Our New Protectorate. Turkey in Asia, its geography, races, resources and government

Preface

. ALTHOUGH the Anglo-Turkish Convention has suggested the first title of these volumes, I owe it to myself to say that the idea of the book was conceived, and several of its chapters were written, before the indiscretion of the Globe revealed that questionable compact to the world. From the first, I had shared the conviction of all who knew the poverty of the Porte's resources that, however he roic might be its defence, Turkey, unaided, must be beaten in the late struggle, with the result of virtually ceasing to be a European Power ; and, in view of the major interest that must thereafter attach to its Asiatic empire, there seemed room for a concise but comprehensive sketch of the present condition of these Eastern Provinces. It can hardly be claimed that this want — which the Convention of June 4 has since greatly emphasized — has been quite completely met by Captain Burnaby's rapid " Ride " from Scutari to Kars, nor even by Mr. Geary's later and very different record of his

PREFACE.

. VI journey from Baghdad to Alexandretta. It has in part been more nearly supplied by the excellent letters of Mr. George Barkley to the Times, which I take leave to call models of what such a corre spondence should be. But as that gentleman's excursion only carried him through Asia Minor and western Armenia, his admirable sketches de scribe little more than a third of the field covered by our new engagements, and necessarily omit much about even that for which the ampler limits of a book afford space. My sole qualification for attempting to supplement the work of these writers is — that at considerable intervals of time I have travelled over more of the country than any of the three, and have, so to speak, digested the results of my observations during a long residence in Constantinople under conditions favourable to further acquaintance with most interests of the country.

As the narrative of mere personal experience, however, could have little interest for the reader, I have purposely confined my notes of this to the narrowest limits, leaving undescribed, and even unmentioned, several journeys of which scraps of information here and there given are the only result worth recording. In statements of fact and description of places outside my own personal knowledge — which necessarily form the greater part of the book — I have spared no pains to obtain and

PREFACE.

. VII carefully sift the best available information ; and in the opinions expressed on the whole, I have honestly said what I believe, without either political or religious bias of any kind. If my critics will only credit me with this double fact, and bear in mind that the volumes now submitted to their judgment pretend to be, as stated elsewhere, nothing more than a "slight contribution to popular knowledge of a country to which, for English readers, recent events have given a new and more than ever practical in terest," I will bow to their verdict, whether it approve or condemn the book. In conclusion, my acknowledgments are due to the courtesy of Mr. Allingham and Messrs. Longmans for permission to reprint so much of Chapters VIII., IX., X. and XI. of Vol. L, and of I., II., V. of Vol. IL, as appeared in Fraser's Magazine. J. C. McC. London, February 1879. CONTENTS.

Introduction

.

The new relation of England to Eastern Turkey an irreversible fact — The raison d'etre and object of this book — Asia the true home of the Turks — Their relative numbers and strength west and east of the Bosphorus — The splendid resources yet available in Asia — Area and limits — Three distinct configurations — Ethnographical and physical divisions ...... Page I — 7

Chapter II. Asia Minor

Largest of the five divisions — Area and limits — Mountain system — Chief passes — Rivers and lakes — Lines of communication, main and secondary — Geology — Climate — The Archipelago — Forms separate government — Thasos, Samothrace, and Imbros, Thracian rather than Asiatic — Lemnos — Tenedos — Mytilene — Psyra — Scio — Samos — Icaria — Patmos — Calymno — Cos — Rhodes — Cyprus — Its present economical and sanitary condition — Rhodes or Mytilene preferable for purposes of British occupation. . Page 8 — X CONTENTS.

Chapter III. Armenia And Kurdistan

Limits of Turkish Armenia — Its configuration — Rivers — The Euphrates and Tigris — Main routes — Personal journey from Trebizond to Erzeroum — To Bayazid — Erzeroum to Kars — Situation and aspect of the latter fortress — Journey to Van — Kurdish hospitality — Lake Van — Voyage across — Story of Sheikh Abdullah — Kurdistan — Its chief physical features — Climate — Principal Products. Page 32—55

Chapter IV Mesopotamia And Irak

Most homogeneous of the eastern provinces— Their limits and area- Mesopotamia forms two zones — Respective features of these Their rivers— Euphrates, Tigris, Belik, and Khabour— Lines of communication— Personal journey from Persia to the Mediterranean—The Lake and City of Oroomiah— Ushnoo— Sheikh Ibrahim —His miraculous paternity— Night attack by Kurds— Sidek— Dhianeh— Rowanduz— The Pasha's nephew and doctor— The Hakkari Kurds-First sight of the Zab-Crossing it— Arbela- Nineveh and Nebbi-Yunus— Mosul-Northward with the Tatar- Attacked by insurgent Kurds— With Osman Pasha to Jezireh— Amateur gunnery-Return to Mosul-Across the desert with Shammar Arabs-Halt with Sheikh Abdul-kerim-Nisibin- Mardin-Diarbekir-Oorfa-Severek-Birejik-Aleppc-Antioch -Scander00n Page 56S9 CONTENTS. XI

Chapter V. Syria And Palestine

Turkish "official divisions — Boundaries — Mountain system — Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon — These divide the country into three longitudinal sections — Their respective features — The Jordan valley — The Hauran — Its sub-districts — Pashalic of Aleppo — Rivers — Orontes, Leontes, and Jordan — Minor streams — Lakes — The Dead Sea — Its special features — Gennesaret — Climate — Three varieties, dependent on elevation and nature of soil. . Page<jo — 106

Chapter VI. Western Arabia

The least important of the five divisions — But as the cradle of Islam, the most valued — Prestige of its sovereignty — Fiscally, a loss to the Porte — Its limits and special features — The Hedjaz, except the desert, the most arid tract in all Arabia — The Belad-el-Haram — Mecca and Medina — The great Hadj — Yemen, the old Arabia Felix — The Porte's authority here less established — Also a fiscal loss — The Tehamah — Ports of the division — The native "sultanates " — Lack of rivers and lakes — Islands along the coast. Page 107— 115

Chapter VII. The Ottoman Conquest

A work of three centuries — Collapse and division of the Seljuk monarchy — Ertogrul — Othman invades Nicomedia — Orchan conquers Brousa — Founds corps of Janizaries — Marries daughter of CONTENTS. Emperor Cantacuzene — Murad I. conquers Macedonia and Thrace — Bayazid I. annexes all northern and eastern Anatolia — Defeated and captured by Tamerlane at Anroga — Revival of Ottoman power under Mohammed I. after wthdrawal of Moguls — Murad II. extends conquests in Asia and Europe — Mohammed II. con quers Constantinople, Trebizond, and Armenia — Conquest of Asia Minor completed by Bayazid II. — Selim I. conquers Syria, Egypt, and the Hedjaz — Becomes first Ottoman Caliph — Solyman I. conquers northern Kurdistan and Rhodes — Selim II. acquiries Cyprus and Tunis — Murad III. annexes Mesopotamia— Murad IV. captures Baghdad — Crete taken by Achmet Kiuprili — Settle ments on Circassian coast — Ebb in tide of conquest — Nadir Shah recovers Persian provinces — Russia acquires Crimea and the Kuban — Losses consequent on wars of 1829 and 1877-8 — Vitality of the dynasty — Its present decrepitude. . . . Page 1 1 6— 126

Chapter VIII. Races

In all, nearly a dozen — Total population — The Turks — Von Hammer's pedigree of the original stock — Migration from Persia to Armenia and Asia Minor— The modern race ethnically composite — Its distribution — The Armenians — Their own legendary origin — Resemblance to the Jews — Conquest of their kingdom by the Caliphs — Brief re-establishment in the Taurus — Their social divisions — How now distributed — Their character — The Kurds Obscurity of their origin — Present total — Two classes — Imperfect subjection to Ottoman authority — Character and mode of life little changed since Xenophon — Their raids on the Armenians frequent, but exaggerated — The Greeks — Descendants of the old colonists, mixed with those of converts during Byzantine empire — Chiefly settled along seaboard- — Form great majority of population in CONTENTS.

XIII Archipelago — Their occupation — Syrians — Also mixed — Physi cal similarity of Christians and Moslems — Their total, how com posed — The Arabs — Fellahs and Bedoween, their separate descent — The principal nomadic tribes — Tribal government — Their lapse to primitive modes of life after fall of the Caliphate — Their character — No love for the Turks — The Circassians — Brigands in Turkey, as at home — Still sell their daughters — The Turcomans — Cognate with the Ottomans — Some settled ; others, as of old, still pastoral robbers — The Jeivs — Majority now foreigners — Small native remnant of in Palestine and round Damascus — Chiefly urban, and on level with other Rayahs — Tartars and Gipsies — The former, the outcome of immigrations from Crimea ; the latter, same as everywhere else — The whole of these races resolve into Mussulmans and Rayahs— Their relation to the Government, and effect of Rayah subordination. . . . Page 127 — 156

Chapter IX. Religions

More numerous, and adverse to national unity, than races — Isldm the most important — Western popular opinion unjust to its dogmas and ethics — Its cardinal theorem the unity of God — Minor tenets — Reverence for Jesus — Permits polygamy, but more approves monogamy — The Abbe Fleury's and Gibbon's estimates of it — Has no priesthood — The Ulema canonists, not clergy — Soonis and Shiites — Minor sects — Metualis — Ansariehs — Druzes — Yezidees — Varieties of Christianity still more numerous and antagonistic — The whole corrupt — The Orthodox Greek Church — Parent of most of the minor sects — Its rupture with the Latin Church — Points of difference between the two — The Greek hierarchy and Clergy — The Gregorian Armenians — Foundation of their Church — Secession from the Eastern Church — Points of difference from the Greeks CONTENTS. and Latins— Their Clergy— The Catholic Armenians —Their schism and present organisation — Armenian Protestants — Outcome of the American missions — Least corrupt of these Christian sects — The Nestorians — Simplicity of their doctrine and ritual — Secession of the Catholic "Chaldeans" — The Syrian Jacobites— The Maronite — Their qualified submission to Rome — The "Latins" — Jews: mostly foreigners — An indigenous few in Palestine, round Da mascus, and in Assyria — Comparative merits of Moslems and Christians Pages 157—200

Chapter X. Resources And Products

Great natural wealth of the whole — Asia Minor in this respect compares favourably with any part of Europe — Syria and Chaldæa rank next — Physical riches of all five divisions have as yet been merely tapped — Extent and fertility of arable soil — All the conditions of successful husbandry especially abundant in Asiatic provinces — Present condition of the country no measure of its capabilities — Cereals the staple produce — Cultivation limited through want of access to markets — Tobacco, opium, silk, cotton —Their varieties, and chief producing districts — Other products — Mineral deposits — Every sort except platina — Proximity of metallic and carboniferous beds — Coal-fields of Erekli — Their quality and great extent — At present badly worked — Coal beds elsewhere — Iron, copper, argentiferous lead, emery, bitumen, sulphur, and rock salt — Absurd mining laws — Forests — Their varieties, and imperfect protection — Fisheries — Their official mismanagement — Quarries, and sponge fisheries — Essential conditions of utilising this varied physical wealth — Little hope of its development under the Porte Pages 201—226 CONTENTS. XV A

Chapter XI. Government

despotism tempered by checks — In practice, quasi-constitutional — Life and property now fairly safe — Present administrative organisation the fourth since the conquest — Dual division of empire abolished by Murad III., and replaced by system of vilayets — Loss of imperial authority under this — Failure of Selim III. to recover it — Success of Mahmoud II. —Suppression of the Dere-beys — Edict of Guthaneh, Tanzimat, and Hatti-Scheriff of 1856 — Return to the old vilayet system modified in 1867 — Under this, Asiatic Turkey now divided into eighteen vilayets and four special governments — Administrative machinery of a vilayet — Defective working of almost every branch of it — Fiscal abuses — Maladministration of justice — Universal corruption — Equally bad in Rayah denominational courts — Bad police — Law the prime want of the whole — The Archipelago — Autonomy of Samos — Exceptional administrations of the Hedjaz and the Lebanon Pages 227 —

Chapter I. Introductory

The new relation of England to Eastern Turkey an irreversible fact — The raison d'etre and object of this book — Asia the true home of the Turks — Their relative numbers and strength west and east of the Bosphorus— The splendid resources yet available in Asia — Area and limits — Three distinct configurations — Ethnographical and physical divisions. WHATEVER may be the ultimate European consequences of the late war between Russia and the Porte, it is safe to affirm that one at least of its chief issues will be permanent, and fraught with very substantial results to the civilisation and future politics of the East. The treaty of Berlin may — probably will — become as obsolete as those of Vienna and Paris, and the provinces which, a couple of years ago, formed European Turkey, may crystallise into new States, or be absorbed by this Power or that, but the Anglo-Turkish Convention and the new relation it has established between Great Britain and Western Asia VOL. I. i; must be regarded as accomplished and pregnant facts, destined to change only in the direction of strength ening and tightening the bond that is henceforth to unite the two countries.

The policy of our accepting this new responsibility may be open to question — though I at once confess my own judgment approves it — but, be the verdict of future experience what it may, the die is cast, and British interests are now as irrevocably, though as yet less directly, bound up with Asia Minor as with India itself. In this fact and the other one, that the vast region thus brought for the first time within the scope of our national influence and obligations is but little known to the general reader, lies the excuse, if not the justification for these volumes. The wealth of historical asso ciation that attaches to nearly every part of this great territory has attracted archæological explorers in plenty, and in the volumes of Rich, Hamilton, Leake, Layard, Texier, and others we have abundant record of the rich relics that still attest its won drous past ; but I know of no one book that at all concisely, yet comprehensively, describes its chief natural, ethnical, and economical features as they exist at the present day.

In the following pages I attempt such a sketch, as a slight contribution to popular knowledge of a country to which, for English readers, recent events have given a new and more than ever practical interest. Bine Me libellus. Although the Turks have for nearly four centuries occupied an area in Europe larger than France, the INTRODUCTORY. 3 true home of their empire is, and always has been, in Asia. Turkey proper, in fact, lies beyond the Hellespont, west of which its ruling race never took root, and, as we have so often heard, is still only encamped — with its tent-pegs now unloosened for a return to the patrimonial domain. In Europe, out of a heterogeneous population, roughly estimated before t!i'_- Lite war at 1 6,000,000 who acknowledged or dis puted the Sultan's authority, only some 2,000,000 are "i ' Utornan race, and less than 5,000,000 are even Mussulmans by religion ; while in Asia, in a territory more than four times as large, out of a total of about 16,500,000 mure than 10,000,000 are Mussulmans, and of these nearly one-half are probably of Turkish or Turcoman blood.

Hence it is that in the great t.ible-l.inds of Anatolia, along the slopes of the Taurus, in the valleys of Syria, and v_m the plains i'f Irak still largely survive the religious zeal and robust national life which for centuries made the Ottoman power a standing menace to Europe ; while in Thrace, in Macedonia, in Bosnia, and the Herzegovina, neither ever attained the same rude vitality ; 1'tit, under the influences of an uncongenial if not hostile civilisation, almost everywhere declined, 1 lil decadence of the Empire in Europe has, how ever, quite unduly impressed the Western imagi nation, and led to an underestimate of the splendid resources and potentialities that yet survive to it in Asia, True it is that the eastern provinces have shared in the general administrative neglect and u abuse; but in them the preponderance of the dominant race has largely availed to protect all classes of the population from the extremity of mis rule which in Europe has preyed in nearly equal measure on Mussulman and Christian alike.

The nature and some of the results of this quite impartial misgovernment will be hereafter described, but, not withstanding its extent and long duration, it may be at once said that — be the future fortunes of the Turkish empire in so much of Roumelia as is now left to it what they may — in its still vast though also shorn domains beyond the Bosphorus, it yet possesses elements which need only industrial de velopment and better government to become con solidated into a New Turkey, far more stable and peacefully prosperous than the old. The south-eastern limits of the Porte's sovereignty in Asia are so undefined, that the exact area of its territory can be only approximately stated. Geo graphers variously reckon it at from 764,100 to 620,800 square miles ; but even this latter (the Turkish official) estimate includes much of the great peninsula of Arabia, throughout which, from the Syrian desert to the Indian Ocean, and from Bab-el- Mandeb to Muscat, the Sultan's writ will nowhere run, except in the Hedjaz and Yemen along the Red Sea, and in the still narrower belt of desert west of the Euphrates, between Annah and the Persian Gulf.

This vast wedge of mostly desert territory measures nearly 200,000 square miles, which deducted from INTRODUCTORY. 5 even the largest superficial estimate of these Asiatic provinces would reduce their total extent to about 570,000 square miles. But to this, as has been said, the Porte's own estimate adds more than 90,000 square miles, on the ground of a much larger sovereign encroachment in the great southern peninsula than has ever been recognised by the local populations, still less exercised in fact. The exaggeration may, however, be overlooked, and the official figures be accepted as sufficiently accurate for the purposes of a general survey of the material condition of the whole. A hundred thousand square miles more or less in no way affect the especial interest that belongs to this vast theatre of the grandest events in human history, on which race has succeeded race, and empire followed empire — Assyrian, Persian, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk, Saracen, Turk — in such heroic, though sanguinary, procession as the earth has witnessed nowhere else.

The physical aspect of this great slice of Western Asia presents three distinct configurations — two vast plateaux and one equally vast plain bounded and diversified by great mountain ridges. Of these, the first of the plateaux stretches across from the shores of the Archipelago to the frontiers of Trans-Caucasia and Persia, with an average elevation of from 4,000 to 5,000 feet above the sea, and forms the base of two parallel mountain ranges, several of whose highest peaks rise above the line of perpetual snow ; while the second, which includes Syria and Palestine, has also its double mountain chains extending across Arabia Petræa, and the peninsula of Sinai to the Red Sea, but is less remarkable for the height of these than for the depression of one of its valleys, which, in the line of the Jordan, sinks to the lowest known inhabited level in the world, being more than 1,300 feet below the sea.

The great plain — that of Meso potamia and Irak — forms the lower basins of the Euphrates and the Tigris ; and though now for the most part only a vast steppe, is interesting above every other region of the earth as the cradle of the human race, and the earliest seat of empire. Partly for ethnographical, and partly for physical, reasons geographers have long recognised five main divisions of the great territory thus distinguished. These are (1) Asia Minor, or Anatolia ; (2) Armenia and Kurdistan ; (3) Syria and Palestine ; (4) Meso potamia and Irak, or Babylonia ; and (5) Western Arabia, comprising the eastern littoral of the Red Sea with a narrow strip of territory inland from below the Gulf of Akaba down to that of Aden. A brief separate sketch of the physical aspect and chief subdivisions of each of these will conveniently introduce some fuller description of their present economical condition.

Centuries of misrule have, it will be seen, converted vast tracts that were once populous and fertile into desert wastes and pestilential swamps ; but from the ruin and desolation which have thus especially befallen parts of Babylonia, eastern Syria, and central Asia Minor, the bounty of nature — INTRODUCTORY. 7 too strong for even this withering influence — has pre served other tracts larger than European kingdoms, in which the most splendid climate, the grandest natural scenery, and the most luxurious vegetation, are still to be found, requiring only enlightened government to reclaim what is in decay, and to in fuse, new, vigorous, and enriching life into the whole. How much this is needed, and how encouragingly abundant and vital are the elements of a great regeneration, it will be the aim of the following chapters to show.

Chapter II. Asia Minor

Largest of the five divisions — Area and limits — Mountain system — Chief passes — Rivers and lakes — Lines of communication, main and secondary — Geology — Climate — The A rchipclago — Forms separate government — Thasos, Samothrace, and Imbros, Thracian rather than Asiatic — Lemnos — Tenedos — Mytilene — Psyra — Scio — Samos — Icaria — Patmos — Calymno — Cos — Rhodes — Cyprus — Its present economical and sanitary condition — Rhodes or Mytilene preferable for purposes of British occupation. This great division much exceeds any of the others in area, density of population, and natural wealth. In form, an irregular parallelogram about 650 miles in length by 400 miles wide, it is almost separated from the rest of Asia not only by the sea, which surrounds it on three sides, but by the nearly im passable mountain chain which traverses most of the broad isthmus that joins it on to the main continent eastwards.

In area it thus about equals France, and is little less than Spain and Portugal, with which it has in physical conformation some striking analogies. Its boundaries are : on the north the Black Sea, on the west the Sea of Marmora and the Ægean, on the south the Mediterranean, and on the east an ima ginary line drawn from the Gulf of Alexandretta to near the meridian of Trebizond.1 The interior of this extensive region consists, as already stated, of an elevated table-land about 250 miles in length from north-east to south-west, by about 160 miles broad, walled in by a girdle of mountains, outside which lower valleys of varying width, but for the most part of great beauty and fertility, slope down north, west, and southwards to the sea. The southern of these inclosing ranges, the Taurus, begins in the upper basin of the Euphrates, in about 380 N. latitude, and 390 E. long., and under the more specific name of the Amanus, runs in scattered masses towards the Medi terranean, which it then skirts in a nearly parallel line westwards, sending down at many parts branches to the coast, but in others leaving broad alluvial plains between the mountains and the sea.

The highest peaks of this great chain reach an elevation of 13,000 feet, and several others rise from 7,000 to 10,000 feet ; the more important of them also are known by special names, such as the Karmez-dagh, the Allah-dagh, the 1 The ancient divisions were — in the south-east Cilicia, west of it Pamphylia and Lycia ; on the coast of the Archipelago, Caria, Lydia, and Mysia ; on the north, along the Black Sea, Bithynia, Paphlagonia, and Pontus ; and inland, Phrygia, Cappadocia, and Galatia. Although the general name of Anadoli (Anatolia) is now given to the whole peninsula by the Turks, the term is more narrowly applied to the western and northern provinces, while those to the south and south-east are collectively called Caramania. Bulgar-dagh, the Jebel-Kum and others, which are rather small ranges in themselves than separate heights.

Westward this great mountain wall sinks into the Ægean, most of whose southern islands are only so many of its terminal peaks. The correspond ing northern range called the Anti-Taurus,1 which similarly bounds the plateau on the opposite side of the peninsula, has its eastern extremity near Batoum, whence it runs westwards in two or three broken lines, also nearly parallel with the Black Sea coast, to the Bosphorus ; and then, trending round south-eastwards behind Ismid, joins the great western network of which the Keshish-dagh (Olympus), the Morad-dagh and the Kas-dagh (Ida) are the most noteworthy masses. Like the Taurus, this northern chain sends off many lateral ridges, on the one side to the sea, and on the other into the interior, which is also intersected by numerous smaller ranges, one of whose peaks — the volcanic Erjish-dagh (of 13,000 feet) — is the second highest in the peninsula.

Both these great ranges, as also most of the minor chains, are, as a rule, densely wooded, and have, in many parts, a rich undergrowth of wild vines, myrtle, arbutus, rhododendron, and other shrubs, which softens without at all detracting from the Alpine grandeur of their scenery. The chief passes of the two main ranges are, 1 Some cartographers give this name to the Amanus, or north-eastern extension of the Taurus above Adana up to the Armenian system, but the weight of authority is in favour of its application to the great northern chain. through the Taurus — (i) the Golek-Boghaz, the famous " Cicilian Gates," a deep gorge between the Bulgar and Allah-daghs, about thirty miles north of Tarsus, throughout which, at an elevation of about 3,300 feet, runs what has in all ages been the great highway from Lesser Asia into Syria and the Euphrates Valley.

Through this defile it was that Alexander marched after routing Darius in the plain below ; that the Crusaders filed on their long tramp from the Bosphorus ; and that Ibrahim Pasha, in 1838-9, twice led his victorious Egyptians into the heart of the peninsula on his way towards Stamboul ; (2) that over the Sumak-dagh, a hundred miles farther west, between Mout in the valley of the Kuiuk-su (Calycadanus) and Kara man ; (3) that about a hundred and fifty miles west of this again, over the Katran-dagh, between Adalia and Isbarta, through which runs another trunk route from Caramania, through Afioun-Kara hissar and Kutaya, to Constantinople ; and (4) that which leads up from the valley of the Eschen-chai (Xanthus), over the Ak-dagh, to the plain of Cibyra, part of the great upland tract of Phrygia.

In the Anti-Taurus, the chief openings from the Black Sea to the interior are those from Ineboli, over the Ilkaz and Ishik-daghs, to Kastamouni and Angora ; from Sinope, over the Taushan-dagh to Marsivan and Amasia ; from Samsoun also to the latter town, through a defile in the same mountain farther east ; and, besides some other breaks of minor elevation, the three converging passes which traverse the rugged range of the Kolat-dagh, be tween Trebizond and Gumush-khaneh, on the road to Erzeroum. The great table-land thus bounded and approached is, as has been said, intersected by numerous minor chains which, together with the two main ranges, form the watershed of several considerable, though geographically only second-rate, rivers and lakes. Of the former, the largest is the Kizil Irmak (Halys), which, after nearly bisecting the peninsula in a very tortuous course of more than 800 miles from its source in the Gemen-Beli-dagh (about seventy miles north-east of Sivas), empties itself into the Black Sea half-way between Sinope and Samsoun.

Fifty miles farther east, the Yeshil-Irmak (Iris), which has its source in the same range, enters the Euxine sixteen miles east of the latter town, after passing Tocat and Amasia during a north-westerly course of 240 miles. East of this again, the Melet-Irmak, the Ak-su, the Karshut-chai, and several minor streams, drain the ridges and valleys hence to Trebizond, the extreme north-eastern limit of this great division. West of the Halys no river of any importance is met with on this north coast till we reach the Sakaria (Sangarius), a fine stream, which has its source in the uplands near Angora, whence it runs for some distance under the name of the Engur su, till, about thirty miles south-east of Bey-bazar, it joins a large affluent that rises eighty miles southwest of this point in a low range above Eski-Kara-hissar, and to which other authorities give the name of the main stream.