The objects and pleasures of travel are so unintelligible to most
Orientals that they are apt to regard the European traveller as a
lunatic, or at all events as a Crœsus, and therefore to be exploited on
every possible occasion. Hence their constant demands for ‘bakshîsh’ (‘a
gift’). To check this demoralizing cupidity the traveller should never
give bakshish except for services rendered, unless occasionally to aged
or crippled beggars.
Small fees are, however, not unreasonably expected by drivers, guides,
donkey-boys, and others, over and above their stipulated hire.
Excursionists should therefore always be well provided with small
change. If no previous bargain has been made the charges and fees stated
in the Handbook are usually ample.
While the traveller should be both cautious and firm in his dealings
with the natives, he should avoid being too exacting or suspicious. Many
of those he meets with are like mere children and often show much
kindliness of disposition. In most cases their attempts at extortion are
comparatively trifling; but if serious, the matter may be referred to
the police or to the traveller’s consul.
On the other hand exaggerated professions of friendship should be
distrusted, loyalty towards strangers being still rarer in the East than
elsewhere. The natives are apt to make common cause against European
visitors. While their religion usually requires them to address each
other as ‘_yâ akhûya_’ (my brother), their brotherhood does not extend
to outsiders.
As the Orientals are often remarkably dignified and punctilious in their
bearing, the traveller should show corresponding respect and
consideration for their customs and prejudices. He should never, for
example, photograph a Mohammedan without his leave, nor look too
curiously at the veiled women, nor don Oriental costume. Sacred places,
such as mosques, chapels, and religious houses and their schools, must
not be entered without removing one’s shoes or putting on slippers, lest
the carpets and mats on which prayer is offered be polluted. Korans must
never be touched; and when prayers are being recited, strangers must
keep carefully aloof. In every part of the Orient the traveller meets
with ‘saints’ (often imbecile or insane), who go about in fantastic rags
and sometimes stark naked. Needless to say he will give them a wide
berth.
The traveller may least obtrusively observe the various phases of
Oriental life by visiting the native quarters of the towns, the bazaars
and markets, and the popular festivals and recreations of the Moslems.
Story-tellers at the native cafés (reminiscent of the Arabian Nights),
jugglers, wrestlers, snake-charmers, barbers’ shops, and native schools
are all objects of interest. In Turkey and in Egypt the popular theatres
with their shadow-scenes (kara göz) are curious. Ladies may sometimes,
by special introduction, obtain admission to a private dwelling-house
and get a glimpse of the manners and customs of Oriental women. On
Fridays they may see the Moslem women raising their veils in the
cemeteries (comp. p. 220).
Gentlemen, when visiting an Oriental, knock at the door with an iron
ring. From within is asked the question ‘_mîn_’ (who is there)? On
being admitted, after the ladies who happen to be in the court have
retired, he removes his shoes lest the costly carpets be sullied, and
uncovers his head. The host approaches to meet him, one step or more
according to the honour he desires to do his visitor. The latter
salutes him in Oriental fashion by placing his right hand on his heart
and then moving it up to his forehead. Questions as to health are
first asked, but no allusion must be made to the ladies of the family,
who are regarded as under a veil (_sitr_). Coffee is always offered.
The servant with his left hand on his heart, hands round the little
cups to the guests in order of their rank. The guest holds the cup in
his hand till it is taken back by the servant. If the host wishes his
guest to pay a long visit he delays his order for coffee, and the
guest must not leave before then.
It is considered highly impolite to decline a visit, and each visit
must of course be returned.
The GUIDES who proffer their services everywhere may generally be
dispensed with, except by novices or by travellers pressed for time.
Most of those at Constantinople and in Asia Minor are native Jews, who
speak a little English, Italian, French, or German. All, as a rule, are
ignorant and uneducated, and their ‘explanations’ of antiquities or
works of art are worthless. When, as sometimes happens, they assume a
patronizing or a familiar manner, they should be promptly checked and
kept in their proper place. If a purchase has to be made, or a carriage
or horse to be hired, the aid of a guide should be declined, as the sum
demanded is then considerably raised, and part of it given to the guide
as commission. On short excursions the guide usually walks, and it is
quite unnecessary to provide him with a mount.
In the large towns the guides and commissionaires are sometimes in the
pay of gambling-rooms or low places of entertainment. Against such,
especially at night, the traveller should be on his guard.
* * * * *
The Mediterranean Sea and adjoining Lands.
Geographical Sketch by the late _Prof. Theobald Fischer_.
The shores of the Mediterranean, formerly visited in part only and
imperfectly known, now most deservedly attract, throughout their whole
extent, an ever increasing number of travellers and explorers. No part
of the earth’s surface can offer so marvellous an intellectual feast.
Land where he may, the traveller is almost invariably struck with the
beauty of the scenery, the richness of the vegetation, and the wealth of
historical memories. For three thousand years the Mediterranean was the
theatre of all history, the cradle of all culture, to which the whole of
humanity more or less directly owes its modern civilization. It was here
for the first time that the nearness of the opposite coasts and the
numerous island stepping-stones, coupled with winds blowing gently for
months at a time, deprived the sea of its terrors and gave birth to a
hardy race of mariners. The stagnation of the continental peoples was
thus powerfully stirred and their ignorance gradually dispelled. It was
first in Egypt, and then above all in Greece and in Italy, that those
mighty intellectual weapons were forged which were to conquer the whole
earth, while from Palestine came the mightiest of all religious and
moral influences. The Mediterranean was the school of almost all the
mediæval geographers and navigators, such as Toscanelli, Columbus,
Vespucci, the Gabotti (the ‘Cabots’ employed by Henry VII.), and others,
who added a New World to the old, and who brought Europe into touch with
the great Asiatic cradles of culture. The Italians were the first to
educate the Spanish, Portuguese, French, and even English mariners, and
to introduce them to that Ocean which was to become the world’s
commercial and intellectual highway.
The ancient Romans were fully aware, from a very early period, that they
could maintain their empire on land only by securing their supremacy at
sea also. Favoured by the central situation of Italy, they gradually
subjected the whole of the Mediterranean lands to their sway, thus
imparting to them a certain social and political unity. The name of ‘sea
in the middle of the land’, though of late-Roman origin, still suggests
the idea that both sea and land belonged to Rome. But this unity was
afterwards destroyed by the repeated incursions of Germanic tribes from
the north, followed by Arabs and Turks from the south and east. Owing to
the discovery of the great ocean highways the Mediterranean was almost
entirely neglected in the 16–19th centuries, but since the opening of
the Suez Canal in 1869 it has become one of the world’s most important
arteries of traffic. The establishment of the French in Algeria (1830)
and Tunisia (1881) and that of the British in Egypt (1884) have still
more effectually reunited Europe and Africa and promoted the progress of
civilization and commerce. With Asia also Europe has been brought into
closer touch since the Crimean war of 1854–6, when the Black Sea was
opened up, and new avenues to the Orient were thus rendered available.
While nominally belonging to three different quarters of the globe, the
Mediterranean with its shores, being bounded on the north by a long wall
of high mountains and on the south by a vast and even more impenetrable
expanse of desert, possesses quite a unique individuality of its own.
Geologically considered the Mediterranean forms part of an immense
depression girdling the whole of the earth’s crust and separating the
northern from the southern parts. This depression probably existed
during the earlier geological periods, but in its depths has not yet
assumed a settled character, as is evidenced by frequent earthquakes,
mostly tectonic, and by continuous volcanic activity. This great
depression is believed by geologists to have extended in the mesozoic
period into Central Asia, far beyond the limits of the present
Mediterranean, forming an immense sea to which the name of _Tethys_ has
been given. In its depths were deposited those strata, chiefly
calcareous and argillaceous, which were afterwards raised and converted
into dry land by means of the centripetal motion of the earlier masses
of rock and by lateral pressure. In proof of this it may be noted that
some two-thirds of Italy and four-fifths of Sicily consist of subaqueous
formations of the tertiary or even a later period.
In the midst of this vast ‘Eurasian’ (European-Asiatic) region of folded
rock formation, some 930 miles in length, bounded on the north by the
solid primæval rocks of the continent of Europe, and on the south by the
great plateau of the desert, lies the =Chief Basin of the
Mediterranean=, embracing the Adriatic and the Greek Archipelago, where
the highly indented coast and the numerous islands and peninsulas
display a most striking variety of picturesque scenery. On the other
hand the smaller part of the sea, lying to the south of a line drawn
from the Lesser Syrtis, past the south coasts of Crete and Cyprus, to
North Syria, has been formed by encroachment on the plateau of the
desert (p. xxxiii), and is almost entirely destitute of attraction. In
the geological history of the Mediterranean it is important to note also
that three great rock-masses of the earliest periods still survive.
These are the Iberian mass to the west, once probably connected with the
kindred rocks of the Atlas in Morocco; then the Tyrrhenian mass, in the
centre, and the Rumelian to the east. These three belong to the archæan
and palæozoic periods. Once towering to Alpine peaks, they were
gradually undermined by the action of the waves and by the subsidence of
the land. Their bases were thus partly covered with their débris, built
up in new formations. By later movements of the earth’s crust, however,
these shapeless primæval masses were again broken up, and by the
pressure and counter-pressure of the fragments were piled up anew into
smaller mountain-ranges of considerable height. Thus from the Iberian
primæval rock sprang up, in the Castilian range (Sierra de Gredos),
peaks to a height of nearly 9000 feet; in the Rhodope of Rumelia rise
similar peaks to nearly 10,000 feet high; and even amid the ruins of the
Tyrrhenis (p. xxxi) still towers the granitic Monte Cinto in Corsica to
a height of 8900 feet.
Around these great primæval masses, deeply rooted in the earth’s crust,
were gradually built up the recent folded mountains, out of materials
forced aside and upwards by the débris of earlier rock as it sank into
the sea. Thus on the IBERIAN PEDESTAL, from the north side, out of the
depths of the great Biscay abyss, arose the _Pyrenaean-Cantabrian Folded
Chain_ (culminating in the Aneto or Maladetta, 11,168 ft.), the fan-like
structure of which has been due to lateral pressure coming from the Ebro
depression also. By similar pressure from the south side the _Andalusian
Folded Mountains_ were piled up against the Iberian nucleus (Meseta
Mts.), and, though only 23 miles distant from the Mediterranean, they
tower in the Mulhacén of the Sierra Nevada to a height of 11,424 feet,
the greatest altitude in Europe apart from the Alps. As the Pyrenees are
fringed on the east, on the frontier of Spain and France (near Port
Vendres), with a deeply indented coast, so too the Andalusian range is
strongly marked by transverse fissures, the eastmost of which have
severed the Balearic Islands from the mainland. Still more striking is
the great westmost fissure or cleavage, where the girdle of mountains
takes a sharp turn from west to east, where the action of tides and
waves has hollowed out the _Straits of Gibraltar_, and has further
widened them within the historic period. The Mediterranean is here
separated from the Atlantic by a submarine bar or threshold, at a depth
averaging only 650 feet, extending from Cape Trafalgar to Cape Spartel,
a distance of 27½ miles, and forming the boundary between the inner
Alboran basin or depression and the outer or Andalusian. Thus, on north
and south alike the Iberian central bed-rock is bordered with lofty
mountains, whose seaboard almost everywhere repels human traffic, and
seems barred against Europe by the Pyrenees and against Africa by the
mountains of Andalusia. On the east side, however, between the Pyrenees
and Cabo de la Nao (p. 112), the original rock-nucleus slopes gradually
down to the Mediterranean. Still more important is the western slope
down to the Atlantic, whose waves have penetrated into the lower
estuaries of primæval rock on the coast, thus forming a number of
excellent harbours, such as in particular that of _Lisbon_ at the mouth
of the Tagus. Towards the Atlantic descend also the plains of Lower
Andalusia, the so-called _Guadalquivir Basin_, which lies between the
Iberian central pedestal and the Andalusian sedimentary and contorted
formations. In this basin lie Spain’s chief seaports for traffic with
Africa and America, the island-harbour of _Cadiz_, the estuary-harbour
of _Huelva_, the starting-point of Columbus, and the river-harbour of
_Seville_, accessible to large vessels at high-tide.
In NORTH-WESTERN AFRICA the Andalusian contorted formation is continued
by the _Rîf Mts._ of Morocco (p. 93) and by the _Tell Atlas_ (p. 169),
extending to the south and then turning eastwards. These ranges are
characterized by deep fissures, formed by prehistoric volcanic action
and descending abruptly to the Mediterranean. The whole northern coast
of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, apart from numerous wave-worn beaches,
is completely rock-bound, forbidding all approach. Even the artificial
harbours like that of _Algiers_ are maintained with difficulty. At the
east end of this long stretch of coast comes at last the welcome haven
offered by the _Gulf of Tunis_ which runs inland at the mouth of the
depression between the Tell Atlas and the Sahara Atlas (p. 320), and on
which the Medjerda and other streams and several important roads
converge. Here, as in Lower Andalusia, a great avenue to the interior
was thus opened up. This favoured spot therefore became a great focus of
traffic, and as it lay on the Straits of Pantelleria (p. 396) it was
also of great political importance. The ancient _Utica_ (p. 353) was
succeeded by the ‘new city’ of _Carthage_ (p. 344), the predecessors of
the modern Tunis. From this base the Carthaginians, the Vandals, and the
Moors ruled Sicily and Sardinia. With such a base as the admirable naval
harbour of _Bizerta_, lately constructed by the French, they in turn may
perhaps some day become masters of the Mediterranean.
The _Straits of Pantellería_, leading from the western to the eastern
basin of the Mediterranean and separating the Atlas from the Apennines,
have been formed, like those of Gibraltar and the narrow side-portal of
Messina, by transverse cleavage. Owing to the subsidence of the flat
offshoots of the Apennines and to the erosive action of the waves the
straits have been gradually widened to about 90 miles. The _Maltese
Islands_ are fragments, now broken up by fissures, of what was once a
tableland, but they too are being rapidly washed away by the action of
the surf. On the other hand the island of _Pantellería_, which has given
its name to the straits, rising to a height of 2743 ft. from the verge
of the central abyss and 3900 ft. in depth, is of volcanic origin. These
transverse fissures are indeed generally the scenes of volcanic action,
and they are usually situated at points where the mountains of recent
contorted formation take a sudden bend (as is notably the case in the
lower valley of the Danube).
ITALY forms an immense bridge across the trough of the Mediterranean,
extending to Cape Bon in Tunisia. Like a lofty embankment, rising over
18,000 ft. from the bottom of the sea, _Calabria_, culminating in the
Aspromonte (6424 ft. above sea-level), separates the _Tyrrhenian Sea_
(12,000 ft. deep, though of recent formation) from the _Ionian Sea_. The
latter is the deepest basin in the Mediterranean, attaining a depth of
14,500 feet. The _Apennines_, deviating in their southern course from
the usual ‘Eurasian’ direction, were probably influenced by the primæval
_Tyrrhenis_. This ancient nucleus of the Italian continent has been
broken up by movements of the earth’s crust which began in the mesozoic
period, were still more marked in the later tertiary period, and
continue to this day. Some of the solid blocks, as in Tuscany, Calabria,
and Sicily (the Monti Peloritani near Messina), have been incorporated
in the later rock structure of the Apennines; others again rise as
isolated masses from the abysses of the Tyrrhenian Sea, such as Corsica,
Sardinia, and Elba. The lines of cleavage, especially between Cosenza
and Palermo, were marked by great volcanic activity. In a curve,
parallel with the abrupt ramparts of Calabria and Sicily, rise the
volcanoes of the Lipari Islands (Stromboli) and Ustica in succession. To
the north the series is continued by Vesuvius, the Epomeo, and the Ponza
Islands near Naples, and by the Alban Mts. near Rome. All these lie on
the inner declivity of the Apennines. To the south the series is
continued by Mt. Ætna in Sicily, lying outside of the Apennines. In the
quaternary period the new Apennine formations underwent an upheaval
which imparted to the range its present orographical unity. The result
was that the straits which once intersected Southern Italy, connecting
the Tyrrhenian with the Ionian basin, were filled up, with the exception
of those of Messina, while these last were narrowed to 2 miles and
shoaled at the north end, where they are only 335 ft. deep. The
intensity of the upheaval is evidenced by the fact that quaternary
deposits cover the terraces of the Aspromonte in Calabria to a height of
3900 feet above the sea-level. That these movements of the earth’s crust
still continue is proved by the variations of level in the Bay of Naples
observed within historic times. The most striking instance of this is
the great subsidence in the island of Capri which has taken place within
the Christian era. In the Blue Grotto there we find remains of a flight
of steps of the time of Tiberius, descending to the water, but the
lowest step is now 19 feet below the surface.
Italy opens towards the west. On the west side lie its picturesque bays
and islands, as well as most of its great centres of culture, _Rome_ and
_Florence_, _Genoa_ and _Naples_, besides many others. But the east side
also is important owing to its close connection with the south-eastern
basin of the Mediterranean. The chief outlets in this direction are the
lagoon-harbour of _Venice_, as great a portal of continental commerce in
the middle ages as Genoa is at the present day, and the excellent
harbours of _Brindisi_, _Taranto_, _Messina_, and _Syracuse_. Were
geographical advantages alone decisive, Italy might again become
mistress of the Mediterranean. Ethnographically also she is highly
favoured. Her population, densest on the coasts, is about one-third of
the scattered and heterogeneous hundred million inhabitants of the whole
of the Mediterranean lands.
Almost all along the coast of the north-western basin of the
Mediterranean the recent stratified and contorted headlands abut most
picturesquely on the sea. On the north-west only, on each side of the
Pyrenees, the basin is bounded by a coast of the primæval bed-rock
formation, and is easily accessible from the Iberian mountains by the
valleys of the Ebro, Jucar, and other rivers. Still more important are
the avenues afforded by the _Aquitanian Plains_ and the _Rhone Valley_.
Hence it was that from a very early period the streams of Roman culture
flowed through Marseilles and Narbonne to western and central Europe.
But these, like the Straits of Gibraltar on the west, the Carso or Karst
near Trieste on the north, and the Bosporus on the east, afford inlets
also for the cold winds which sometimes pour into the warm
mountain-girdled basin of the Mediterranean and force back the zone of
southern vegetation (p. xxxv).
The southern margin of the north-western basin of the Mediterranean lies
in the same latitude (36°) as the northern margin of the south-eastern
basin (Cape Tænaron, on the south coast of Asia Minor). This less
favoured south-eastern basin sends two great branches towards central
Europe, the Adriatic and the Greek Archipelago, both of which open out
in the direction of the Suez Canal and the Red Sea. From these branches
run important roads leading to the heart of Europe, in particular those
from Venice and Trieste into Austria, and that from Saloniki to Belgrade
and up the Danube. This last, as also the road from Belgrade to Sofia,
Adrianople, and Constantinople, traverses the RUMELIAN PRIMARY
FORMATION, to which the greater part of the south-eastern European
peninsula belongs (Thrace and Macedonia, extending into Servia). To the
same period probably once belonged also the north-western part of Asia
Minor and _Ægaeis_, of which last the only surviving relics are the
islands of the _Cyclades_. Here, too, over the primæval bed-rock, recent
folded mountains have been gradually built up. The _Balkan_ is one of
these ranges. Another is the _Illyrian-Greek Range_, running in a
different direction, which with its broad girdle gives the peninsula its
southern trend, while shutting it off from the Adriatic and barring
direct access to the north-west. As the Balearic Islands belong to the
Andalusian stratified formation, and as Sicily and its adjoining islands
form part of the Apennines, so the western stratified girdle of the
south-eastern European peninsula crumbled, even within the historic
period, into peninsulas and islands, formed chiefly by very recent
subsidence. Thus arose _Greece_, a hill-country with an extensive
seaboard, a new and unique region which was one day to reign supreme in
the intellectual world. It is probable that the Greek range of hills was
once prolonged eastwards, as appears to be indicated by the lie of the
Cretan mountains, and that these in their turn were connected with the
similarly stratified _Taurus Mountains_ in Asia Minor. Just as the
south-eastern peninsula of Europe, with Asia Minor, thus formed the
great stepping-stones of traffic which brought the ancient culture of
Europe into contact with that of Mesopotamia and Syria, so when the
railway from Constantinople to Bagdad is completed a great future may
yet be in store for the Orient.
The =Eastern Mediterranean=, the smaller south-eastern basin to the
south of Malta, Crete, and Cyprus (p. xxviii), lies within the region of
the great primæval desert-plateau of northern Africa (apart from the
Atlas regions), of Arabia, and Syria, and has been formed by the
subsidence of part of that plateau. In contrast to the richly varied
shores of the western and central basins its coasts, as may even be seen
from a glance at the map, are monotonous. Their formation, whether
perpendicular or horizontal, is featureless, and there is an almost
entire lack of islands, harbours, and rivers. The Nile greatly relieves
this monotony, but its sources lie within tropical regions far beyond
the limits of the desert. _Alexandria_ possesses almost the only natural
harbour on this flat coast of early formation. The old-world
characteristics of the land, its inhabitants, and their language at once
strike the traveller on landing at _Tripoli_. Yet even this part of the
Mediterranean, especially the _Levant Basin_, beyond the passage between
Crete and Barca, contains recent formations. The hill-region of _Barca_,
the ancient Cyrenaica (p. 413), averaging 1600 feet in height, is
composed of miocene marine strata. The bay now filled up by the Nile
delta, and at one time connected with the Red Sea, is of even later
origin, dating perhaps from the pluvial or glacial era. That the mouth
of the Nile once lay much farther to the north and watered Palestine is
evidenced by the identity of its fauna with that of the Jordan and the
Lake of Tiberias (crocodiles, for instance, occurring in the Nahr
ez-Zerkâ, to the south of Mt. Carmel; p. 468). Movements of the earth’s
crust also account for the peculiar conformation of that part of the
great desert-plateau which we call _Syria_. It is only differentiated
from the monotonous North Arabian desert by the great Syrian Valley or
trough, running from north to south, and ending at the Gulf of Akaba in
the Erythræan depression (the Red Sea), which dates from about the same
epoch. On each side of this long narrow furrow, descending to a depth of
some 2500 feet below the sea-level, strips of land have been forced
upwards so as to form lofty mountains. These, in spite of subsidences
and erosion, still attain a height of about 10,000 feet in the
twin-giants of _Lebanon_ and _Anti-Lebanon_ in Central Syria. It is to
this highly picturesque mountain-wall, which condenses the vapours from
the sea and remains snow-clad till late in summer, that the Syrian
seaboard, 10–16 miles in breadth, owes its luxuriant subtropical
vegetation, and Palestine its cultivability as far as its southern
borders. Syria, which may be regarded geographically and
anthropologically as a kind of peninsula of the Mediterranean, thus
forms a bridge between north and south, connecting Asia Minor and
Mesopotamia with Arabia and Egypt, and bounded by the sea on the west
and by the desert, only some 60 miles distant, on the east.
The =Black Sea=, which from the north-eastern angle of the Archipelago
runs far into the interior of the Old World, lies outside of the
Mediterranean regions. Like the inland Caspian Sea it is a relic of the
tertiary Sarmatic Sea, which was afterwards broken up into lakes of
brackish water. It was not till the diluvial epoch that those
subsidences which created the _Sea of Marmora_ brought the Black Sea
also into connection with the Mediterranean. Through the Sea of Marmora
there must once have flowed a great river, into whose valley the sea
afterwards penetrated from the south, forming the _Dardanelles_ and the
_Bosporus_ of the present day. Travellers on the Rhine will observe an
interesting resemblance between these straits and the Rhine Valley
between Bingen and Coblenz. Like these straits the Black Sea also is a
great trough hollowed out between lofty stratified mountains. On three
sides its bold rocky coasts are inhospitable and forbidding. On the
north it is bounded by the ‘steppe’, a plateau of primitive formation,
no less monotonous than the desert-plateau on the south side of the
Mediterranean, yet cultivable owing to its more northern situation. At
two places on this side, through gaps in the mountain rampart, the sea
has overflowed the plateau, forming the shallow _Gulf of Odessa_ and
_Sea of Azov_. Two great routes of traffic were thus opened up from the
Black Sea into the heart of Eastern Europe and even of Central Asia,
enriching the world’s commerce with the products of these regions, and
at the same time forming the portal through which Byzantine culture and
Greek Christianity found their way into Russia. Through these passages
great masses of cold northern air are poured into the Black Sea; but
between them the _Peninsula of the Crimea_, a relic of the broken-down
mountain-girdle, still stands boldly forth, giving shelter to an almost
Mediterranean vegetation on its southern coast. On that coast lies the
admirable harbour of _Sebastopol_. Nearer the Sea of Azov once lay the
flourishing Greek colonies of _Pantikapaeon_ and _Phanagoria_, and in
the middle ages the Genoese settlements of _Sudak_ (Kertch) and _Kaffa_
(Theodosia or Feodossiya). As the corn of Southern Russia is now the
chief export from Odessa to London and Antwerp, so, from the 14th
century onwards, quantities of Russian caviare were brought by Italian
merchants from Kaffa to Bruges, which was then one of the world’s
greatest markets.
The =Climate= of the Mediterranean is very equable. In every age
northerners have been attracted by the mildness of the winters, when the
occasional storms and heavy rains are of short duration and are soon
succeeded by bright sunshine. The heat of summer is tempered everywhere,
especially on the more southern coasts, by refreshing sea-breezes. The
farther south one goes, the longer the dry season lasts. At Tripoli, for
example, it lasts for seven months and at Alexandria for ten. The
subtropical maximum air-pressure over the eastern Atlantic, by which
rainfall and wind-movements are determined, is usually continued in
winter past the southern limit of the Mediterranean (comp. p. 29), thus
bringing the whole of that sea within the zone of the changeable and
rainy winds of Central Europe. In summer the pressure lies farther to
the north, producing in most parts of the Mediterranean steady northerly
currents of air. The climate is tempered also by the warmth of the sea
itself. The bar at the west entrance of the Straits of Gibraltar (p.
xxix) keeps out the cold water of the deep Atlantic, but allows the
influx of the warmer surface-water to compensate for what the
Mediterranean loses by evaporation. This loss would otherwise amount to
a depth of 10–15 ft. per annum. The influx of water from the Atlantic
causes a current to flow along the North African coast from west to
east, but its thermal effects are soon lost. In summer the surface of
the Mediterranean is heated by the sun up to 75–82° Fahr.; but the
temperature diminishes rapidly down to a depth of about 1000 feet, where
it reaches a uniform minimum corresponding with the surface temperature
of February, the coolest month in the year. This in the north-western
basin is 55° Fahr. only, and in the south-eastern 56¼°, but it suffices
to temper the cold winds of winter, while additional warmth is brought
from time to time by the hot sirocco from the interior of Africa (comp.
p. 321). It may be stated generally that the winter temperature on the
Mediterranean averages 14° Fahr. above that of almost all other regions
in the same latitude. The warmest places are of course those on the
coasts facing the south and sheltered from the north, while the average
temperature rises gradually from south-east to north-west.
The =Vegetation= is rich and varied. Evergreens abound, being better
able to stand the long droughts than deciduous trees and shrubs. Among
the forest-trees in the warmer regions the commonest are pines,
including stone-pines, and oaks of the evergreen and other varieties.
The underwood (_macchia_, _maquis_, or _garrigue_, Grk. _phrýgana_) is
composed of mastic-bushes (Pistacia lentiscus), myrtles, arbutus-trees
(Arbutus unĕdo), broom, tree-like heaths (Erica arborea and scoparia),
resinous and aromatic cistus-shrubs with large blossoms resembling wild
roses, and climbing-plants of many varieties. Most prominent among trees
in the cultivated lands is the silver-grey olive, which, as well as the
vine and the fig-tree, has thriven here from the earliest times and is
the most characteristic feature in every Mediterranean landscape. Most
of the other fruit-trees also have been known here since remote
antiquity. The fruit of the date-palm attains perfection in the oases of
North Africa only (comp. p. 171), but the tree bears fruit on the
Spanish coast, and is very popular as an ornamental tree on the French
and Italian Riviera and in other sheltered situations. Lemons were
introduced by the Arabs, and oranges were brought from southern China by
the Portuguese about the middle of the 16th century. Many other foreign
trees and plants have been introduced since then. Aloes and opuntias,
which now grow wild and are often regarded as characteristic of the
Mediterranean, were introduced from America. In the beautiful and
luxuriant gardens, especially in Italy, on the French Riviera, and in
Algeria, the flora of almost every quarter of the globe is represented.
No less varied and interesting are the =Inhabitants= of the
Mediterranean lands, who belong to three distinct continents, and who
differ widely in race and language, in religion and culture. In remote
mountain-regions there still exist peoples, like the _Basques_ and the
_Albanians_, who belong to the oldest races in Europe. In the south and
the east dwell _Arabs_ and _Turks_, comparatively recent immigrants from
the steppes of Asia. On one side, as in Southern France, is witnessed
the height of civilization; on the other, as in Albania and many parts
of Northern Africa, the population is sunk in the depths of ignorance.
The dwellers in the west profess the Roman Catholic faith, those in the
east belong to the Greek Catholic church, while they differ materially
in culture also. Christianity again is antagonistic to Islam, which
prevails in Turkey, Asia Minor, Syria, and North Africa. The inhabitants
of the Atlas regions, of Tripolitania, and of Barca are _Berbers_ (p.
94), who are neither Arabs nor Turks, but are more akin to the
Europeans. The Osman Turks of the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor have
been so blended with Mediterranean races that they now retain little of
their original Mongolian character. Entirely distinct again from the
Arabs are the Aramaic _Syrians_, although they speak Arabic, and so too
are the _Fellahin_ of Egypt. Most mixed perhaps of all is the blood of
the _Modern Greeks_.