Читать книгу Around the Black Sea. Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasus, Circassia, Daghestan, the Crimea, Roumania онлайн

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The tobacco produced around Samsoun is light of colour, and of fine flavour, especially suited for cigarettes. There is a great difference in the quality according to the care and cultivation, and the Americans have persuaded a few of the farmers to improve their methods and implements. They told me that twice the present crop might be produced from the same area if half the care and skill were expended upon it that the Cuban planters give to their tobacco. Samsoun expects to be the northern terminus of one of the railways which have been authorized by the Turkish Parliament.

If you will look on your map you will notice that Asia Minor is that part of Turkey which projects into the Mediterranean on the Asiatic side, an almost square peninsula about three hundred miles each way. It is bounded on the north by the Black Sea, on the east by Armenia and Kurdistan, on the south by Syria and the Mediterranean and on the west by the Ægean Sea. The western portion of Asia Minor is called Anatolia. It is densely settled by Turkish farmers who cultivate the ground in a primitive, awkward way, but do not realize more than half the value of their labour; first, because of their primitive tools and instruments and their imperfect cultivation, and, second, because there are no transportation facilities by which they can send their produce to market. There are two railways running into the interior from the Mediterranean coast, furnishing communication for about 10 per cent. of the population. Throughout 90 per cent. of Asia Minor the only way of travelling is on the back of a horse or a donkey and the only facility for moving freight is by caravans of camels, which are slow and very expensive. For these reasons the inhabitants depend to a great extent upon their own resources. They make everything they wear except cotton fabrics and have very little to ship away.