From Berlin to Bagdad and Babylon

by J. A. Zahm

So much for the oriental coffeehouse and the pleasure and surcease of care and sorrow which it offers its listless, dream-loving habitués. What are the amusements of the women of the Orient? Let the distinguished English writer, Julia Pardoe, whose knowledge of Turkish life and manners was not surpassed even by that of the well-informed Lady Mary Wortley Montague, give a reply to this interesting but ill-understood question. In the quotation given she is writing about the women of Constantinople, but what she says of them can, ceteris paribus, be asserted of their sisters in other parts of the Ottoman Empire:

It is a great fallacy [she declares] to imagine that Turkish females are like birds in a cage or captives in a cell;—far from it; there is not a public festival, be it Turk, Frank, Armenian or Greek, where they are not to be seen in numbers sitting upon their carpets or in their carriages, surrounded by slaves and attendants, eager and delighted spectators of the revel. Then they have their gilded and glittering caiques on the Bosphorus, where, protected by their veils, their ample mantles and their negro guard, they spend long hours in passing from house to house, visiting their acquaintances and gathering and dispensing the gossip of the city.

All this may and indeed must appear startling to persons who have accustomed themselves to believe that Turkish wives were morally manacled slaves. There are, probably, no women so little trammelled in the world; so free to come and go unquestioned, provided that they are suitably attended, while it is equally certain that they enjoy this privilege like innocent and happy children, making their pleasures of the flowers and the sunshine and revelling, like the birds and bees in the summer brightness, profiting by the enjoyment of the passing hour and reckless or thoughtless of the future.[188]

Since these lines were written, the liberty of the Turkish woman has been greatly extended, as have also her opportunities of obtaining a higher education, which were so long denied her.

From the foregoing it seems that the peoples of the Orient—both men and women—get quite as much pleasure out of life—in their own way, of course—as do our luxury-loving people of the Occident at the expenditure of far greater effort and wealth. But in this, as in other things—every one to his taste. De gustibus non est disputandum.

But much as one may be interested in the mosques and medresses and the customs of the people of Konia, the traveler of a practical turn of mind will find more to engage his attention in the splendid barrage which was constructed about a decade ago, some twenty odd miles to the south-east of the city, for the irrigation of the broad plain of Konia. It is the work of a German company, which, by utilizing the waters of two neighboring lakes—the Beushehr and the Sogla Geul—has enabled its enterprising managers to irrigate nearly a hundred and fifty thousand acres of valuable land which would otherwise remain arid and unproductive. It is notable as being the first undertaking of the kind in Asia Minor, and has already been of untold value to the inhabitants of Konia Plain. The success of this important work is sure to lead to the construction of similar reservoirs in other parts of Anatolia, with the happy result that many broad stretches of this long-neglected and deserted country will eventually be restored to their former fertility and populousness.

Time was, as history informs me, when Asia Minor, which has long been presented in many parts by pictures of utter barrenness and desolation, was one of the most fertile and productive and flourishing in the world. It was from this land, as DeCandolle[189] has shown, that Europe received many of its most important fruits and cereals, as well as many of its most valuable shrubs and trees. From Asia Minor came the peach, the plum, the cherry, and the apricot, the quince and the mulberry, and probably also the apple and the olive. From it also came wheat, barley, oats and lucerne and numerous other useful cultivated plants. It was doubtless for these reasons that an old legend located in this region the cradle of our race.

Before leaving Konia it may be noted that it was on the route of the Crusades led by Godfrey de Bouillon and Frederic Barbarossa. Godfrey’s forces found the city abandoned by the enemy, but the army of Barbarossa was forced to take the city by storm and compel the Sultan to sue for peace.

After leaving the old Seljukian capital we found little worthy of note until we reached the famous chain of the Taurus Mountains. For a great part of the distance our train passed over a level plain, sparsely populated. Here and there were small villages with mud-built houses surrounded by diminutive tracts of land under cultivation, not unlike those that are everywhere visible in northern Mexico.

What impressed us here, as in other parts of Anatolia, was the paucity of its inhabitants and their total failure to utilize the marvelous natural resources of the country. Although the area of Asia Minor is equal to that of France, its population is but one-fifth of that of the French Republic. And yet the natural resources of the country are enormous, and if properly conserved would suffice to support several times its present population. Rich in valuable minerals of all kinds, its untold treasures of ore are left unmined. Its flora, too, is as varied as it is valuable. The oak, for instance, counts more varieties here than in any other part of the world. Fifty-two species occur in Anatolia, twenty-six of which are not known to exist elsewhere. But in this part of the world, forestry is an unknown science. Worse still. Not only is arboriculture practically unknown, but thousands of valuable trees are every year wantonly destroyed. If the water, mineral, and forest resources were properly conserved and developed, Asia Minor would again be as it was in the long ago—one of the most populous and flourishing regions of the globe.