RUINED CHURCH NEAR BATOUM.
"And now behold us embarked on a comfortable steamer, and bidding farewell to the Caucasus. Our steamer belongs to the Russian Company of Navigation and Commerce, which has its headquarters at Odessa; it sends its ships not only to the ports of the Black Sea, but to the Levantine coast of the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal to India, and through the Strait of Gibraltar to England. A line to New York and another to China and Japan are under consideration; it is probable that the latter will be established before the Trans-Atlantic one. The company owns more than a hundred steamers, and is heavily subsidized by the Russian Government."
The first stop of the steamer was made at Trebizond, the most important port of Turkey, on the southern coast of the Black Sea. It has a population of about fifty thousand, and carries on an extensive commerce with Persia and the interior of Asiatic Turkey. Latterly its commerce has suffered somewhat by the opening of the Caspian route from Russia to Persia, but it is still very large.
Frank and Fred had two or three hours on shore at Trebizond, which enabled them to look at the walls and gardens of this very ancient city. Frank recorded in his note-book that Trebizond was the ancient Trapezius, and that it was a flourishing city at the time of Xenophon's famous retreat, which every college boy has read about in the "Anabasis." It was captured by the Romans when they defeated Mithridates. The Emperor Trajan tried to improve the port by building a mole, and made the city the capital of Cappadocian Pontus.
QUARANTINE HARBOR, TREBIZOND.
The Trebizond of to-day consists of the old and new town, the former surrounded by walls enclosing the citadel, and the latter without walls and extending back over the hills. It has two harbors, both of them unsafe at certain seasons of the year. A few millions of the many that Turkey has spent in the purchase of cannon and iron-clad ships of war would make the port of Trebizond one of the best on the coast of the Black Sea.
Great numbers of camels, pack-horses, and oxen were receiving or discharging their loads at the warehouses near the water-front. Fred ascertained on inquiry that there were no wagon-roads to Persia or the interior of Asiatic Turkey, but that all merchandise was carried on the backs of animals. One authority says sixty thousand pack-horses, two thousand camels, three thousand oxen, and six thousand donkeys are employed in the Persian trade, and the value of the commerce exceeds seven million dollars per annum.