Around the Black Sea / Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasus, Circassia, Daghestan, the Crimea, Roumania

by William Eleroy Curtis

Although the other powers are involved, as I have explained, their representatives have taken no active participation in the work and have simply been content to have their names appear in the articles of incorporation, and to encourage their capitalists to invest in the stocks and bonds. With the exception of the Germans, therefore, the international representation which has been insisted upon from the beginning by Turkey, and by the Powers also, is merely theoretical. In case of war or any aggressive demonstration on the part of Turkey, it is likely to assume a practical character, however, and therefore, Austria, Italy, and especially England are contented to allow the Germans to do the work so long as they have a voice in controlling the politics of the road.

As you will see by looking at the map, the city of Adana, Turkey, is some distance in the interior; but it is connected with the Mediterranean by a short line of railway to the port of Mersina on the southern coast of Asia Minor. At present, Mersina is only an open roadstead and offers no shelter to vessels, but the situation is such that a harbour will not cost a large sum of money and the engineering features are not difficult. The railway from Mersina to Adana was constructed by a British company in 1886, but has since passed under the control of the Germans and is doing a good business. The country back of Adana, known as the Cilician Plain, is very favourable to cotton culture, and a considerable quantity of that staple is already produced there. Under the encouragement of the new government the industry will doubtless develop rapidly, but so long as Abdul Hamid was in control of affairs it was scarcely worth while for anybody to develop profitable enterprises, because they would invariably tempt the cormorants who surrounded the sultan to spoliation.

The Bagdad Railway has now reached the town of Bulgurlu, beyond Eregli, in the foothills of the Anti-Taurus Mountains, and about fifty miles from Adana; but, as I have said, it is the most expensive piece of construction on the road and the German managers hesitate to undertake it. After they reach Adana there is another stretch of a hundred miles or more which is also very heavy and expensive work, requiring many cuts, embankments, rockwork, and tunnels. The managers have put in an application for a change of route along the coast by way of Alexandretta and Antioch and from there approach the valley of the Euphrates by way of Aleppo. This route would be a great advantage as a measure of economy, but as the Turkish military authorities have pointed out, it exposes the railway to any foreign fleet that may enter the Gulf of Iskanderoon, on which Alexandretta is located. If the track lay back in the mountains, it would be more difficult to interfere with traffic in time of war.

The Bagdad Railway is expected to follow the valley of the Euphrates or that of the Tigris, the two great historic rivers which encircle that mysterious country known as Mesopotamia, where, according to the Scriptures, was the cradle of mankind, and the first inhabited section of the earth’s surface. Mesopotamia was formerly dotted with prosperous cities and supported a large population, but it is now practically uninhabited. The cities are in ruins, the population has perished, and the entire area has become a desert because of the destruction of irrigation systems which were built before the birth of Abraham. The government has already undertaken a scheme of reclamation at a cost of $10,000,000. Sir William Willcocks, who built the Assouan dam on the Nile, made the survey and furnished the estimates. He declares that there is no difficulty in the reclamation of the entire area between the Euphrates and the Tigris that money cannot remove.

In January, 1911, Nazim Pasha, governor-general of Bagdad, on behalf of the Turkish government, signed a contract with Sir John Jackson, of Westminster, London, for the erection of a dam at the head of the Hindia branch of the Euphrates, as the first step in carrying out these recommendations, and the work is to be pushed forward as rapidly as possible.

Mesopotamia is that portion of Turkey lying between the Euphrates and the Tigris Rivers—an area about three hundred miles long and varying from fifty to two hundred miles in width. Within the oval, according to the estimates of the engineers, are about 12,000,000 acres, of which 9,000,000 is desert and 2,500,000 fresh-water swamp, and they estimate that 6,000,000 acres can be reclaimed. There are several large, shallow lakes fed by the annual overflow of the Euphrates and Tigris. Both are large rivers having their sources in the lakes and mountains of Armenia and emptying into the Persian Gulf about fifty miles below the town of Kurna, where they join their waters and become one.

Between those rivers are the oldest habitations of men; the birthplace of the human race; the supposed site of the Garden of Eden, and the ruins of the capitals and commercial cities of a dozen extinct civilizations. It is the most interesting field for archæologists on the earth’s surface and exploring parties from American, British, German, and French universities and scientific societies have been constantly at work for half a century or more uncovering the remains of the imperial magnificence of Babylon, Nineveh, Palmyra, and other cities.

Sir William Willcocks has contributed some interesting theories in connection with Biblical history and archæology, in addition to his recommendations for an irrigation system. He locates the Garden of Eden at Hairlah, a lovely and flourishing oasis in a delta of the Euphrates, about two hundred miles northwest of the city of Bagdad. At this point the four rivers of Eden mentioned in the book of Genesis have been identified by him, and other topographical features which he believes to be indisputable.

Sir William also gives us an interesting theory concerning the deluge, which he believes was merely the flooding of the plain between the Euphrates and the Tigris by the overflow of those rivers, which is caused by the sudden melting of the snows and the heavy rainfalls in the latter part of March and the first of April. These floods occur annually, and on the particular occasion referred to in the book of Genesis, Sir William believes an unusual volume of water came down because of a sudden “spell” of hot weather and an unusually heavy rainfall.

Sir William thinks Noah was inspired to build the ark in anticipation of such a flood, and floated around in it until he ran aground, not on the mountain of Ararat, but near the town of Ur of the Chaldees, in the province of Ararat and a part of Armenia. He believes that a careful reading of the Scripture story of the flood will justify this theory, which, indeed, is not new. Many Biblical scholars reject the tradition that the ark landed on a mountain and hold that the word “Ararat” in the book of Genesis refers to the province and not to the peaks of that name.