From Pole to Pole

Blac

l my boxes on board a caique, and was rowed by four men out to the Bosporus between anchored sailing vessels, steamers, and yach

and, how unforgettable is this scene! The white, graceful minarets shoot up to heaven from the sea of houses, and the cypresses-tall, grave, and straight as kings-also seem to point out to the children of earth the way to Par

ges, walls and ruins, gardens and groves. The Bosporus is barely twenty miles long. In some places its breadth is less than a third of a mile, in others two-thirds. Old plane-trees spread their crowns over fresh meadows, and laurels, chestnuts, walnuts, and oaks afford deep shade. White dolphins skim along the water, and a school of porpoises follows in the wake of the boat, waiting for the refuse from the cook's galley. They ar

mbassadors' palaces. Turkish coffee-houses are erected on the shore, and their balconies hang over the water. Farther on there is a large valley with an ancient plane-tree with seven trunks which are called "the seven b

efore us, and the vessel begins to pitch. Lighthouses stand on either side of the entrance, which is commanded by batteries high above

the Russians have little pride in it, for the Turks control the passage to the Mediterranean, and without the consent of the other

Asia; while the Mediterranean lies between the three continents of the Old World-Europe, Asia, and Africa. Now the Baltic, Black, and Caspian Seas are of about the same size, each having an area about three times that of E

an Sea with a depth of 600 fathoms. The singular feature of this, the largest lake in the world, is that its surface lies 85

and Don. It therefore receives large volumes of fresh water. But along the bottom of the Bosporus an undercurrent of salt water passes

ow, or the Red Sea red. And so no faith should be accorded to the story of a captain in the Medi

rbour of Sebastopol, we anchor in open roadsteads off Caucasian towns, we moor our cables to the rings on the

. Small rowing-boats come out from the land to take passengers and goods to the quay. The Turkish boatmen sc

ond to

line, for modern means of communication have taken the place of the old caravans, and most of their trade has been diverted to the Suez Canal and the Caucasian railways. Many large caravans, however, still journey to and fro along this road, which is so well ma

sabre and dagger hanging at his side, and wearing a red fez with a white pagri[5] wound round it as a protection from sun and wind. Then I come in my carriage, drawn by three horses. Old Shakir, the coachman, is already my friend; it is he who prepares my meals and looks after me generally. I am well wrapped up in a Caucasian cloak, with a bashlik[6] ove

per into Asia. Soon the blue expanse of the Black Sea passed out of sight, as the road with many steep and sudden bends wound up to the top of a pass. On the

; (b) LATTER PART OF JOURNEY TO BAKU (pp. 34-35); AND (c) JOURNEY

had been hundreds of feet above an abyss, at the foot of which a bluish-green stream foamed between rounded rocks. Beside the road we had seen rows of villages and farms, with houses and verandahs of wood, where Turks sat comfortably in their shops and ca

ber and drawn by buffaloes and oxen, enliven the way. The villages are scattered, and the houses are low cabins of stone or sun-dried clay. The Turkish population

three sides, each with a gutter leading into its own water-butt. These water-butts are the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, and the Persian Gulf, and they are always big enough to hold all the

as hard as stone. My vehicle shakes and jolts me hither and thither and up and down, and when we arrive at the village where we are t

omes louder, coming nearer to us, and tall, dark ghosts pass by with silent steps. Only bells are heard. The ghosts are camels coming from Persia with carpets, cotton,

f Babylon and Nineveh only ruins are left; but the waters of the rivers murmur just the same, and the caravan bells ring now as in the days when Alexander led the Macedonian army over the Euphrates and Tigris, when the Venetian merchant Marco Po

cone as regular as the roof of an Armenian church. It is the snow-capped top of Mount Ararat, where the ark landed when th

rner of Persia, in the province of Azerbeijan, which is populated mainly by Tatars. The capital of the province is Tabriz, once the chief market for the trade of all northern Persia with Eur

ointed shoes. Each is armed with a dagger, for the Tatars are often at feud with the Turks and Armenians, and the dagger has a groove on each side of the blade to allow the blood of the victim to run off. Many a caravan leader has spent the greater part of his life in travelling

0 miles off, and the route lies almost entirely through deserts where only camels can travel

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ment servant

d a hat or helmet in tropica

cloth hood cov