of laws since the
middle Roman law. The more recent liberties and protection granted to
married women by the laws of divorce and the exclusive property rights
now in the United States alone can be properly compared to those in
force in, Turkey.” _In the Palaces of the Sultan_, pp. 448, 449
(by Anna Bowman Dodd, New York, 1903).

[123] Ibid.

[124] _The Evil of the East, or Truths about Turkey_, p. 42 (London,
1888).

[125] See the _North American Review_.

[126] Lieutenant Wood in his “Journey to the Source of the Oxus,” p.
194 (London, 1872), writes: “Nowhere is the difference between European
and Mohammedan society more strongly marked than in the lower walks
of life. The broad line that separates the rich and poor in civilized
society is as yet but faintly drawn in Central Asia. Here unreserved
intercourse between their superiors has polished the manners of the
lower classes and, instead of this familiarity breeding contempt, it
begets self-respect in the dependent.... Indeed, all the inferior
classes possess an innate self-respect and a natural gravity of
deportment which differs as far from the suppleness of a Hindustani as
from the awkward rusticity of an English clown.” These characteristics
of the people of Central Asia, which so impressed the gallant explorer
of the Oxus, are much more striking in the inhabitants of Anatolia.

Another author writes: “The fine manners of all classes of Mohammedans
in Constantinople were a constant source of admiration to me. It was
as if the grace and dignity of past times--of Courts of the eighteenth
century--had taken refuge in Stamboul. Your Caiquejee, your Cafeje
and the very boot-blacks, if they are Mohammedans, know how to be
unobtrusively polite and well-bred towards each other, and even towards
the Giaour himself, if he treats them civilly. The older fashioned,
the more prejudiced, the Turkish gentleman, the finer are his manners,
the more gracious and delightful his welcome.” _The Sultan and His
Subjects_, Vol. I, pp. 280, 281 (by Richard Davy, New York, 1897).

[127] “The houses of the great Turkish ladies,” declares that keen
observer, Lady Montague, “are kept clean with as much nicety as those
in Holland.” _Letters_, Vol. II, p. 24 (London, 1793).

[128] _Destruction of the Greek Empire_, p. 524 (London, 1903).

[129] _Diary of a Turk_, p. 64 (London, 1903).

Writing to the poet, Pope, Lady Montague declares: “I can assure you
that the Princesses and great ladies pass their time at their looms
embroidering veils and robes, surrounded by their maids, which are
always very numerous, in the same manner as we find Andromache and
Helen described.” _Op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 110.

[130] _Op. cit._, pp. 54, 55, 98, 99.

[131] _Letters_, Vol. I, p. 104.

[132] The noted traveler and Orientalist, Sir Richard Burton,
graphically defines the meaning of the word Kaif, so frequently heard
in the Near East as “The savoring of animal existence; the passive
enjoyment of mere sense; the pleasant languor, the dreamy tranquillity,
the airy castle-building which in Asia stands in lieu of the vigorous,
intensive, passionate life of Europe. It is the result of a lively,
impressible, excitable nature and exquisite sensibility of nerve--a
facility for voluptuousness unknown to northern regions where happiness
is placed in the exertion of mental and physical powers; where niggard
earth commands ceaseless sweat of brow; and damp, dull air demands
perpetual excitement, exercise or change, or adventure, or dissipation
for want of something better. In the East man requires but rest and
shade; upon the banks of a bubbling stream or under the cool shelter
of a perfumed tree he is perfectly happy smoking a pipe, or sipping a
cup of coffee, or drinking a glass of sherbert, but, above all things,
deranging his body and mind as little as possible; the trouble of
conversations, the displeasures of memory and the vanity of thought
being the most unpleasant interruptions to his _Kaif_. No wonder that
_Kaif_ is a word untranslatable in our mother-tongue.” _Personal
Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah_, pp. 23, 24
(Boston, 1859).

[133] _Ferriman_, _op. cit._, p. 334. Professor W. M. Ramsay, than whom
no one has a more intimate knowledge of the Osmanlis, writes: “Whenever
any work has to be done for which absolute honesty is required, there
is always a Turk employed; they are human watchdogs whom everybody
employs and trusts.” _Impressions of Turkey During Twelve Tears
Wanderings_, p. 43 (London, 1897).

Dr. Schliemann bears the same testimony to their honesty and
trustworthiness in his _Troja_, pp. 10, 11.

[134] _Turquie Agonisante_, p. 49 (Paris, 1913).

[135] _Les Massacres d’Arménie_, pp. 19, 20 (Paris, 1918).

[136] _Ansayrii_, Vol. II, p. 144 (London, 1851). _Cf._ Schliemann’s
_Troja_, p. 338.

[137] _The Odyssey_, XIV, 57, 58.

[138] _Don Quixote_, Part I, Chap. XL.

[139] _Cf._ Pierre Loti in _Turquie Agonisante_, p. 49 (Paris, 1913).

[140] _A History of Greece from its Conquest by the Romans to the
Present Time_, Vol. V, p. 161 (Oxford, 1877). Finlay gives the
following quotation from the _Turco-Græcia_, p. 487, of Crusius
who writes as vigorously in favor of the Osmanlis as Knolles or Pierre
Loti.

“Et mirum est inter barbaros in tanta tantæ urbi colluvie nullas cædes
audiri, vim iniustam non ferri, ius cuivis dici. Ideo Constantinopolin
Sultanus refugium totius orbis scribit: quod omnes miseri ibi tutissime
lateant: quodque omnibus, tam infimis quam summis, tam Christianis quam
infidelibus iustitia administretur.” Could the verdict of history be
more explicit than in the remarkable statements here quoted?

[141] See also his informing brochure, _Les Massacres D’Arménie_
(Paris, 1918).

[142] In Persia, according to the eminent traveler and Orientalist,
Arminius Vambery, “Inferior officials cheat the people, and the latter
again avail themselves of every opportunity to cheat the officials.
Every one in that country lies, cheats and swindles. Nor is such
behavior looked upon as anything immoral or improper; on the contrary,
the man, who is straightforward and honest in his dealings is sure
to be spoken of contemptuously as a fool or madman.” _The Life and
Adventures of Arminius Vambery, written by Himself_, p. 284 (London,
1914).

How the Persians have degenerated since the days of Cyrus and Darius!
Then, according to Herodotus, their sons were carefully instructed from
their fifth to their twentieth year in three things alone--to ride,
to draw the bow, and to speak the truth--“παιδεύονσι δε τους πᾶιδας,
απ πενταετέος αρξάμενοι μέχρι εικοσαέτεος, τρία μουνα, ἱππεύειν καὶ
τοξεύειν καὶ άληθίξεσθαι.” I, 136.

[143] It is interesting to note here that in the Treaty of Amity and
Commerce which was concluded in 1535 between France and the Sublime
Porte one of the articles reads: “It is forbidden to molest the French
in matters of their religion which they have full liberty to practice.”
This guarantee of religious freedom included the Christians of all
other nations--a guarantee with which the Ottoman government has always
faithfully complied. _Cf._ _Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman_, Tom. I, p.
171, 173 (by the Vicomte de la Jonquière, Paris, 1914).

[144] Quoted from _Turkey and the Ottomans_, p. 142, _et. seq._ (by
Lucy M. Garnett, New York, 1911).

[145] _Cf._ _Turkish Memories_, p. 128, _et passim_ (by Sidney
Whitman). See _Through Armenia on Horseback_, Chap. VIII (by G. H.
Hepworth, New York, 1918), and _In the Palaces of the Sultan_, pp. 426,
427 (by Anna Bowman Dodd).

[146] _Op. cit._, p. 108.

[147] Ibid., p. 116.

[148] _Op. cit._, p. 231.

[149] November 29, 1912.

[150] _Le Chemin de Fer de Bagdad_, p. 226 (Paris, 1915).

[151] _Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition carried on by Order of
the British Government during the years 1835, 1836 and 1837_, p. 360
(London, 1868).

[152] Ibid., p. viii.

[153] Lord Palmerston, it is interesting to observe in this connection,
did not hesitate to declare in Parliament that the construction of the
Suez Canal, as planned by De Lesseps, was physically impracticable and
that the project was but a trap set for gullible capitalists.

[154] “Ismaili to Koweit Ry.,” _National Review_, p. 464, May,
1902.

[155] _Nineteenth Century_, p. 1084, June, 1909.

[156] Ibid., p. 1085.

[157] _Nineteenth Century_, p. 966 _et seq._, May, 1914.

[158] June, 1901, p. 629.

[159] June, 1901, p. 629.

[160] _Nineteenth Century_, p. 961, May, 1914.

[161] Chéradame, _op. cit._, p. V.

[162] “Le tres distingué M. Eugène Gallos de la Société de Géographie
de Paris qui, avec M. Le Général Dolot, ont parconru en 1914 la Syrie
et la Mesopotamie peuvent affirmer qu il y avait la-has une seconde
France, aimant inlassablement celle qui est en train d’ écrire sa plus
belle page dans l’histoire des nations.” _Bagdad, Son Chemin de Fer,
Son Importance, Son Avenir_, p. 25 (by Émile Aublé, Paris, 1917).

[163] _The Geographical Journal_, p. 33 _et seq._, July, 1917.

[164] _The Fortnightly Review_, p. 777, May, 1911.

[165] Speaking in the British Parliament April 8, 1903, Lord E.
Fitzmaurice went still further when he declared: “Bound up with the
future of this (Bagdad) Railway there is probably the future political
control of large regions in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia and the Persian
Gulf.”

[166] _The Fortnightly Review_, p. 216, February, 1914.

[167] “Les Gouvernment français et anglais refuserent formellment leur
approbation et leur appui et conseillerent a leur nationaux de s’en
abstenir.” E. Aublé, _op. cit._, p. 15.

[168] _The Nineteenth Century_, p. 1090 _et seq._, June, 1909.

It is gratifying to know that this anti-German feeling was not shared
by Sir Clinton and his associates and by clear-visioned men like Sir
Edwin Pears who did not hesitate to declare: “The Germans, in inviting
British coöperation from the first, have acted fairly and loyally.”
_The Contemporary Review_, p. 589, November, 1908.

[169] M. Aublé, _op. cit._, p. 16, referring to this matter, writes:
“Si en elle--même l’enterprise du Chemin de Fer de Bagdad est resté
telle qu’elle s’est presentée au début, une œuvre allemande, c’est
parce qu’on n’a pas voulu profiter des offres allemandes pour lui
donner un caractère international.”

[170] _The Nineteenth Century_, p. 1312, June, 1914.

[171] Ibid., p. 1313. After all negotiations looking towards
internationalization of the Bagdad Railway had failed, M. Geraud, who
is evidently a monarchist, wrote: “We cannot help regretting that
the two powers who held the protectorate of the Orient--France her
old religious protectorate, and England the protectorate of Anatolia
sanctioned by the Cyprus Convention--should, in the space of one
generation, have laid down such beneficent weapons.... In order that
so much destruction could be consummated, all that was responsible in
England and France was the rule of democracy.”

[172] _Cf._ his interesting brochure, _Les Chemins de Fer in Turquie
d’Asie_ (Zurich, 1902).

[173] _Revue de Géographie_, p. 398, May, 1902.

[174] According to Herodotus it was a three months’ journey from
Ephesus to Susa--a somewhat greater distance than from Constantinople
to Bagdad.

[175] _Süddeutsche Monatshefte_, September, 1915. _Cf._ _The Quarterly
Review_, p. 149, January, 1917.

[176] _Der Kampf um die Dardanellen_ (Stuttgart, 1916).

[177] _The Quarterly Review_, p. 528, October, 1917.

[178] For an interesting article on this subject, see “Plato in the
Folk-lore of the Konia Plain,” by F. W. Hasluck, in the _Annual of
the British School of Athens_, No. XVIII.

[179] Called Rum--Rome--because it was, before its conquest by the
Seljuks, a portion of the Roman-Byzantine Empire.

[180] See _Turkey in Europe_, p. 185 (by C. Eliot, London, 1908).

[181] In the Koran, Sura V., it is written, “O believers! surely wine
and games of chance and statues, and divining arrows are an abomination
of Satan’s work! Avoid them that ye may prosper.”

[182] _Cf._ _Mishcat-Ul-Masabih, or a Collection of the Most Authentic
Traditions Regarding the Actions and Sayings of Mohammed_, Vol. II,
pp. 368–370 (trans. from the Original Arabic by Capt. A. N. Mathews,
Calcutta, 1809). “The Angel Gabriel did not visit Mohammed as he
promised to do one night because of the presence of a puppy, saying to
Mohammed ‘we angels do not go into a house in which are pictures or
dogs.’” Vol. II, p. 368.

[183] Sismondi, writing of the Eastern story-tellers, among whom
are women as well as men, informs us they sometimes “excite terror
or pity, but they more frequently picture to their audience those
brilliant and fantastic visions which are the patrimony of the eastern
imagination.... The physicians frequently recommend them to their
patients in order to soothe pain, to calm agitation or to produce
sleep after long watchfulness; and these story-tellers, accustomed to
sickness, modulate their voices, soften their tones and gently suspend
them as sleep steals over the sufferers.” _Historical View of the
Literature of Southern Europe_, Vol. I, p. 62 (Bohn Edition).

[184] The Sheik-ul-Islam issued a vigorous fetwa against it in which
he declared that its use “was contrary to the Koran” and that “smoking
was a hideous and abominable practice of the Giaours, which no true
Believer should adopt.”

[185] “The Eastern nations are generally so addicted to both that
they say ‘a dish of coffee and a pipe of tobacco are a complete
entertainment’; and the Persians have a proverb that coffee without
tobacco is meat without salt.” Sale, _The Koran_, p. 88, “Preliminary
Discourse.”

[186] “Most people who have travelled in the Levant are enthusiastic in
their praises of the Turkish coffee which they drank out there. There
is no reason why coffee prepared in the Turkish style should not become
popular here. There is no difficulty about making it. That the coffee
may have the delicious flavor it has in the Levant, the beans must be
freshly roasted and ground very fine. The water must be boiled in a tin
or copper coffee-pot. To supply, say four or five persons with coffee
in tiny cups, two or three teaspoonfuls of the powder should be put
into the pot while the water is actually boiling therein. Some people
do not like sugar in their coffee, but if sugar is required, it should
be put into the boiling water and allowed to melt before the coffee is
added. Great sweetness is not appreciated by connoisseurs in coffee
drinking. When the ground coffee is added to the boiling water, the pot
should be taken off the fire and the coffee stirred up in the water
with a teaspoon. Then it should be put on the fire again until the
froth rises up. It is then poured into the cups. It is better to pour
out the coffee slowly, placing the pot on the fire at short intervals,
and thus getting more froth for pouring out into the cups, as the
taste of the coffee is supposed to be better with the yellowish froth
on the surface. It is on account of this idea that greedy people in
Turkey choose those cups that have the most froth when coffee is handed
round on a tray, leaving those with less to the others who are waiting
their turn to be served.” Halil Halid’s _Diary of a Turk_, p. 244
(London, 1903).

[187] In marked contrast to this wildly lyrical praise of the fragrant
and delicious beverage made from the Arabian berry, is the denunciation
which was hurled against it by the orthodox followers of Islam who
declared it to be a menace to public morals and one of the four
ministers of the Devil--the other three being wine, opium, and tobacco.
“During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries coffee-drinkers were
persecuted more rigorously in Constantinople than wine-bibbers have
ever been in England or America. Their most unrelenting enemy was the
bloody Murad IV--himself a drunkard--who forbade the use of coffee
under pain of death. He and his nephew, Mehmed IV, after him used to
patrol the city in disguise, à la Harun-al-Rashid, in order to detect
and punish for themselves any violation of the law.... A personage
no more straitlaced than Charles II caused a court to hand down the
following decision: ‘The Retayling of Coffe may be an innocente Trayde;
but as it is used to nourisshe Sedition, spredde Lyes, and scandalyse
Greate Mene, it may also be a common Nuissaunce.’” _Constantinople
Old and New_, p. 24 (by H. G. Dwight, New York, 1915).

[188] _The Beauties of the Bosphorus_, p. 127 (London, 1839).

[189] _Cf._ his _Origin of Cultivated Plants_, p. 439 _et seq._ (New
York; _Géographie Botanique Raisonnée_ (Paris, 1885).

[190] _Historical Sketches_, Vol. I, p. 116, 117 (by Cardinal Newman,
London, 1901).

[191] _Cf._ _Discovery in Greek Lands_, p. 57 _et seq._ (by F. H.
Marshall, Cambridge, 1920). See also _A Century of Archæological
Discoveries_, p. 166 ff. (by A. Michaelis, New York, 1908).

Nothing impressed us more during our journey through Anatolia than the
utter destruction of those superb cities of which a Roman author once
wrote,

_Magnificas Asiæ perreximus urbes._

Of many of these even the sites were unknown until they were recently
discovered by the archæologists of Europe. The site of the famous
temple of Diana at Ephesus was not identified until 1869, although this
celebrated structure was once classed as one of the seven wonders of
the world. Nowhere in Asia Minor does one find anything to compare with
the stately temples of Pæstum, Girgenti, and Segesta which, with the
exception of the wonderful monuments in Athens, are the most remarkable
and best preserved groups of ancient Greek architecture in existence.

[192] The region through which they marched was described in the
graphic language of an old chronicler as _Terram horroris et
salsuginis, terram siccam, sterilem, inamœnam_.

[193] _The History of the Crusades_, Vol. 1. p. 126 (New York, n. d.).

[194] Ibid., p. 257.

[195] Ibid., p. 258.

[196] Called by Cicero _Tauri-Pylæ_.

[197] As legend has it, Charlemagne sleeps in Odenberg, in Hesse,
where crowned and armed and girt with his trusty sword, _La Joyeuse_,
he awaits the advent of Anti-Christ when he will awake and deliver
Christendom.

Bonaparte, it is supposed in certain parts of France, will again return
to restore the country to its pristine glory. When Louis Napoleon
submitted the plebiscite to the countrymen, many gave their vote under
the impression that it was in support of his famous uncle.

[198] _Lares et Penates_ or _Cilicia and Its Governors_, p. 79 (by W.
B. Barker, London, 1853).

[199] Barker, _op. cit._, p. 82.

[200] The legend about people sleeping preternatural lengths of time
has an honored place in the folklore of many nations in both the East
and the West. We have already noted the traditions concerning the long
sleeps of Barbarossa, Charlemagne, Napoleon, and other distinguished
characters. But many other instances might be enumerated showing the
prevalence of similar tales in many lands from the sleepers of Sardis,
mentioned by Aristotle, to Rip Van Winkle, immortalized by Washington
Irving.

[201] _Cf._ Strabo, XIV, 5; and Arrian’s _Anabasis of Alexander_, II,
5. For an account of Asurbanipal, in the light of recent Assyrian
discoveries, see _Graven in the Rock_, Chap. XIV (by S. Kinns, London,
1891).

[202]

_Talk of our souls and realms beyond the grave,_
_The very boys will laugh and say you rave._

[203] _History of Greece_, Vol. X, p. 311 (by W. Mitford, London, 1810).

[204] The Greek word for pinion is _tarsos_.

[205] _Cf._ Josephus, _Antiquities of the Jews_, I. 6; VIII. 7. 2. The
Jewish historian was probably misled by the similarity of sounds of
the two words and ventured to solve what has always been a riddle to
historians and Scripture commentators.

[206] “Oppidum autem Britanni vocant,” says Cæsar, referring to the
capital of Cassivellaunus, now London, “cum sylvas impeditas vallo
atque fossa munierunt, quo incursiones hostium vitandæ causa convenire
consuerunt.” _De Bello Gallico_, Lib. V, Cap. 21.

[207] Strabo, _Geography_, XIV, 51.

[208] J. B. Lightfoot in _Philippians_, Appendix on St. Paul and
Seneca, p. 271.

[209] _The Cities of St. Paul, Their Influence on His Life and
Thought_, pp. 88, 89 (London, 1907).

[210] _The Heathen World and St. Paul_, p. 20 (by E. H. Plumptre,
London, n.d.).

[211] _Acts of the Apostles_, xvii; 6.

[212] In one of his beautiful homilies on the _Epistle of St. Paul to
the Romans_, St. John Chrysostom, the greatest of pulpit orators,
declares: “I honor Rome for this reason; for, though I could celebrate
her praises on many other accounts;--for her greatness, for her beauty,
for her power, for her wealth, for her warlike exploits, yet, passing
over all these things, I glorify her for this reason, that St. Paul
in his lifetime wrote to the Romans, and loved them, and was present
among them and conversed with them, and ended his life among them.
Wherefore the city is on this account renowned more than all others;
on this account I admire her, not on account of her gold, her columns
or her other splendid decorations.” _Oeuvres Complètes de Saint Jean
Chrysostome_, Tom XVI, p. 308 (Paris, 1871).

[213] _Across Asia Minor on Foot_, pp. 35, 351 (by W. J. Childs, New
York, 1917).

[214] The massacre in Constantinople which so horrified the civilized
world was, like that in Adana, provoked by the revolutionary activities
of the Armenians. After having boldly announced their intention of
applying the torch to the city and “reducing it,” as their posted
placards phrased it, “to a desert of ashes,” a party of audacious young
conspirators proceeded to blow up the Ottoman Imperial Bank, while
others of their associates made the Psammatia quarter flow in the blood
of helpless inhabitants. During eighteen hours of terror the carnage
which the Armenians caused by their use of dynamite and by throwing
bombs from the windows upon the Turkish soldiers, who were detailed
to suppress the outbreak, rivaled anything recorded in the worst days
of the Paris Commune of 1871. _Cf._ _Turquie Agonisante_, p. 174 (by
Pierre Loti).

Without pretending to absolve the exasperated Turks for their part in
this appalling massacre, I may ask “what would the people of New York
do if a foreign mob from the East Side with the red flag at their head
were to attempt to blow up the Subtreasury Building and to make the
same use of high explosives in their wanton destruction of life and
property as did the Armenians in their ghastly work in Constantinople?”
The answer will be sufficient attenuation for the conduct of the
infuriated Turks on this frightful occasion. And yet, according to the
reports flashed through the world at the time, this massacre, like that
at Adana and at numberless other places, was laid to the charge of
the “unspeakable Turk.” It was the old, old story; the Turk is always
guilty, the Armenian never.

[215] _A Wandering Scholar in the Levant_, pp. 147–150 (London, 1896).

[216] Pierre Loti tells of a French consul in Asia Minor who barely
escaped assassination at the hands of an Armenian agitator who, when
questioned regarding his attempt on the life of the functionary, coolly
replied: “I did this in order that the Turks might be accused of it and
in the hope that the French would rise up against them after the murder
of their consul.” _Les Massacres d’Arménie_, p. 50 (Paris, 1918).

[217] _The Diary of a Turk_, p. 130.

[218] D. G. Hogarth, _op. cit._, p. 77.

[219] Ibid., 65.

[220] Halil Halid’s _Diary of a Turk_, p. 129 (London, 1903). “Alors,”
declares Pierre Loti, “comme des lions exaspérés ils se dechaînent
contre ceux que, depuis des siècles, on leur a denoncés comme les
plus dangereux responsables de tous les malheurs de la patrie....
Hélas! oui, les Turcs ont massacré! Je pretends toutefois que le
recit de leur tueries a toujours été follement exagéré et les details
enlaidis à plaisir; je pretends aussi--et personne là-bas n’osera me
contredire--que la beaucoup plus lourde part des crimes commis revient
aux Kurdes dont je n’ai jamais pris la defense.” _Op. cit._, p. 22–24.

[221] Commenting on this subject Professor, now Sir William Ramsay,
writes, “Lord Salisbury protests in the strongest terms that Britain
has never entertained any schemes of acquisition in Asia Minor. There
is, however, probably no Russian or German or Frenchman who believes
him.... The protestations that Britain entertains no designs in Asia
Minor merely make people abroad all the more sure that a British
statesman’s word can never be trusted.” And, referring to her creation
of a new consular department to aid her in compassing her designs, he
observes “as a piece of statesmanship, crafty and unscrupulous, but
able, it was a master-stroke; though I think no one among us will ever
look back to it without blushing for the jockeying by which it was
effected.” _Impressions of Turkey During Twelve Years Wanderings_,
pp. 142–144 (London, 1897).

In the light of recent events how significant--almost prophetic--are
these words of Sir William on British policy and diplomacy regarding
Turkey!

[222]

_Where men once dwelt, a dreary lake is seen,_
_And coots and bitterns haunt the waters green._
_Metamorphoses_, VIII, 24, 25.

[223] Count Marcellinus, one of the first ministers of Justinian,
vividly describes, in a single sentence, the frightful depredations
of Attila when this dreadful “Scourge of God” _Pene totam Europam,
invasis excisique civitatibus atque castellis, conrasit_. This
sentence perfectly describes the depredations of Timur and Jenghiz
Khan during their terror-inspiring careers in Western Asia. Of Jenghiz
Khan the Arabian traveler, Ibn Batuta, writes that he “came into the
countries of Islamism and destroyed them.” The same authority says
that after destroying such great cities as Bokhara and Samarcand
“he killed the inhabitants, taking prisoners the youth only and
leaving the country quite desolate. He then passed over the Gihon
and took possession of all Khorasan and Irak, destroying the cities
and slaughtering the inhabitants.” His son, Hulaku, laid Bagdad in
ruins, whence he proceeded with his followers to Syria, continuing his
depredations “until divine Providence put an end to his career.” _The
Travels of Ibn Batuta_, pp. 87, 88, 89 (trans. by S. Lee, London,
1829).

The English historian, Marshman, writing of the elder Mongol conqueror,
declares: “From the Caspian to the Indus, more than one thousand miles
in extent, the whole country was laid waste with fire and sword by the
ruthless barbarians who followed Jenghiz Khan. It was the greatest
calamity which had befallen the human race since the Deluge and five
centuries have been barely sufficient to repair that desolation.”
_History of India from Remote Antiquity to the Accession of the Mogul
Dynasty_, Vol. I, p. 49 (London, 1842).

“Well might the Mussulman and Christian world shrink down upon its
knees in the presence of such a terrible visitation. ‘We pray God,’
writes Ibin al Athir, ‘that He will send to Islam and to the Mussulmans
someone who can protect them, for they are the victims of the most
terrible calamity, the men killed, their goods pillaged, their children
carried off, their wives reduced to slavery or put to death, the
country in fact, laid waste.’ Juveni says that in the country traversed
by the Mongols, only a thousandth part of the population remained
and where there were previously one hundred thousand inhabitants
there remained but a hundred. ‘If nothing interferes with the growth
of the population in Khorasan and Irak Ajem from now to the day of
resurrection,’ he adds, ‘it will not be the tenths of what it was
before the conquest.’” _History of the Mongols_, Part III, p. i
(by H. Howorth, London, 1888).

Jenghiz Khan and “his followers tramped over the fairest portions of
the earth with the faggot and the sword in their hands, forestalling
the day of doom and crumbling into ruin many old civilizations. His
creed was to sweep away all cities as the haunts of slaves and of
luxury, that his herds might freely feed upon grass whose green was
free from dusty feet. It does make one hide one’s face in terror to
read that from 1211 to 1223 eighteen million four hundred and seventy
thousand human beings perished in China and Tangut alone at the hands
of Jenghiz and his followers; a fearful hecatomb which haunts the
memory until one forgets the other features of the story.” Howorth,
_op. cit._, Part I, p. 113.

[224] Pliny in his _Historia Naturalis_, II, 86, writes: _Maximus terræ
memoria mortalium extitit motus, Tiberii Cæsaria principatu_; XII
_urbibus Asiæ una nocte prostatis_.

[225] _History of Greece From Its Conquests by the Romans to the
Present Time, B.C. 146 to A.D. 1864_, Vol. I, p. 224 (by George
Finlay, Oxford, 1877).

[226] I do not ignore the atrocities which the Turks, especially
during the last few decades, are alleged to have committed in Armenia
and elsewhere. But until reliable testimony as to the Ottoman side of
the question is forthcoming it is only fair to the accused for one to
suspend judgment.

[227] _Mahomet et le Coran_, p. vii (Paris, 1865).

[228] “Neque in hoc me falli opinor cum hodieque non paucos ex
nostris, alioquin non indoctos, Mahumeticarum rerum tam rudes videam,
ut Mahumetanos Idolatras, Lunæque ac Mahumeti adoratores existiment,
aliasque de Agarenica secta ejusque Auctore neptias effutiant.”
_Alcorani Textus Universus_, Tom. I, p. 6 (Patavii, 1698).

Padre Lodovico Marracci, who was a religious of the order of the Clerks
Regular of the Mother of God, was the confessor of Pope Innocent XII.
It was in obedience to the command of this Pontiff that he published
his great work on the Koran on which he spent forty of the best years
in his life. It embraces three folio volumes with the text of the Koran
in Arabic, accompanied by a Latin translation and copious notes, and is
notable as being the most successful of the earlier attempts to make
the Koran and Mohammedanism known to the Christian world.

[229] _Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammed_, Vol. II, p. 181 (Berlin,
1862).

[230]

_A mil Franceis fait bien oerchier la vile,_
_Les sinagoges et les mahumeries:_
_A mailz de fer, à ouignèes qu ’il tindrent,_
_Fruissent Mahum e trestutes les ydles._
Lai CCXCVI.

[231]

_A. I. josdi s’ala d’ un fort vin enivrer;_
_De la taverne issi; quant il s’en volt aler,_
_En une place vit. I. fumier reverser;_
_Mahomes si colcha, ne s’en volt trestorner:_
_Là l’estranglèrent porc, si com j’oï conter;_
_Por ce ne volt juis de char de porc goster._
Vv. 5547 _et seq._ (Paris, 1860).

[232] Porcorum verum esum, justa prorsus ratione, contemnunt qui
morsibus eorum dominum consumserunt. _Recueil des Historiens des
Croisades_, Tom. IV, p. 130 (Paris, 1879).

[233] “As a sample of the controversial works of the theologians of the
Reformed Church on this subject,” Mr. R. B. Smith in his interesting
work on _Mohammed and Mohammedanism_, p. 79 (London, 1876), calls
attention to “the following modest title-page of a ponderous work
written in 1666: Anti-Christus Mahometes: ubi non solum per Sanctam
Scripturam, ac Reformatorum testimonia, verum etiam per omnes alios
probandi modos et genera, plene, fuse, imvicte solideque demonstratur
Mahometem esse unum illum verum, magnum de quo in Sacris fit mentio,
Antichristum.”

[234] _Mohammedanism_, p. 12 (New York, 1916).

[235] _Historia Orientalis_, _Dedicatio_, p. 5 (by J. H. Hottinger,
Zurich, 1660).

[236] “Quod vero dissimulandum non est, licet quidam docte, satis
solideque scripserint, nonnulli ex rerum Sarracenicarum ignorantia,
vera plerumque omittentes, ficta ac fabulosa in medium protulerunt,
quæ Mahumetanis risus excitarent eosque in errore suo obstinatiores
efficerent.” _Alcorani Textus Universus_, Tom. I, p. 1 (Patavii, 1698).

[237] Referring to the widespread errors concerning Mohammed and his
teachings the eminent Orientalist, Adrian Reland, wrote more than two
centuries ago: “Quotidie magis magisque experior mundum decipi velle et
præconceptis opinionibus regi”--I daily become more and more convinced
that the world wishes to be deceived and is governed by preconceived
opinions. _De Religione Mohammedica_, p. xxii (Utrecht, 1705). Is
there not still room for improvement in this respect?

[238] “Mohammed litt an einer Krankheit, welche in jener ausgepragten
Form, wie bei ihm, in unseren Gegenden bisweilen bei Frauen, aber
selten bei Mannern vorkommt, Mann hat ihr verschiedene Namen gegeben;
Schönlein heisst sie _hysteria muscularis_.” _Op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 207.

[239] “Nulla porro falsa doctrina eat quæ non aliqua vera
intermisceat.” _Quæst_, Evang. II. 40.

[240] _Handbuch der allgemeinen Kirchengeschicte_, Vol. I, p. 748
(Freiburg im Breisgau, 1884).

“It can be readily understood how the sight of the Muslim trader at
prayer, his frequent prostrations, his absorbed and silent worship
of the Unseen, would impress the heathen African, endowed with that
strong sense of the mysterious such as generally accompanies a low
stage of civilization. Curiosity would naturally prompt inquiry and the
knowledge of Islam thus imparted might sometimes win over a convert who
might have turned aside had it been offered unsought, as a free gift.”
_The Preaching of Islam_, p. 418 (by T. W. Arnold, London, 1913).

This view was emphasized by good old Father Marracci more than two
centuries ago when he wrote: “Si ethnicus humani intellectus captum
excedentia, vel naturali conditioni et imbecilitati dificillima, si non
impossibilia, ... cum Alcoranica doctrina comparaverit, statim ab his
refugiet et ad illa obviis ulnis accurret.” _Op. cit._, Tom. II,
p. 9.

[241] _Cf._ J. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, _op. cit._, p. x.

[242] _De Heresibus Liber, Patrologia Græca_, Vol. XVIV, Col. 763 _et
seq._ (Migne Edition).

[243] “Summa vero hujus hæresis intentio est ut Christus Dominus ut
neque Deus neque Dei Filius esse credatur; sed licet magnus Deoque
dilectus homo tamen purus et vir quidem sapiens et propheta maximus.
Quæ quidem olim diaboli machinatione concepta primo per Arium seminata
deinde per istum Satanam, scilicet Machumet, provecta, per Antichristum
vero ex toto secundum diabolicam intentionem complebitur.” _Petri
Venerabilis Opera Omnia_, col. 655, _Patrologia Latina_, Vol.
Tom. CLXXXIX (Migne Edition).

[244] “Seminator di scandalo e di scisma.” Inferno, XXVIII, 35.

[245] C. Snouck Hurgronje, _Mohammedanism_, p. 129, _et seq._ (New
York, 1916).

[246] The duty of the imam “is to stand in front of the congregation,
facing the Kibleh or Mecca-pointing niche, at the appointed hours
of devotion, that is ordinarily, as every one knows, five times a
day, when he recites aloud the public prayers, marks time for the
various devotional postures, and, in a word, acts as fugleman to the
worshipers ranged behind him, from whom, however, he is distinguished
by no special dress, caste or character! _Primus inter pares_;
but nothing more. The Khatib, or preacher, usually reads out of an
old, well-thumbed manuscript sermon book, or, though much more rarely,
delivers _extempore_ the Friday discourse, a short performance,
seldom exceeding ten minutes in duration.... Once outside the mosque,
the imam, the khatib, or whoever else may have officiated during the
prayers, is a house-mason, a green-grocer, or pipe-maker, or anything
else, as before.” _Essays on Eastern Questions_, p. 91, _et
seq._ (by W. G. Palgrave, London, 1872).

[247] _Op. cit._, p. 82.

[248] The word “mosque” is derived from the Arabic _masjid_ which
signifies a place of worship.

[249] For a full description of Beith Allah--house of God--and the holy
Kaaba, “Navel of the World,” as the Arabian geographer, Ibn Haukal,
calls it, see Sir Richard Burton’s _A Pilgrimage to El Medina and
Mecca_, Chaps. XXIV, XXV.

[250] _Cf._ _Aspects of Islam_, p. 199 _et seq._ (by D. B. MacDonald,
New York, 1911).

[251] _Bibliothèque Orientale_, Tom. II, p. 81 (by Barthèlemy
d’Herbelot, The Hague, 1777).

[252] D’Herbelot, _op. cit._, Tom. II, p. 106.

[253] D’Herbelot, _op. cit._, Tom. II, p. 351.

[254] _Op. cit._, p. 122, _et seq._

[255] _Mohammed and Islam_, p. 45 (by Ignaz Goldziher, trans, by K. C.
Seelye, New Haven, 1917).

[256] _Mohammed and Mohammedanism_, p. 334. _et seq._ (by R.
B. Smith. London, 1876).

[257] _Studies in a Mosque_, p. 169 (London, 1893).

[258] “The spiritual energy of Islam is not, as has been so often
maintained, commensurate with its political power. On the contrary, the
loss of political power and worldly prosperity has served to bring to
the front the finer spiritual qualities which are the truest incentives
to missionary work. Islam has learned the uses of adversity and so far
from a decline in worldly prosperity being a presage of the decay of
this faith, it is significant that those very Muslim countries that
have been longest under Christian rule show themselves most active in
the work of proselyting. The Indian and Malay Mohammedans display a
zeal and enthusiasm for the spread of the faith, which one looks for in
vain in Turkey and Morocco.” T. W. Arnold, _op. cit._, p. 426, 427.

[259] According to Dr. Hubert Jansen’s painstaking _Verbreitung des
Islams_, the number of Mohammedans in the world in 1897 was 259,680,672.

[260] “Si les Mussulmans et les Chrétiens me prâtaient l’oreille,
je ferais cesser leur divergence, et ils diviendraient frères à
l’extérieur et à l’intérieur.” _Rappel à l’Intelligent, Avis à
Indifferent_, p. 105 (Paris, 1858).

[261] An American writer, referring to the Italian campaign in Tripoli,
asks: “Is there rain enough in the sweet heavens to wash away the stain
on Italy’s fair name made deep and black by ruthless massacre?” G. F.
Herrick in _Christian and Mohammedan_, p. 236 (New York, 1912).

And an English author writing of the British war on the Gold Coast
declares: “Our ‘prestige’ serves as an excuse for committing what we
should condemn as crimes in any other nation. It is an entity that has
juggled us into the belief that to destroy what we cannot retain is the
prerogative not of barbarism, but of civilization and Christianity....
Truly this war will be a _damnosa hereditas_ to posterity, alike
whether we accept or disclaim the fearful responsibilities in which it
has involved us.” R. B. Smith, _op. cit._, p. 258.

[262] “Aggredior vos non, ut nostri sæpe faciunt, armis sed verbis;
non vi, sed ratione; non odio, sed amore.” Peter the Venerable, _op.
cit._, col. 673. “I attack you, not as our people often do with
arms, but with words; not by force but by reason; not in hate but in
love.” These are the words with which Peter the Venerable opens his
first book against Mussulmans and shows what should be the attitude of
the missionary that would have a hearing with a people who are as proud
and sensitive as are the followers of Mohammed.

[263] For a helpful map, indicating the course of the Royal Road, the
reader is referred to the third volume of Rawlinson’s _Five Great
Monarchies_ (New York, 1881). Much light is also thrown on this
interesting subject by Rennell’s valuable work, _The Geographical
System of Herodotus_, Vol. I, Sec. 13 (London, 1830).

It is well, in reference to this subject, to recollect that the
ordinary policy of the Asiatic monarchies was not that of holding
immense continuous areas of territory, but the comparatively simpler
one of safeguarding the great highways of communication. “It is
important to remember this in connection with rapid conquest like
that of Alexander. To conquer the Achæmenian empire did not mean the
effective occupation of all the area within its extreme frontiers--that
would have been a task exceeding one man’s lifetime--but the conquest
of its cultivated districts and the holding of the roads which
connected them.” _Cf._ _The House of Seleucus_, Vol. I, p. 22
(by E. R. Bevan, London, 1902).

[264] _Mishkab_ V, 6. Hughes’ _Dictionary of Islam_, p. 635
(London, 1885).

[265] _Mohammedanism_, p. 85 (New York, 1916).

[266] _Missionary Review_, 1889, p. 302.

[267] _Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah_, p.
299 (by Richard F. Burton, Boston, 1858).

[268] “But for the earthquakes which have here and there rent the walls
and caused the roofs to fall in nothing would be missing except the
woodwork carried off by the builders of more recent cities. The removal
of the basalts and other hard materials drawn from the quarries of the
district would have been too troublesome and expensive.” _The Earth
and Its Inhabitants_, Vol. IV, p. 285 (New York, 1885).

[269] “Nel far le mercanzie, non si contano, ma si pesano casse intere
di denari; e non si fa mai compra o vendita dove non corran quaranta,
cinquanta, ottanta o centomila que piu a minuto non si parla e sarebbe
vergogna.” _Viaggi di Pietro della Valle_, Vol. I, p. 331
(Brighton, 1843).

When one remembers the purchasing power of money in the time of the
illustrious patrician compared with what it is now, the sums mentioned
were indeed considerable.

[270] _Op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 353.

[271] _The Voyage of John Huyghen Van Linschoten to the East Indies_,
Vol. I, p. 48 (pub. by the Hakluyt Society, London, 1885). “Merchants
come thither”--Ormuz--“from India with ships loaded with spicery
and precious stones, pearls, cloths of silk and gold, elephants’
teeth and many other wares, which they sell to the merchants of
Hormos”--Ormuz--“and which these in turn carry all over the world to
dispose of again. In fact ’tis a city of immense trade.” _The Book of
Ser Marco Polo the Venetian Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the
East_, Vol. I, p. 107 (trans. by H. Yule, London, 1903).

[272] _Hakluyt’s Voyages_, Vol. V, p. 446 (Glasgow, 1904).

[273] “Mettendo attorno al campo della carovana ... molte sentinelle
che tutta la notte scorrevano intorno e gridavano, (secondo la lors
usanza) agli amici que stessero all ’erta ed ai nemici che non si
accostassero.” _Op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 353.

[274] _See_ Vol. I, p. 7.

[275] “Vivendi licentia, inquies, illos allicit. Ita puto: sed
aliquid aliud est quod illos sub boni verique specie decipiat.
Habet nimirum hæc superstitio quidquid plausibile ac probabile in
Christiana Religione reperitur et quæ naturæ legi ac lumini consèntanea
videntur. Mysteria illa fidei nostræ quæ primo aspectu inchedibilia
et impossibiblia apparent, et præcipue quæ nimis ardua humanæ naturæ
consentur, penitus excludit.” _Op. cit._ Tom. I, p. 4.

[276] _Dictionnaire Philosophique_, s. v. “Mahometanisme.”

[277] _Mankind and the Church_, p. 289 (by G. A. Lefroy, London, 1907).

[278] “A certain solidarity characterizes not only family relations
but all Moslem society. There are no paupers; almsgiving is not a
mere theoretical obligation but an essential religious duty really
discharged. It may be replied that there are many beggars. There are
and the spectacle is very unpleasant; but from the beggars’ point of
view, could they, given their misfortunes, have a better life? If
one has twisted limbs or any incurable malady, including laziness,
is it not more healthy, interesting and lucrative to sit begging at
street-corners than to be the inmate of a charitable institution?
One thing is certain--Moslem beggars never starve.” _Turkey in
Europe_, p. 176 (by Sir Charles Eliot, London, 1908).

[279] Lieutenant Wood, the gallant explorer of the Oxus, referring to
this subject, writes: “Often ... have I observed that the Mohammedans,
both old and young, however worn out by fatigue or suffering from
hunger and thirst, have postponed all thought of self-indulgence to
their duty to their God.

It is not with them the mere force of habit; it is the strong
impression on their minds that the duty of prayer is so important that
no circumstance can excuse its omission.” _Journey to the Source of
the Oxus_, p. 93 (London, 1872).

[280] These good reports about Mohammedans are not of recent date. Read
what Ricoldus de Monte Crucis, a Dominican missionary among them in the
thirteenth century, has to say of them: “Quis enim non obstupescat si
diligenter consideret quanta ... devotio in oratione, misericordia ad
pauperes, reverencia ad nomen Dei et prophetas et loca sancta, gravitas
in moribus, affabilitas ad extraneos, concordia et amor ad suos.”
_Peregrinatores Medii Ævi Quatuor_, p. 131 (by J. C. M. Laurent,
Leipsic, 1864).

[281] Regarding the Armenian’s capacity for business, Mr. Curzon has
wittily remarked, that, while “it takes four Turks to cheat one Frank,
two Franks to cheat one Greek and two Greeks to cheat one Jew, it takes
six Jews to cheat one Armenian.” _Researches in the Highlands of
Turkey_, Vol. I, p. 8 (by H. F. Tozer, London, 1869).

According to Dr. Schliemann, however, the palm for business ability
must be awarded to the Greeks from the island of Lesbos. “The Lesbian
Greeks,” he tells us, “have the reputation of being the shrewdest
merchants in the world; as a proof it is alleged that in cities the
commerce of which is in the hands of Lesbians not a Jew is to be
found.” _Troja_, p. 324.

[282] The learned Benedictine, Father Parisot, has recently collected
the vocabulary of this interesting dialect which is threatened with
early extinction.

[283] This peculiarity is explained by the fact that when the Jews and
Moors were expelled from Spain at the end of the fifteenth century tens
of thousands of Jews migrated to Salonica and Constantinople where
Spanish is still spoken by large numbers of their descendants.

[284] A like superstition attaches to nearly all similar remains of
antiquity not only in Syria but in Egypt as well. Some are reputed to
have special virtues for those suffering from tic-douloureux or from
rheumatism for which affections they are said by Orientals to possess
even greater curative properties than their famous panacea--the bezoar
stone.

[285] Ibn Butlan, a noted Arabian physician, and a Christian, of
Bagdad, who visited Aleppo in the middle of the eleventh century thus
refers to this curious tradition: “In the lower part of the castle
is a cave where he”--Abraham--“concealed his flocks. When he milked
these, the people used to come for their milk crying ‘_Halaba ya
la_’?--Milked yet or not?--asking thus one of the other, and hence
the city came to be called Halab--Milked.” _Cf._ G. le Strange’s
_Palestine Under the Moslems_, p. 363 (London, 1890).

[286] _The Hittites_, p. 12 (London, 1903).

[287] Genesis xxiii.

[288] Ezekiel xvi: 3.

[289] Kings ii: 12.

[290] St. Jerome in the beginning of his commentary on the gospel of
St. Matthew, pertinently observes in this connection: “Notandum est ...
nullam sanctarum assumi mulierum sed eas quas Scriptura reprehendit: ut
que propter peccatores venerat, de peccatoribus nascens, omnium peccata
deleret. Unde et in consequentibus Ruth Moabitis ponitur et Bethsabee
uxor Uriæ.”

[291] _Travels in Syria and the Holy Land_, p. 147 (London, 1822).

[292] _Cf._ _The Language of the Hittites_ in _The Times Literary
Supplement_, p. 180 (London, April 3, 1919).

[293] When the speech of the Hittites ceased to be a living tongue
cannot even be surmised. St. Paul heard it in Lystra of Lycaonia,
but how much later it may have continued to be spoken in certain
other parts of Asia Minor cannot now be determined. As a people they
doubtless long survived and, although they were gradually absorbed
by neighboring races, “it is believed that some of them still exist,
with their early distinctive characteristics, among the hills of the
anti-Taurus range.”

We are likewise in ignorance as to when the languages of Egypt and
Babylonia gave place to those of their conquerors. According to Sayce
“the Egyptian hieroglyphics were still written and read in the time of
Decius, the cuneiform characters of Babylon were employed in the age
of Domitian.” _The Ancient Empires of the East_, p. ix (New York,
1886).

[294] According to recent investigations this was probably what is now
known as the Wady el ’Arish and not the Nile, as usually supposed.

[295] Genesis xii: 5.

[296] Sayce’s _Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as
Illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians_, p. 410
(London, 1898). Lucius Ampelius writing in his _Liber Memorialis_,
Cap. II, of the origin of the constellations, refers to a more
extraordinary legend in connection with the Euphrates. “_Pisces
ideo pisces quia bello Gigantum Venus perturbata in piscem se
transfiguravit. Nam dicitur et in Euphrate fluvio ovum piscis in ora
flumimis columba adsedisse dies plurimos et exclusisse deam benignam
et misericordem hominibus ad bonam vitam. Utrique memoriæ causa pisces
inter sidera locati._”

[297] For an interesting report on the excavations made at Djerabis on
behalf of the British Museum, see the beautifully illustrated monograph
_Carchemish_ (by D. G. Hogarth, London, 1915).

[298] It is to this legend that is due the Mussulman name--Nimroud
Dagh--the Mountain of Nimrod--of the elevation on which stands the
citadel of Urfa.

[299] In the “Testament of St. Ephrem,” as given by Assemani, occurs
the words “Benedicta civitas, ... Edessa sapientum mater, quæ ex vivo
Filii ore benedictionem per ejus discipulum accepit. Illa igitur
benedictio in ea maneat donec Sanctus apparuerit.” _Bibliotheca
Orientalis_, Tom. I, p. 141 (Rome, 1719).

[300] _Cf._ _Histoire Politique, Religieuse et Littéraire d’ Edesse
jusque à la Première Croisade_, p. 81 (by R. Duval, Paris, 1892).

[301] _Ecclesiastical History_, Bk. I, Chap. XIII.

[302] An ancient manuscript in the British Museum contains a service
book of Saxon times, in which the letter of Our Lord to Abgar follows
the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostle’s Creed. At the end of the letter,
which is in the Latin version of Rufinus, occurs the words: “Sive in
domu tua, sive in civitate tua, sive in omni loco nemo inimicorum
tuorum dominabit. Et insidias diaboli ne timeas et carmina inimicorum
tuorum destruuntur (sic), et omnes inimici tui expellentur a te: sive
a grandine, sive a tonitrua (sic) non noceberis, et ab omni periculo
liberaberis: sive in mare, sive in terra, sive in die, sive in nocte,
sive in locis obscuris. Si quis hanc epistolam secum habuerit, securus
ambulet in pace.” _Cf._ _Ancient Syriac Documents Relative
to the Earliest Establishment of Christianity in Edessa and the
Neighboring Countries, from the Year after Our Lord’s Ascension to
the Beginning of the Fourth Century, Discovered, Edited, Translated
and Annotated by the late W. Cureton_, p. 154 (London, 1864). See
also _The Book of Cerne_, p. 205, _et seq._ (by the erudite
Benedictine, Dom. A. B. Kuypers, Cambridge, England, 1902).

[303] For a critical discussion of the “Legend of Abgar” see _Les
Origines de l’Eglise d’Edesse et La Légende d’ Abgar_ (by the
learned Sulpician, L. J. Tixeront, Paris, 1888).

“The practice of keeping this letter as a philactery prevailed in
England till the last century.... ‘The common people’ there have had
it in their houses in many places in a frame with a picture before it
and they generally with much honesty and devotion regard it as the word
of God and the genuine epistle of Christ.’... I have a recollection of
having seen the same thing in cottages in Shropshire.” Cureton, _op.
cit._, p. 155.

[304] In the province of Osrhoene, about a day’s journey from Edessa,
was a celebrated mart called Batne, where the Indians and the Seres
came to trade with the Edessenes and rich merchants from other
cities at an annual fair which was held in this place in the month
of September. Here, Ammianus Marcellinus informs us “magna promiscuæ
fortunæ convenit multitudo ad commercanda quæ Indi et Seres aliaque
plurima vehi terra marique consueta.” _Rerum Gestarum_, Lib. XIV,
Cap. III, 3.

For an illuminating map showing the importance of Edessa as a trade
center during Roman times, see V. Chapot’s _La Frontière de
L’Euphrate de Pompée à la Conquête Arabe_, facing p. 402 (Paris,
1907).

[305] L. J. Tixeront, _op. cit._, p. 7, _et seq._

[306] _Cf._ _The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Record
and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia_, p. 200 (by T. G. Pinches,
London, 1908).

[307] Genesis xi: 31.

[308] Ibid., 17.

[309] Purgatorio, XXVII, 94–108. Dante but follows the teaching of the
Angelic Doctor who, writing on the active and the contemplative life,
declares: “Istæ duæ vitæ significantur per duas uxores Jacob: activa
quidem per Liam, contemplativa vero per Rachelem; et per duas mulieres
quæ Dominum hospitio receperunt: contemplativa quidem per Mariam,
activa vero per Martham.” _Summ. Theol._ Pars II, 2dæ, Q CLXXIX,
Art. i.

[310] _Cf._ _The Book of the Bee_, p. 95–97, from the Syriac of _Mar
Solomon, Bishop of Basra_ (trans. by E. A. W. Budge, Oxford, 1886).

[311] Students of history will remember that the Emperor Carcacalla
was assassinated at Haran by one of his soldiers while on a visit to
the temple of the Moon. The Roman general Crassus suffered a crushing
defeat at the same place and was treacherously slain in the vicinity
while in a conference with a Persian satrap.

[312] “Quæ jam a Mithradati regni temporibus, ne Oriens a Persis
occuparetur, viribus restitit maximis.” Lib. XXV, Cap. IX.

[313] _Cf._ Assemani, _op. cit._, Tom. III, Part II, p. 927, _et seq._

Nisibis, “la grand metropole nestorienne, vit naïtre dans ses murs
la première Université théologique, les premiers cours publics de
théologie. Ce phenomene qui excitait l’admiration et étonnement du
_quæstor sacri palatii_ de Justinien ne peut que nous donner une
idée avantageuse de la culture du clerge nestorien a cette époque de
son histoire.” _Le Christianisme dan l’Empire Perse sous la Dynastie
Sassanide, (224–632)_, p. 301 (by J. Labourt, Paris, 1904).

[314] Dion Cassius, _History of Rome_, Bk. I, XVIII, 26.

[315] Genesis xxxv: 8.

[316] “In such circumstances,” writes one who knew the desert well,
“the mind is influenced through the body. Though your mouth glows and
your skin is parched with heat, yet you feel no languor, the effect of
humid heat; your lungs are lightened, your sight brightens, your memory
recovers its tone and your spirits become exuberant; your fancy and
imagination are powerfully aroused and the wildness and sublimity of
the scenes around you stir up all the energies of your soul--whether
for exertion, danger or strife. Your _morale_ improves; you become
frank and cordial, hospitable and single-minded: the hypocritical
politeness and the slavery of civilization are left behind you in the
city.... All feel their hearts dilate and their pulses beat strong
as they look down from their dromedaries upon the glorious desert.
Where do we hear of a traveler being disappointed by it? It is another
illustration of the ancient truth that Nature returns to man, however
unworthily he has treated her. And believe me, when once your tastes
have conformed to the tranquillity of such travel, you will suffer real
pain in returning to the turmoil of civilization. You will anticipate
the bustle and confusion of artificial life, its luxury and its false
pleasures with repugnance. Depressed in spirits you will for a time
after your return feel incapable of bodily or mental exertion. The
air of cities will suffocate you and the care-worn and cadaverous
countenances of citizens will haunt you like a vision of judgment.”
_Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah_,
Vol. I, pp. 150, 151 (by Richard F. Burton, London, 1893).

[317] _A celeritate Tigris incipit vocari. Ita appellant Medi
sagittam._ Pliny, _Naturalis Historia_, VI, XXVII.

[318] We have seen in a previous chapter how unfounded is this
statement.

[319] _The Book of Ser Marco Polo_, Vol. I, p. 60 (trans. by H. Yule,
London, 1903).

[320] _Geschichte der Ilchaner_, Vol. I, p. 191 (Darmstadt, 1842).

[321] Acts of the Apostles, ii: 9, 11.

[322] See map III of Heussi and Mulert’s _Atlas zur Kirchengeschichte_
for the extensive territory occupied by the Nestorian Church during its
greatest development.

[323] The dwelling of the Patriarch, as described by a noted traveler
of the last century, “is solidly built of hewn-stone and stands on the
very edge of a precipice overhanging a ravine through which winds a
branch of the Zab. A dark vaulted passage led us into a room scarcely
better lighted by a small window closed by a greased sheet of coarse
paper. The tattered remains of a felt carpet, spread in a corner, was
the whole of its furniture. The garments of the Patriarch were hardly
less worn and ragged. Even the miserable allowance of 300 piastres,
about £2 10s., which the Porte had promised to pay him monthly on his
return to the mountains was long in arrears, and he was supported
entirely by the contributions of his faithful but poverty-stricken
flock. Kochanes was, moreover, still a heap of ruins.” _Discoveries
among the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, with Travels in Armenia,
Kurdistan and the Desert_, p. 363 (by A. H. Layard, New York, 1856).

[324] “La progression des Chrétians a été la suivante; en 1750, zéro;
en 1856, de 30,000 a 40,000; en 1900, 66,000. Tout donne à espérer
que le retour définitif des Nestoriens à la foi portera bientot et
définitivement ce nombre, si ce n’est deja un fait accomplit, a
140,000.” _Les Missions Catholiques Francaises au XIXe Siècle_, p.
271 (Paris, 1900).

[325] For the dogmatic definitions of the Church at the General
Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon against the heresies of Nestorius and
Eutyches see Denzinger’s _Enchiridion_, pp. 52, 65.

[326] The word Copt is apparently derived from the middle part of the
Greek word _Aigyptos_ which means Egyptian. It is, however, always
used to indicate a member of the Egyptian Monophysite Church.

[327] Melchite is a Græco-Syriac word which signifies imperial. It was
given at the outbreak of the Monophysite schism to those Christians in
Syria, Palestine, and Egypt who accepted the decrees of Chalcedon and
remained loyal to the Emperor in Constantinople and to the Catholic
Church. The name is now applied to the Uniates of these lands.

[328] _Cf._ _Verfassung und gegenwärtiger Bestand Sämtilicler Kirchen
des Orients_, p. 384 (by I. Silbernagl, Regensburg, 1904).

[329] _The Orthodox Eastern Church_, p. 19 (by A. Fortescue, London,
1908).

[330] Fortescue, _op. cit._, p. 15.

[331] Not having a hierarchy, the Protestants in Turkey do not
constitute a _Millet_. The Porte has consequently organized them,
consisting chiefly of a small number of converted Armenians, and
Syrians, into a special group under the Minister of Police.

[332] Among Orientals a common designation of Franks, which, since
the time of the Crusades, has been applied to all the inhabitants of
Western Europe.

[333] _Paradiso_, VI, I, 2.

[334] Addressing once a company of bishops Constantine declared: “You
are bishops whose jurisdiction is within the Church; I also am a bishop
ordained by God to overlook whatever is external to the Church.”
Eusebius, _The Life of Constantine_, IV, 24.

[335] Fortescue, _op. cit._, p. 28.

[336] _The Churches Separated from Rome_, p. 151 (by L. Duchesne, New
York, 1907).

“For three centuries after the foundation of New Rome,” writes
Freeman, “Latin remained the tongue of government, law and warfare;
and down to the last days of the Empire survivals of its use in that
character still lingered on.... But Greek was from the beginning the
tongue of literature and religion; and, even under Justinian himself,
it began to creep into use as an alternative language of the law of
Rome.--Gradually the Greek tongue displaced Latin for all purposes, but
not till it had received a large infusion of Latin technical terms....
Save this technical Latin infusion the tongue of Constantinople was
thoroughly Greek. The strange spectacle was there to be seen of an
Emperor of the Romans, a Patriarch of New Rome, a Roman Senate and
People glorying in the Roman name, and deriving their whole political
existence from a Roman source, but in whose eyes the speech of Ennius
and Tacitus and Claudian was simply the despised idiom of Western
heretics and barbarians.” _Historical Essays_, Third Series, pp.
248, 249 (London, 1879).

[337] How great was their exasperation at the Pope’s action is evinced
by the language they addressed to Luitprand, Archbishop of Cremona,
when, in 968, he went on an embassy to Constantinople. “But,” they
indignantly declare, “the mad and silly Pope does not know that St.
Constantine transferred the imperial scepter, all the senate and the
whole Roman army hither, and that at Rome he left only vile creatures
such as fishermen, pastrycooks, bird-catchers, bastards, plebeians and
slaves.” _Cf._ Fortescue, _op. cit._, p. 94.

[338] _Cf._ _Le Schisme Oriental du XI Siècle_, p. 275 (by L. Brehier,
Paris, 1899).

[339] Now that the crash had come “one asks oneself what else the
Legates could have done. They had waited long enough, and, if ever a
man clearly showed that he wanted schism, it was Cerularius. He had
already excommunicated the Pope by taking his name off the diptychs.
We should note that this is the only sentence that the Roman Church
pronounced against the Eastern Communion. She has never excommunicated
it as such nor the other patriarchs. If they lost her communion it was
because they too, following Cerularius’ example, struck the Pope’s name
from their diptychs.” Fortescue, _op. cit._, p. 185.

[340] Although Innocent III, preacher of the Crusade, promptly
excommunicated the Crusaders for their perfidy and treachery, the
Greeks, nevertheless, persisted in declaring that His Holiness was the
real cause of their misfortunes.

[341] According to the custom that subsequently prevailed it was the
Grand Vizier who, in the Sultan’s name, gave the _berat_ to the
newly appointed Patriarch. As to bishops-elect it was obligatory that
they should receive their _berat_ from the government before their
consecration.

[342] Thus, during the seventy-five years between 1625 and 1700,
there were no fewer than 50 patriarchs whose average tenure of office
was a year and a half. Compare this with the long reign--seventy-two
years--of Gregory XVI, Pius IX, and Leo XIII whose average tenure of
office was twenty-four years--just thirty-six times as long as that of
the unfortunate Patriarchs in question.

[343] _Hom. II in Ephesios._

[344] “The Holy Father,” as Mgr. Duchesne beautifully declares, “has
put all his heart into it; I might almost say, he had put only his
heart into it.” _Op. cit._, p. 41.

[345] “Eo vel magis quod non ingenti discrimine seiunguntur: imo, si
pauca excipias, sic cetera consentimus, ut in ipsis catholici nominis
vindiciis non raro ex doctrina, ex more, ex ritibus, quibus orientales
utuntur, testimonia atque argumenta promanus.”

[346] Inferno XXVIII, 35.

[347] _Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church_, pp. 2, 30
(London, 1861).

The testimony of Professor H. Gelzer, likewise a Protestant, is
almost the same as that of Dean Stanley. Writing of the monastic
establishments of the Orthodox Church he pertinently inquires: “While
the Catholic Orders as teaching and nursing bodies have become an
important element in the civilization of the nineteenth century, what
have Athos, Sinai, Patmos or Megaspilion been doing? The Greeks often
bitterly complain of the mighty progress of Catholic propaganda, but
they must themselves admit that the best schools and hospitals in
Turkey belong to the Catholic Orders.” _Von Heiligen Berge und aus
Makendonien_, p. 2 (Leipsig, 1904).

[348] _Das Testament Leos_ XIII, in _Reden und Aufsätze_, Vol. II, p.
279 (Geissen, 1904).

[349] Fortescue, _op. cit._, p. 432, 433.

[350] Psalms, xliv: 10, “Neque aliud fortasse mirabilius est,”
declares the Sovereign Pontiff, “ad catholicitatis notam in Ecclesia
Dei illustrandam, quam singulare quod ei præbent obsequium dispares
cæremoniarum formæ nobilesque vestustatis linguæ, ex ipsa Apostolorum
et Patrum consuetudine nobiliares; fere ad imitationem obsequii
lectissimi quod Christi divino Ecclesiæ auctori, exhibitum est
nascenti, quum Magi ex varii Orientis plagis devecti venerunt ...
adorare eum.”

[351] St. Paul to the Ephesians, iv: 13.

[352] St. John’s Gospel, xvii: 20, 21.

[353] Jonah, iv: 11. Those “that knew not how to distinguish between
their right hand and their left,” is supposed to refer to young
children.

[354] Genesis x: 11.

[355] iii: 19.

[356] ii: 13–15.

[357] _Anabasis_, Bk. III, Chap. 4. _Cf._ also _Travels in the Track of
the Ten Thousand_, p. 139 _et seq._ (by W. F. Ainsworth, London, 1844).

[358] _Charon_, 23.

[359] Even Cicero, declares: “Et apud Herodotum, patrem historiæ ...
sunt innumerabiles fabulæ.” _De Legisbus_ Lib. I, Cap. I.

[360] Arabian writers, it is true, had agreed “during nine hundred
years, in identifying the mounds on the east bank of the Tigris
opposite Mosul with the ruins of Nineveh” but their views were so far
from meeting with general acceptance that so late as 1843 the great
French explorer, Botta, was convinced when he uncovered the wonderful
palace of Sargon II, King of Assyria, B. C. 721–705, that the site of
Nineveh was occupied by the ruins of Khorsabad. But the noted English
investigator, Layard, “contrary to the teachings of Arabian and Syrian
historians and local tradition,” was equally positive that “the ruins
of Nineveh were buried under the mound of Nimroud,” which is twenty
miles to the south of the actual site of the famous Assyrian capital
which was so long the rival and eventually the conqueror of Babylon.
_Cf._ _By Nile and Tigris_, Vol. II, p. 8 _et seq._, 15,
16 (by E. A. Wallis Budge, London, 1920).

[361] _The Buried City of the East: Nineveh_, Preface (London, 1851).

[362] _Nineveh and Its Palaces. The Discoveries of Botta and Layard
Applied to the Elucidation of Holy Writ_, p. 1 _et seq._ (by J.
Bonomi, London, 1852).

[363] “At the end of the seventeenth century, B.C., Asurbanipal’s
sculptors at Nineveh were representing horses which the frieze of
the Parthenon can hardly equal, and lions which no sculptor has ever
surpassed in careful observations and truthful delineation.” _The
Ancient History of the Near East_, p. 536 (by H. R. Hall, London,
1913).

[364] vi: 1.

[365] See his _Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon_, pp.
342–345 (London, 1853); _cf._ also _Hormuzd Rassam’s Asshur and the
Land of the Nimrod_, p. 31 (New York, 1897), which gives an account
of the discovery of more tablets, among which were the famed Deluge
tablets.

[366] Relaçam em que se tratam as guerras e grandes victorias que
alcançou o grãde rey da Persia Xa Abbas do grão Turco Mahometto and seu
Filho Amethe, pello Padre F. Antonio de Gouvea (Lisboa, 1611).

[367] _Purchas His Pilgrimes_, Part II, pp. 1533, 1534 (London, 1625).

[368] As to the signification of the strange, wedge-shaped character
described by the noted Italian traveler, Pietro della Valle admits that
he knows nothing. In the fifteenth chapter of his _Viaggi_ he
frankly declares: “E queste iscritzioni in que lingua e lettera siano
non si sa perchè è caratere oggi ignoto.”

[369] _Some Yeares Travels into Divers Parts of Asia and Afrique_, p.
145 _et seq._ (London, 1638).

[370] Chardin became an English citizen and achieved such fame as a
traveler that a tablet was dedicated to his memory in Westminster Abbey
bearing the legend “Sir John Chardin--_nomen sibi fecit eundo_.”

[371] _Explorations in Bible Lands during the 19th Century_, pp. 23, 24
(by H. V. Hilprecht, Philadelphia, 1903).

How Grotefend achieved such marvelous success when others, apparently
more competent than he, had failed has been explained by the fact that
“he early displayed a remarkable aptitude for the solution of riddles:
a peculiar talent which he shared in common with Dr. Hincks, who also
acquired great distinction as a cuneiform scholar.” _The Discovery
and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions_, p. 169
(by A. J. Booth, London, 1902).

Dr. R. W. Rogers, in his instructive work, _A History of Babylonia
and Assyria_, Vol. I, p. 61 (New York, 1915), referring to the same
subjects, writes:

“It were difficult, if not impossible, to define the qualities of
mind which must inhere in the decipherer of a forgotten language. He
is not necessarily a great scholar, though great scholars have been
successful decipherers. He may know but little of the languages that
are cognate with the one whose secrets he is trying to unravel. He may,
indeed, know nothing of them, as has several times been the case. But
the patience, the persistence, the power of combination, the divine
gift of insight, the historical sense, the feeling for archæological
indications, these must be present, and all of these were present in
the extraordinary man, Grotefend, who now attacked the problem that had
baffled so many.”

[372] Hilprecht, _op. cit._, p. 71; _cf._ _A Memoir of Major General
Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson_, pp. 143–148, 153–157 (by his brother,
Canon George Rawlinson, London, 1898); Booth, _op. cit._, pp. 106–114.

[373] Although it was supposed that this prize, awarded by so learned
a body as the French Institute, would be tantamount to _une sanction
qui devrait dissiper toutes les susceptibilités_, many remained
as skeptical as ever and continued “to decry a language in which one
can never know if a syllable is ideographic or phonetic, and, when
phonetic, which of two or three different values it may have in that
place.” _Cf._ A. J. Booth, _op. cit._, p. 416.

[374] _Op. cit._, pp. 118, 119.

[375] _New Light on the Bible and the Holy Land_, p. 10 (by B. T.
Evetts, New York).

[376] _The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria_, p. 110 (by M.
Jastrow, Philadelphia, 1915).

[377] A few years before his death, when presiding at the commencement
exercises of the College of Dole, in the Department of the Jura in
which he was born and brought up, Pasteur told his youthful audience:
“When one has studied much, one comes back to the faith of a Breton
peasant; as to myself, had I studied more I should have the faith of a
Breton peasant-woman.” _The Ave Maria_, February 14, 1920.

[378] _Bible, Science and Faith_, p. 314, 315 (Baltimore, 1895). _Cf._
also _Evolution and Dogma_, Chap. VIII (by J. A. Zahm, Chicago, 1896).

[379] _Babel und Bibel_, p. 4 (Leipzig, 1903).

[380] A name which, as we have seen, is also applied to the Euphrates.

[381] _Cf._ R. I. Wilberforce in _The Five Empires_, Chaps. XV, XVIII
(London, 1852).

[382] _Alexander the Great_, p. 368 (by B. I. Wheeler, New York,
1900).

[383] Creasy’s _Decisive Battles of the World_, p. 79 (New York,
1899).

It was at Arbela, where was to be settled once for all the question of
world supremacy, that Alexander, when counseled by his generals to make
a night attack on Darius, gave the famous answer οὐ κλέπτο τἠν νίκην--I
steal no victory--words that were his motto during his eventful and
brilliant career.

[384] _Voyages en Turquie, en Perse et aux Indes_, Vol I, p. 185
(Paris, 1677).

[385] Die Bedeutung des heutigen Namen’s Kal. ‘at Schergat ist bis
jetzt unaufgeklärt geblieben und durfte vielleicht eine Altassyrische
Reminiscenz bergen. _Vom Mittelmer zum Persischen_ Golf. Vol.
II, p. 210 (by M. von Oppenheim, Berlin, 1900). His countryman, Baron
Thielmann, writing of the same ruins a quarter of a century earlier,
declares: “This great field of ruin with its pyramid looks truly
venerable, but science has as yet made no discoveries here which
could help us solve the mystery of this remnant of an ancient era.”
_Journey in the Caucasus, Persia and Turkey in Asia_, Vol. II, p.
136 (London, 1875).

[386] _Cf._ Sayce _Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion
as Illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians_, p. 122
(London, 1898).

[387] See Jastrow, _op. cit._, p. 229.

[388] See W. Andræ’s _Der Anu-Adad-Tempel in Assur_ (Leipsic, 1909);
and his _Die Festungswerke von Assur_ (Leipsic, 1913).

[389] _Op. cit._, Vol. I, p. 328.

[390] See _Die Stelenreien in Assur_, p. ii (by Walter Andræ, Leipsic,
1913).

[391] “Many other works of Semiramis,” writes Strabo, “besides those
of Babylon, are extant in almost every part of this continent, as,
for example, earth-works which are called mounds of Semiramis, walls
and fortresses, aqueducts and cisterns for water, stair-like roads
over mountains, canals communicating with rivers and lakes; roads and
bridges.” _Geography_, Bk. XVI, Chap. II.

[392] Polyænus _Strategemeta_, VIII, 26.

[393] _Cf._ _La Légende de Semiramis_, pp. 22, 23 (by François
Lenormant), in _Mémoires de l’Academie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres
et des Beaux Arts de Belgique_, Tom. XL (1873).

[394] A. H. Sayce in _Herodotos, with Notes, Introductions and
Appendices_, p. 105 (London, 1883).

[395] Ibid., p. 303.

[396] Ibid., p. 362.

[397] Mr. Robertson Smith in _The English Historical Review_, Vol.
II, p. 305, April, 1887.

[398] _Op. cit._, p. 317.

[399] As many fantastic stories are related about Dietrich von
Bern--Theodoric the Great, King of the East Goths--as there are about
Semiramis. As the Assyrian queen was said to have been nursed by doves
in her infancy and to have been transformed into a dove after her death
so, the German legends have it, Dietrich von Bern was descended from a
spirit and made his exit from the world on a black horse. In Lusatia
the mythical _Wild Huntsman_ who, during violent storms, rides
furiously across the heavens is called Dietrich von Bern. Living so
long after Semiramis it is more surprising that his life should be made
the theme of Middle High German poems and Old Norse sagas than that the
Assyrian queen should have been made the subject of oriental myth and
Greek legend.

[400] Lehmann-Haupt in his interesting and illuminating lecture on
_Die historische Semiramis und ihre Zeit_, which was delivered
before the _Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft_ in Berlin, February
6, 1910, declares: “Von der sagenhaften Ümhüllung befreit, sehen
wir Semiramis vor uns als eine Herrschergestalt, die zu einer Zeit,
da sonst der Frau eine Beteiligung am öffentlichen Leben versagt
war, die Geschichte zweier, vornehmlich durch ihre Klugheit und
Umsicht verbundener Reiche in Krieg und Frieden entscheidendend und
durchgreifend geleitet hat.” P. 68 (Tübingen, 1910).

How different is this conclusion of the learned German, which is based
on the brilliant discoveries of Andræ and his colleagues, from that
of the distinguished Orientalist, F. Lenormant, who, as the result
of an exhaustive study of Semiramis, makes the _ex cathedra_
statement “_ce personage divin ... doit être definitivement rayé de
l’histoire_--this divine personage ought to be definitely expunged
from history.” _Op. cit._, p. 68.

[401] _Geography_, Bk. XVI, Chap. I, IX.

[402] Arrian’s _Anabasis of Alexander_, Bk. VII, Chap. VII.

[403] _Voyage au Levant_, Tom. III, p. 200 (Amsterdam, 1727).

[404] Ibid., III, p. 183.

[405] So hot is it in Susa, the Greek geographer writes, that “lizards
and serpents at midday in the summer ... cannot cross the streets quick
enough to prevent their being burnt to death midway by the heat.”
_Op. cit._, Bk. XV, Chap. III.

[406] “There are few sights more appalling than a sandstorm in the
desert, the ‘Zauba’ah,’ as the Arabs call it. Devils or pillars of
sand, vertical and inclined, measuring a thousand feet high, rush over
the plain lashing the sand at their base like a sea surging under
a furious whirlwind; shearing the grass clean away from the roots,
tearing up trees which are whirled like leaves and sticks in the air,
and sweeping away tents and houses as if they were bits of paper. At
last the columns join at the top and form, perhaps three thousand feet
above the earth, a gigantic cloud of yellow sand which obliterates not
only the horizon but even the midday sun. These sand-spouts are the
terror of travelers.” _Thousand and One Nights_, Vol. I, p. 114
(by Richard F. Burton, Benares, 1885).

[407] _Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan and on the Site of
Ancient Nineveh with a Journal of a Voyage down the Tigris to Bagdad_,
Vol. II, p. 148 (London, 1836).

[408] _Journey in the Caucasus, Persia and Turkey in Asia_, Vol. II, p.
138 (London, 1875).

[409] _Convito_, IV., 2.

[410] _Divina Commedia_, IV, v. 121, _et seq._

[411] Moore’s _Lalla Rookh_, p. 181 (New York, 1890).

[412] _Life and Letters of E. B. Cowell_, p. 318 (by G. Cowell, London,
1904).

[413] Daniel, iii.

[414] _Op. cit._, II, 139.

[415] Gertrude L. Bell, in _Amurath to Amurath_, p. 246 (London,
1911).

[416] “Le Khalife, alors tout-puissant, vivait là au milieu de ses
milices et de tous les grands scheiks de son royaume, plus entouré
de courtisans que Louis XIV à Versailles. Il réservait d’ailleurs
toutes ses faveurs à ceux qui venaient embellir Samara en coustruisant
quelques belles residences dans le voisinage du palais.” _Description
du Palais de Al-Moutasim Fils d’Haroun-al-Raschid à Samara et de
Quelques Monuments Arabs connus de la Mesopotamia_, p. 23 and plate
XIV (par M. H. Violet, Paris, 1909). _Cf._ Sarre und Herzfeld’s
illuminating monograph on Samara.

[417] _Cf._ Von Oppenheim, _op. cit._, II, p. 221.

[418] _Op. cit._, p. 381.

[419] _Cf._ _Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia,
Chaldea and Armenia_, Vol. II, p. 152 (by W. F. Ainsworth, London,
1842).

[420] _Les Missions Catholiques Françaises au XIXe Siècle_, Tom.
I, p. 223, _et seq._ (Paris, 1900).

[421] _Cf._ _Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman_, Tom. I, p. 172 _et seq._
(by the Vicomte De la Jonquière, Paris, 1914).

[422] _Du Caucasus au Golfe Persique à travers l’Arménie, le Kurdistan
et la Mesopotamie_, p. 458 _et seq._ (by P. Müller-Simonis and H.
Hyvernat, Washington, 1892).

[423] See the interesting work of Mme. Dieulafoy on _La Perse, la
Chaldée et la Susiane_, p. 576 _et seq._ (Paris, 1887).

[424] _Turquie Agonisante_, p. 137 (Paris, 1913).

[425] _Baghdad during the Abbassid Caliphate from Contemporary Arabic
and Persian Sources_, pp. 12–14 (by G. Le Strange, Oxford, 1900).

[426] Le Strange, _op. cit._, p. 64 _et seq._

[427] Le Strange, _op. cit._, p. 71.

[428] _The Book of Ser Marco Polo_, Vol. I, p. 63 (translated and
edited by H. Yule, London, 1903).

[429] _Bibliothèque Orientale_, Tom. I, p. 326 (The Hague, 1777).

[430] _Op. cit._, I, 72.

[431] _History of the Mongols from the Ninth to the Nineteenth
Century_, Part III, p. 127 (by H. H. Howorth, London, 1888).

[432] See _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, on a _Greek
Embassy to Bagdad 917, A. D._ (January, 1897).

[433] _Cf._ Gibbon’s _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_,
Chap. LII.

[434] At this period, Sir Richard Burton tells us, London and Paris
were in a state of quasi-savagery and “their palatial halls were spread
with rushes.”

[435] Bagdad, at the zenith of its grandeur under Harun-al-Rashid,
was the worthy successor of Babylon and Nineveh. It “had outrivalled
Damascus, ‘the Smile of the Prophet,’” and “was essentially a city
of pleasure, a Paris of the ninth century.” “Thither flocked from
all parts of the oriental world the most noted and capable poets,
musicians and artificers of the time; and the first thought of the
Arabian or Persian craftsman who had completed some specially curious
or attractive specimen of his art was to repair to the capital of the
Muslim world, to submit it to the Commander of the Faithful from whom
he rarely failed to receive a rich reward for his labors. Surrounded by
pleasure-gardens and groves of orange, tamarisk, and myrtle, refreshed
by an unfailing luxuriance of running streams, supplied either by
art or nature, the great city on the Tigris is the theme of many an
admiring ode or laudatory ghazel; and the poets of the time all agree
in describing it as being, under the rule of the great Caliph, a sort
of terrestrial paradise of idlesse and luxury, where, to use their own
expressions, the ground was irrigated with rose-water and the dust of
the roads was musk, where flowers and verdure overhung the ways and the
air was perpetually sweet with the many-voiced song of birds, and where
the chirp of lutes, the dulcet warble of flutes and the silver sound of
singing houris rose and fell in harmonious cadence from every corner of
the streets of palaces that stood in vast succession in the midst of
their gardens and orchards, gifted with perpetual verdure by the silver
abundance of the Tigris, as it sped its arrowy flight through the
thrice-blest town.” _Thousand and One Nights_, Vol. IX, pp. 333,
334 (translated by John Payne, London, 1884).

[436] _Historical View of the Literature of the South of Europe_,
Vol. I, p. 30 (New York, 1827).

[437] _Haroun-Al-Raschid, Caliph of Bagdad_, p. 53 (by E. H.
Palmer, London, 1881).

[438] Palmer, _op. cit._, p. 83.

[439] This crime, declares Sir Richard Burton, “stands out in ghastly
prominence as one of the most terrible tragedies recorded in history
and its horrible details make men write passionately on the subject to
this our day.” _Thousand and One Nights_, Vol. X, p. 142 (Benares,
1885).

[440] Sismondi, _op. cit._, I, 30.

[441]

_Tamed Greece to tame her victress now began,_
_And with her arts fair Latium over-ran._

HORACE, _Epistles_, Book II, 1.

[442] Gibbon, _op. cit._, Chap. LII.

[443] See D’Herbelot’s _Bibliothèque Orientale_, s. v. “Honain.”

[444] _Cf._ _A History of Greece_, Vol. II, p. 224 (by G.
Finlay, Oxford, 1877).

[445] _The History and Conquests of the Saracens_, p. 157 (London,
1877).

[446] Longfellow has chosen the grim episode said to have been
connected with the tragic death of Al-Mostassem at the hands of Hulagu
Khan for one of his well-known poems in which he makes his victor and
executioner address the avaricious Caliph in the following words:

_I said to the Caliph, “Thou art old,_
_Thou hast no need of so much gold;_
_Thou shouldst not have heaped and hidden it here,_
_Till the breath of battle was hot and near,_
_But have sown through the land these useless hoards,_
_To spring into shining blades and swords,_
_And keep thine honor sweet and clear.”_

* * * * *

_Then into his dungeon I locked the drone,_
_And left him there to feed all alone,_
_In the honey cells of his golden hive;_
_Never a prayer, nor a cry, nor a groan,_
_Was heard from those massive walls of stone,_
_Nor again was the Caliph seen alive._

[447] Freeman, _op. cit._, p. 132.

[448] “Tamerlan fit passer au fil de l’epée tous sea Habitants, n’
epargnant ni age, ni sexe, ni condition et fit raser rez pied, rez
terre tous ses principaux bätimens.” D’Herbelot, _op. cit._, s. v.
“Timour.”

[449] _Cf._ Gibbon, _op. cit._, Chap. LXV. “The ground which
had been occupied by flourishing cities was often marked by
his”--Timour’s--“abominable trophies--by columns or pyramids of human
heads.” Ibid., Chap. LXV. “The people of Ispahan supplied seventy
thousand human skulls for the structure of several lofty towers.”
Ibid., Chap. XXXIV.

[450] Howorth, _op. cit._, Part III, p. 1.

[451] _Cf._ Benjamin of Tudela, _op. cit._, p. 98 _et seq._ According
to the Babylonian Talmud which “became the main factor in the history
and development of Judaism,” the Jews of Babylon passed for a purer
race than those of Palestine.

[452] “_Tous les pays_,” it is said in the French translation
of the Babylonian Talmud, “_sont comme de la pâte relativement à
la Palestine, mais ce pays l’est relativement à la Babylonie._”
_Cf._ _Géographie du Talmud_, p. 320 (by A. Neubauer, Paris,
1868).

[453] The clever Ottoman author, Halil Halid, pertinently writes in
reference to this subject: “In the language of diplomacy the French
term ‘_action civilisatrice_’ may still have an impressive
sound, but owing to the free use made of it by every politician and
journalist, the sense of the term has been much contaminated with
vulgarity. The dignified charm of the English political literature
dealing with the affairs of the East has also begun to degenerate into
something like a commonplace. The notion intended by the term is this,
that when one of the mighty Powers of Christendom finds it incumbent
upon itself to take under its patronizing ægis the internal affairs
of a Muslim nation, which is incapable of holding its own, freedom,
justice and the spread of civilization will either immediately or
gradually follow the introduction of its good rule and signs of the
public well-being will spring up here, there and everywhere.

“There is no necessity to cite here any examples of the astounding work
which the civilizing Powers are doing in Eastern countries, as any one
who studies the political settlement of these countries can find ample
instances for himself. It should only be remarked that all the pains
taken in this direction are at the expense of the sovereign rights and
national independence of the people which submit to the civilizing
tutelage.” _The Crescent versus the Cross_, pp. 184, 185 (London,
1907).

[454] “Neejdee horses are especially esteemed for great speed and
endurance of fatigue; indeed in this latter quality none can come up to
them. To pass twenty-four hours on the road without drink and without
flagging is certainly something; but to keep up the same abstinence and
labor conjoined under the burning Arabian sky for forty-eight hours at
a stretch is, I believe, peculiar to animals of the breed.” _Personal
Narrative of a Journey Through Central and Eastern Arabia_, p. 310
(by W. G. Palgrave, London, 1869).

[455] The most prized horses in Arabia belong, it is said, to the
_Khamsa_, namely, to one of the _Kehilan_ breeds, which,
according to tradition, are descended from Mohammed’s five favorite
mares.

[456] _Cf._ E. Reclus, _Asia_, Vol. IV, p. 466 (New York,
1855).

[457] _Op. cit._, pp. 25, 26.

[458] See _La Province de Bagdad_, p. 108 (by Habib K. Chicha,
Cairo, 1908).

[459] “Who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a
husbandman, planted a paradise, in Eden towards the East, and placed
in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the
fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life?” _De Principiis_, Bk. IV,
Chap. I.

[460] _De Genesi ad Litteram_, Lib. VIII, Cap. I.

[461] _Wo lag das Paradies_, p. 44 (Leipsic, 1881).

[462] Lib. II, dist. 17, c. 5, “Unde volunt in orientali parte esse
paradisum, longo interjacente spatio vel maris vel terræ a regionibus
quas incolant hominea secretum, et in alto situm, usque ad lunarem
circulum pertingentem, unde nec aquæ diluvii illuc pervenerunt.”

[463] _Cf._ _Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_, p. 255 _et
seq._ (by S. Baring Gould, London, 1892).

[464] _The Voyage and Travaile of Sir John Mandeville_, Chap. XXX.

[465] See _Select Letters of Christopher Columbus_, pp. 141–147
(translated by R. H. Major and printed for the Hakluyt Society, London,
1870).

[466] _La Nouvelle Revue_, April 15, 1893.

[467] _Atlantis, The Antediluvian World_, p. 455 (New York, 1884).

[468] _Popular Science Monthly_, p. 678, September, 1883.

[469] _Paradise Found_, p. 433 (by W. F. Warren, Boston, 1885).

[470] _The Human Species_, p. 175–177 (New York, 1890).

[471] _Histoire Ancienne de l’Orient_, Tom. I, p. 96 _et
seq._ (Paris, 1881).

[472] See chapter on The Site of the Garden of Eden, in _Science
and the Church_ (by J. A. Zahm, Chicago, 1896), from which I have
extensively drawn for the present treatment of the subject.

[473] _Cf._ _Dictionnaire de la Bible_, Tom. IV, Col. 2121
(pub. by F. Vigoroux, Paris, 1908).

[474] See _Reise der K. preussichen Gesellschaft nach Persia_,
Tom. I, p. 146 (by H. Brugsch, Leipsic, 1862).

[475] _Cf._ Dom Calmet, _Commentaire littéral sur la Genèse_,
p. 61 (Paris, 1715).

[476] Duo sunt amnes qui in unum coeunt deinde abeunt in diversas
partes. Ita flumen unum est in confluente; duo autem inferioribus
alveis sunt capita, et duo versus mare postquam rursus longius
dividi incipiunt. See his _Commentarius in Genesin_. The map of
Babylonia, which accompanies the text renders the author’s view quite
clear, although it does not specify the site of the Garden of Eden.

[477] See _The Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments_,
pp. 95, 96 (by A. H. Sayce, London, 1894). _Cf._ _The Old
Testament in the Light of the Historical Records and Legends of Assyria
and Babylonia_, Chaps. I, II (by T. G. Pinches, London, 1908);
_The Chaldean Account of Genesis_, p. 305 (by George Smith,
London, 1876).

[478] Ibid., p. 97.

[479] _Op. cit._, pp. 97, 98.

[480] _Modern Science and Bible Lands_, pp. 197, 198 (New York,
1889).

[481] _Skizze der Geschichte und Geographie Arabiens von den ältesten
Zeiten bis zum Propheten Muhammed_, Vol. II, p. 317, _et seq._
(Berlin, 1890).

[482] _Aufsätze und Abhandlungen_, p. 273 _et seq._ (Munich,
1901).

[483] “E chiaro che il narratore nel detto brano della Genesi ha avuto,
dinazi agli occhi un luogo ben noto, e si e data la pena di discriverlo
mimutamente, affinche non potessero surgere dubbi sul paese che egli
voleva indicare.” _Studi di Storia Orientale_, Vol. I, p. 121
(Milan, 1911).

[484] Referring to the discovery of the word Eden--Edina--in cuneiform
inscriptions the distinguished Assyriologist, T. G. Pinches, _op.
cit._, p. 72, writes: “That we shall ultimately find other instances
of Eden as a geographical name, occurring by itself and not in
composition with another word, as in the expression _Sipar Edina_,
and even a reference to _gannat Edinni_, ‘the Garden of Eden,’ is
to be expected.”

[485] Purgatorio, XXXIII, 145.

[486] So called because of an Eastern tradition that it was the
plantain and not the apple which was the forbidden fruit in Paradise.
It is also known as Adam’s fig.

[487] _Paradise Lost_, Bk. IV.

[488] Nature herself confesses to have given the tenderest hearts to
the human race, as she gave them tears; this is the best part of our
faculties. _Satire XV_, vv. 131–133.

[489] According to Dr. Fries, an eminent German scholar, all
games of ball are traceable back to an old light myth which was
presumably Babylonian in origin: “_Alles Ballspiel_,” he
writes, “_ja bis herab zum Lawn-Tenis auf denselben Gedanken-den
Lichtkampf-zurückgeht._” _Studien zur Odyssee_, Vol. I, p. 324
(Leipsic, 1910).

[490] _The Excavations at Babylon_, p. 15 (London, 1914).

[491] “But the devils believed not, they taught men sorcery and that
which was sent down to the two angels at Babel, Harut and Marut.”
_The Koran_, Sura II, 96.

[492] Chap. XIII, vv. 19–21. In lieu of the word “satyrs” the
_Vulgate_ has _pilosi_--the hairy ones--which is more in
keeping with the original Hebrew text.

[493] Genesis xi: 4.

[494] Ερημία μεγάλη ἐστιν ἡ μεγάλη πόλις, Bk. XVI, I, 5.

[495] _The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries
of the English Nation_, Vol. X, Part I, p. 63 (collected by Richard
Hakluyt, Edinburgh, 1889).

[496] “The inhabitants of these parts are as fond of attributing every
vestige of antiquity to Nimrod as those of Egypt are to Pharaoh.” Rich,
_Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon_ (London, 1818).

[497] _Op. cit._, Tom. I, p. 382 _et seq._

[498] That Della Valle had no doubt that the mound of Babil was really
the ruin of the Tower of Babel is quite evident from the positive
statement which he makes to this effect: “che sia quella Babel antica è
la torre di Nembrotto, non c’è dubbio, secondo me, perche oltre che il
sito lo dimostra, da’ paesani ancora oggidi è conisciuta per tale, ed
in Arabico è chiamata volgarmente Babel.” _Op. cit._, p. 384.

[499] Koldewey, _op. cit._, p. 11, _et seq._

[500] _Op. cit._, p. 101.

[501] _Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, Ancient Babylonia_,
Vol. II, p. 365 (by Robert Ker Porter, London, 1822).

[502] _Op. cit._, p. 317. The Jews of Babylonia call the tower of
Birs-Nimrud “Nebuchadnezzar’s prison,” for what reason is not clear.

[503] _The Old Testament in the Light of Historical Records and
Legends of Assyria and Babylonia_, p. 138 (by T. G. Prinches,
London, 1908).

[504] _Observations Connected with the Astronomy and Ancient History,
Sacred and Profane, on the Ruins of Babylon_, p. 2 (by T. Maurice,
London, 1816).

[505] Ibid., Vol. II, p. 336.

[506] _Cf._ _Expedition de Mesopotamie_, Vol. I, Lib. I (Paris, 1863).

[507] See also _Die Tempel von Babylon and Borsippa_, p. 59 (by
Dr. Koldewey, Leipsic, 1911), that speaks of Oppert’s _verkehrter
Stadtplan von Babylon_ and who declares that Borsippa, as
an independent city, bore the same relation to Babylon as does
Charlottenburg to Berlin.

[508] _The History of Herodotus_, Bk. I, 178, 179.

[509] _Library_, Lib. II, Chap. VII.

[510] Rich, _op. cit._, p. 43.

[511] _De Rebus Gestis Alexandri Magni_, Lib. V, Cap. I.

[512] _The Geographical System of Herodotus Examined and
Explained_, p. 347.

[513] _Op. cit._, p. 2.

[514] _Im Lande des Einstigen Paradieses_, p. 30 (Stuttgart,
1903). According to Oppert the great wall of Babylon embraces an area
fifteen times as great as that of Paris in 1850 and as extended as that
of the entire department of the Seine. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 234.

[515] _Op. cit._, p. 5.

[516] _Op. cit._, II, 8.

[517] Koldewey, _op. cit._, p. 54.

[518] Arrian’s _Anabasis of Alexander_, Bk. VII, Chap. XXVI.

[519] According to the measurements of Rich, the current of the
Euphrates runs at a medium rate of about two knots an hour while that
of the Tigris has a maximum velocity of full seven knots.

[520] _Commentary on Isaias_, Bk. V, Chap. XIII, _Patrologiæ
Latinæ_, Vol. XXIV (Migne, Paris, 1865).

[521] _Op. cit._, Bk. I, Chap. 181.

[522] _Geography_, Bk. XVI, Chap. I, Sec. 5.

[523] _Op. cit._, p. 196.

[524] Ibid., p. 196.

[525] “Principio Assyrii”--the Chaldeans--“propter planitiem
magnitudinemque regionum quos incolebant, cum cœlum ex omni parte
patens et apertum intuerentur, trajectiones motusque stellarum
observaverunt.” _De Divinatione_, Lib. I.

[526] _Op. cit._, Lib. V, Cap. I.

[527] _Op. cit._, p, 103.

[528] For a description of the ruins of Cuzco and the Great Chimu, as
compared with those of Babylon, see _Along the Andes and Down the
Amazon_, Chaps. XIII, XV (by J. A. Zahm, New York, 1911).

[529] _The History and Conquests of the Saracens_, p. 2 _et
seq._ (by E. A. Freeman, London, 1877).

[530] _Babel and Bibel_, p. 36, 37 (London, 1903).

[531] _The Archæology of the Cuneiform Inscriptions_, p. 111
(London, 1908).

[532] Entitled _Der babylonische Ursprung der ägyptischen Kultur_
(1892).

[533] Pliny, speaking of Belus, says: “Inventor hic fuit sideralis
scientiæ, Naturalis Historiæ,” Lib. VI. Cap. 30.

[534] _Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans_, p. 8
(New York, 1912).

[535] See especially _Astronomisches aus Babylon, oder das Wissen der
Chaldäer uber den gestirnten Himmel_ (by J. Epping, in collaboration
with J. Straszmaier, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1889); _Die Babylonische
Mondrechnung_ (by F. Kugler, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1900).

[536] _Cf._ Dumont _op. cit._, p. 60.

[537] A comparison of the lunar periods as given by Babylonian and by
modern astronomers will show how exact were the calculations of the
observers of ancient Chaldea.

Periods as calculated by Babylonian astronomers:

Mean sidereal month 27 days, 7 hours, 43’ 14″
Mean synodic month 29 days, 12 hours, 44’ 31.3″
Mean draconitic month 27 days, 5 hours, 5’ 35.8″
Mean anomalistic month 27 days, 13 hours, 18’ 34.9″

Periods as calculated by modern astronomers:

Mean sidereal month 27 days, 7 hours, 43’ 11.5″
Mean synodic month 29 days, 12 hours, 44’ 2.9″
Mean draconitic month 27 days, 5 hours, 5’ 36″
Mean anomalistic month 27 days, 13 hours, 18’ 39.3″

From the foregoing figures it is seen that the maximum difference
of time, as given by ancient and modern observers, is less than a
half minute; the minimum one-fifth of a second! See Kugler’s _Die
Babylonische Mondrechnung_, pp. 24, 40, 46.

[538] Kugler _op. cit._, p. 206.

[539] Hammurabi’s code which is carefully engraved on a large stele
of black diorite was found by M. de Morgan and the distinguished
Dominican archæologist, Father Scheil, among the ruins of Susa--the
Susan of the Bible--whither it had been carried from Babylon as loot
by the Elamites. When found in December, 1901, and January, 1902, it
was in fragments but the parts were easily rejoined. In October, 1902,
there appeared an admirable translation of it by Father Scheil which
everywhere excited the greatest interest among scholars both of the Old
and the New World. In many respects, it is the most interesting and
valuable inscribed monument of old Babylonia which has yet been brought
to light.

[540] _Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters_, pp.
vii, viii (by C. H. W. Johns, New York, 1904).

[541] _Op. cit._, p. 186.

[542] _Apocalypse_, xvii: 5; xviii: 21.

[543] _Daniel_ iv: 27, 28.

[544] Chap. li: 58.

[545] Chap. li: 37.

[546] Chap. li: 62.

[547] _Psalm_ cxviii: 89.

Transcriber’s Notes:

1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
corrected silently.

2. Where hyphenation is in doubt, it has been retained as in the
original.

3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have
been retained as in the original.

4. Italics are shown as _xxx_.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM BERLIN TO BAGDAD AND BABYLON ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation.”

• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
works.

• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.

• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.