The Holy Land and Syria

by Frank G. Carpenter

Leaving the theatre, I strolled about through the wide streets of marble, which have been partially uncovered, and made photographs of bits of the ruins. There is enough of this fine stone here to build a structure equal to our national Capitol at Washington. This is mixed with mosaic and the broken statues of the palaces of the past. There are pieces of friezes, columns, and capitals lying out in the open; there are torsos of statues the heads and feet of which have been broken off and carried away; and also many exquisite carvings which would be treasures to any museum. Here lies a piece of marble drapery, the remnants of the garment of a goddess; there the broken-up limb of an athlete, and farther on a beautiful bit from the front of the temple.

Among the ruins are the remains of stores, houses, and markets. I climbed over marble blocks along the street which led to the ship canal, and stood among broken columns in what was once the stock exchange and wool market. In one place is an artificial terrace where stood the great gymnasium, and in another is a marketplace two hundred feet long, surrounded by a portico, back of which were the stalls of the marketmen. In the mosaic floors of these stalls thirteen different kinds of marbles were used, and marbles of various colours were employed throughout the structure.

To-day the peasants are working all over these ruins. Here they are planting grain, and there, cleaning the fields, is a gang of a dozen girls working under a turbaned man in baggy trousers. Here women are digging; farther on a man drives a camel harnessed to a one-handled plough. The only town near Ephesus is Ayasoluk, which has but a few hundred inhabitants. It has, perhaps, a dozen small stores, a railroad station, and a hotel. While at the station I saw a white, fat lamb awaiting shipment. It was tied to the platform, and a card fastened to one horn bore the name of the commission merchant in Smyrna to whom it was consigned.

Just opposite the hotel are seven tall columns which once supported the great aqueduct which supplied Ephesus with water. Each of these has now a stork’s nest on its top, and the great birds may be seen any day standing there. I am told that they come here only for the winter, and that they leave every spring for Holland, or perhaps for some other far-away part of the world, every one of them carrying a baby.

Before coming to Ephesus I spent a day in Smyrna, whither I shall return to go on to Constantinople and Greece. Smyrna is the largest city in Asia Minor, and has about the same position in the modern world that Ephesus once had. The chief port of this part of the Levant, it does a big business in shipping wool, wine, grapes, olives, and figs. It has a foreign trade of about fifty million dollars a year, and steamers from all parts of the Mediterranean come to its docks.

The city lies at one end of the Gulf of Smyrna, which is thirty-four miles long and surrounded by lofty silver-gray mountains some of them a mile high. Its harbour is excellent, and the town has many modern buildings. Because of its importance in the trade of Asia Minor, Smyrna is a centre of political and commercial interests and the scene of fierce competition among the various nationalities. Among its people there are more Greeks than Turks.

While travelling in Syria I saw many openings for American goods. The farming there is after the methods of centuries ago, and our ploughs, reapers, and other agricultural machines might be sold. I understand that the more progressive of the native landlords are ready to buy. One man, who owns more than a thousand acres of rich grainland on the high plateau between the two ranges of the Lebanon Mountains, has offered 75 per cent. of the profits to any American company that will cultivate it for two or three years, and will bring in American machinery. The landlord also agrees, upon the termination of the lease, to pay for the machinery at the regular price.

Some of the Syrian farmers are now using American threshers and reapers, and some are bringing in American ploughs. The first thresher imported was upon the advice of our consul general at Beirut. He is a Dakota man, who understands the farming conditions in the Northwest. He tells me that the possibilities of raising grain in this part of the world are remarkable, and that dry farming might be practised in many localities which now go to waste. He thinks that old Mesopotamia can be reclaimed by irrigation and a new Egypt created there. He says that as political conditions improve there will be many opportunities for commerce and industry, and that American capital should take advantage of the situation.

Syria and Asia Minor are now raising a great deal of silk, which is sent to France and shipped from there to the United States. The American residents tell me that there is no reason why we should not buy this raw silk direct, thus saving the Frenchman’s profits and the double transportation charges. I saw mulberry orchards everywhere during my travels in Syria. The plains about Beirut are covered with them, and they are to be found on both sides of the Lebanon Mountains. When the trees have grown to the height of a man’s head, they are cut back. Green leaves from the new sprouts furnish food for millions of silkworms. In coming from Damascus I saw women and children picking the leaves to feed to the worms, carrying them to sheds erected for the purpose. Raising the silkworms is largely in the hands of the women, who take care of the trees and sell the cocoons. From the Lebanon mountain regions every year men, specially appointed, go to France to get the silkworm eggs. For some reason those laid in the Syrian mountains do not produce well.