FOOTNOTES:
[202] The Historical Geography of Asia Minor, Roy. Geogr. Soc. Suppl. Papers, Vol. 4, 1900, p. 27.
[203] W. Leaf: Troy, A Study in Homeric Geography, London, 1912.
[204] Bk. 1, Chap. 193. Babylonia’s fertility is also noticed by other ancient writers. Cf. footnote of Rawlinson’s Herodotus, New York, 1859, Vol. 1, p. 258.
[205] W. Willcocks: The Irrigation of Mesopotamia, New York, 1911, pp. 13-14.
[206] Bushire with a population of about 20,000 inhabitants owes its importance to its being the southern sea terminal of the caravan route which starts at Teheran and passes through Isfahan and Shiraz.
[207] Vivien de St. Martin: Asie Mineure, Vol. 11, p. 386.
[208] Reclus: Asie Antérieure, pp. 509 and 522.
[209] Hogarth: The Nearer East, New York, 1902, p. 33.
[210] Hogarth: op. cit., p. 155.
[211] Op. cit., p. 194.
[212] Asie Française, Oct. 1913, p. 402.
[213] Hogarth: op. cit., p. 244.
[CHAPTER XII]
THE PEOPLES OF TURKEY
The peoples and ideas emanating from within the realm which still bears the name of Turkey have left an indelible mark on the rest of the world. Crossed by some of the great highroads of history, the land is inspiring in every aspect in which it is regarded. Its heritage of memories and the prestige of a happier and grander past are undisturbed by marks of decadence. Most of the foundations of our progressive spirit were laid in that eastern region. From a purely scientific standpoint, its human grouping and surface configuration present highly interesting interdependence.
The region is divisible into six major geographical sections. Each forms a background against which distinct types of the human family are displayed. The various groups differ from one another in religion and language, often even in race. A fringe of fresh and verdant coastland which surrounds the elevated shelf of Asia Minor is largely Greek and Christian. The only foothold which western thought, art or temper ever obtained in Asiatic Turkey is found within this wave-washed strip of land. The plateau-heart of Anatolia is predominantly Turkish and Mohammedan. The Christian element scattered on its steppe-like surface is unable to assert itself and yields to Oriental ascendancy. The high and broad mountain masses which border it on the east are the home of the Armenoids, generally Christians, sometimes Mohammedans, but almost always characterized by broad-headedness accompanied by a peculiar flattening of the back of the skull. Beyond this mountain barrier Asiatic Turkey becomes entirely Semitic, being mainly Arabian in speech and overwhelmingly Mohammedan in creed. Three main regions characterize this southern area. The long and narrow corridor of Syria became the highway which in antiquity bound the flourishing empires of the Nile basin to the powerful kingdoms of the Hittite highlands and the Mesopotamian lowlands. Its motley population, containing representatives of every race, is a relic of former to-and-fro human displacements along its trough-like extension. In the adjoining desert Bedouin tribes find their favorite tramping ground. The twin valley of Mesopotamia is the home of peoples in whom fusion of Semitic and Indo-European elements is observable.
The history of this land is that of its invaders. Successive streams of humanity poured into it from four superabundant reservoirs. Its central mountain zone was the motherland of a virile race whose sons went forth at intervals to breathe vitality into gentler populations scattered between the Ægean coast and the valleys of the Nile and Mesopotamia. Armenians and a number of Mohammedan sects represent today this Alpine race. Mediterranean men proceeded constantly from the south and west to new homes in the pleasant valleys that connected eastern Ægean shores with the interior table-land. Mobile Semitic hosts abandoned the plateau of inner Arabia before the time of our earliest records and drifted naturally northwards towards the fertile Tigris-Euphrates basin or the commercial routes of Syria. Finally a Turki element, lured out of its mountain cradle in the Altai by scattered grass lands extending westwards, swarmed in successive hordes into Asia Minor and even beyond, well into the heart of Europe.
In addition to the foregoing fundamental wanderings, the inflow of an Iranian element, composed of men of Aryan speech, may be observed. This contingent marched out of the plateau of Iran and reached the Turkish highland without having to scale its slopes. As a result of this migration Persian words permeate Armenian[214] extensively. The Turks also have appropriated a certain amount of Persian words and culture from the same source. Racially, however, the eastern element was absorbed by the Armenoid population.
The present inhabitants of the diversified domains of the Sultans have been welded by the run of history into a shadowy political unity which has failed to harmonize their incompatibilities of origin and ideals. Turkey is a thoroughly theocratic state. Its sovereign-caliph and his subjects have always considered it their most important mission to bring Islam to the infidel. So great is the hold of ideals over the human mind, however, that the non-Mohammedan populations have clung passionately to their religious beliefs. We are forced to seek in creed the main distinguishing traits which, outwardly at least, divide the inhabitants of Turkey into groups of different names. We shall see, however, that in the minds of many of them, language or historical traditions have little significance. At the same time it is believed that distinctions of a more fundamental character will be brought out in the course of this chapter.