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).