From Pole to Pole: A Book for Young People — Sec 2 Constantinople to Teheran (1905)

THE BLACK SEA

Attended by the _cavass_[4] of the Swedish Embassy, old Ali, I drove down to the quay on a fresh, sunny October morning, loaded all my boxes on board a _caique_, and was rowed by four men out to the Bosporus between anchored sailing vessels, steamers, and yachts.

On arriving at the gangway of a large Russian steamer, I waited until all my luggage was safe on board and then followed it.

The anchor is weighed, the propeller begins to turn, and the vessel steers a course northwards through the Bosporus.

With my field-glasses I settle down on a bench in the stern and take farewell of the Turkish capital.

How grand, 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 Paradise.

Everywhere the houses mount up the hills, ranged like the rows of seats in a theatre.

The whole is like a gigantic circus with an auditorium for more than a million Turks, and the arena is the blue water of the Bosporus.

The steamer carries us away relentlessly from this charming picture.

As dreams fade away in the night, so the white city is concealed by the first promontories.

Then I change my place and look ahead.

Perhaps the view is even more beautiful in this direction.

The sound is like a river between steep, rocky shores, but in the mouth of every valley, and wherever the margin of the shore is flat, stand white villas and mansions, villages, 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 are dark, soft, and smooth, their backs shining like metal, and they can easily be seen several feet below the surface.

A single flap of the tail fin gives them a tremendous impulse, and they come up to the surface like arrows discharged by the gods of the sea, and describe beautiful somersaults among the waves.

They could easily overtake us if they liked, but they content themselves with following close behind us hour after hour.

To the left we have the European coast, to the right the Asiatic.

The distance is always so small that the Europeans can hear the bark of the Asiatic dogs.

Here is Terapia, with the summer villas of Christians and the ambassadors' 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 brothers."

According to tradition Godfrey de Bouillon with his crusaders reposed under its shade in the winter of 1096-1097, when he marched to recover the holy sepulchre and win the sounding title of "King of Jerusalem."

Now the channel widens out and the coasts of the two continents diverge from each other.

We see the horizon of the Black Sea opening before us, and the vessel begins to pitch.

Lighthouses stand on either side of the entrance, which is commanded by batteries high above it.

We roll out into the sea, and half an hour later we can hardly see the break in the coast-line which marks the end of the Bosporus.

We make straight for Sebastopol, near the southernmost point of the Crimea.

This is the station of the Russian Black Sea fleet, but the Russians have little pride in it, for the Turks control the passage to the Mediterranean, and without the consent of the other great Powers the Russian warships cannot pass through.

The Black Sea is, of course, open to the mercantile vessels of all nations.

You know, of course, that Europe has four landlocked seas, the Baltic, the Mediterranean, the Black and Caspian Seas.

The Baltic is enclosed all round by European coasts; the Black and Caspian Seas belong to both Europe and 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 England and Wales.

The Baltic is connected with the Atlantic by several sounds between the Danish islands and Scania.

The Black Sea has only one outlet, the Bosporus.

The Caspian Sea has no outlet at all, and is really a lake.

The Baltic is very shallow, its maximum depth, south-east of the Landsort lighthouse, being 250 fathoms.

Next comes the Caspian Sea with a depth of 600 fathoms.

The singular feature of this, the largest lake in the world, is that its surface lies 85 feet below that of the Black Sea.

This last is the deepest of the three, for in it a sounding of 1230 fathoms has been taken.

All three seas are salt, the Baltic least and the Caspian most.

Four great rivers enter the Black Sea, the Danube, Dniester, Dnieper, and Don.

It therefore receives large volumes of fresh water.

But along the bottom of the Bosporus an undercurrent of salt water passes into the Black Sea, which is compensated for by a surface stream of less salt and therefore lighter water flowing to the Mediterranean.

The Black Sea is not blacker than any other sea, nor is the White Sea white, the Yellow Sea yellow, or the Red Sea red.

And so no faith should be accorded to the story of a captain in the Mediterranean who wished to sail to the Red Sea but went to the Black Sea--because he was colour-blind!

But now we can continue our heaving course, still accompanied by dolphins and porpoises.

We look in at the harbour of Sebastopol, we anchor in open roadsteads off Caucasian towns, we moor our cables to the rings on the quay of Batum, and finally drop our anchor for the last time at a short distance from the coast of Asia Minor.

Proud and bright, with forest-clad heights in the background, Trebizond bathes in the rays of the midday sun.

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

The Turkish boatmen scream all together, but no one listens to them.

Every one is glad to be landed safe and sound with his baggage.

TREBIZOND TO TEHERAN

Trebizond was a Greek colony seven hundred years before the birth of Christ, and from time immemorial Persian trade has made its way to the Black Sea by the road which still runs through Tabriz to Teheran, a distance of 800 miles.

This traffic is now on the decline, 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 made that one can drive not only to Tabriz, but still further to Teheran.

It may, indeed, be softened by autumn rains or frozen hard on the high plateaus of Turkish Armenia, and the speed is not great when the same horses have to be used for distances of 160 miles.

It was a lively cavalcade that pounded and rattled over the Turkish and Persian roads in November, 1905. I was by no means alone.

The Governors of Trebizond and Erzerum were so good as to provide me with an escort of six armed troopers on sturdy horses.

In front rides a Turkish soldier on a piebald horse, carrying his carbine in a sling over his back, his 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] over my cap, and lean back comfortably and look at the country as we drive along.

Behind the carriage ride two soldiers on brown horses, engaged in a lively conversation and wondering whether they will be well tipped.

Then come two clumsy carts, on which all my baggage is firmly secured.

They have their own drivers and men, and are escorted by three troopers.

In this manner I travelled from Trebizond to Teheran.

To the ceaseless rattle of the wheels and the heavy tramp of the horses' hoofs, I plunged day by day deeper 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 other side it descended with as many windings to the bottom of a valley.

And thus we went up and down till we were up at length on the level Armenian tableland.

[Illustration: MAP SHOWING (_a_) JOURNEY FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO TEHERAN (pp. 26-33); (_b_) LATTER PART OF JOURNEY TO BAKU (pp. 34-35); AND (_c_) JOURNEY FROM BAKU ACROSS PERSIA TO BAGHDAD AND BACK TO TEHERAN (pp. 37-45).

] Here there is a complete change.

During the first days after leaving the coast, we had driven through a beautiful and constantly changing landscape.

We had passed through woods of coniferous trees and among rustling foliage of yellow leaves.

Sometimes we 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 cafés; and we had met many small caravans of horses, asses, and oxen carrying hay, fruit, and bricks between the villages.

We always began our day's march in the early morning, for the nights were mild and the sun had scarcely risen before it felt pleasant.

But up here on the plateau it is different.

No firs adorn the mountain flanks, no foliaged trees throw their shade over the road.

No creaking carts, laden with timber 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 is blended with Armenians.

The road becomes worse and more neglected as the traffic falls off.

The air is cool, and there are several degrees of frost in the night.

When we have passed Erzerum, where the Christian churches of the Armenians stand side by side with the mosques of the Turks, we journey, as it were, on a flat roof sloping down slightly on 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 water, however hard it may rain on the stony roof which rises between Caucasia, Asia Minor, and Mesopotamia.

The gutters are, of course, the rivers, the greatest of which is the Euphrates.

Now the road is very bad.

There has been rain in the autumn; and now that it is freezing, the mud, all cut up by deep wheel-ruts, is 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 to pass the night, I feel bruised all over.

Shakir makes tea and boils eggs, and after supper I roll myself in my cloak and go to sleep.

It is pitch-dark when I am called, and still dark when we make a start by the light of lanterns.

After a little a curious sound is heard across the plain.

The clang becomes 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, and fruit.

There are more than three hundred of them, and it is a long time before the road is clear again.

And all the time there is a ringing as from a chime of bells.

For many thousands of years the same sound has been heard on the caravan routes.

It is the same with the roar of the waters of the Euphrates and Tigris.

Mighty powers have flourished and passed away on their banks, whole peoples have died out, of 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 Polo travelled 620 years ago between Tabriz and Trebizond by the road we are now driving along, when Timur the Lame defeated the Turks and by this road carried the Sultan Bayazid in an iron cage to exhibit him like a wild beast in the towns of Asia.

A white morning cloud seems to be floating over the grey mountains to the east, but when the sun rises it is seen to be a cone as regular as the roof of an Armenian church.

It is the snow-capped top of Mount Ararat, where the ark landed when the great flood went down.

The summit is always covered with snow, for the mountain is a thousand feet higher than Mont Blanc.

Now we are not far from the frontier, where Kurdish brigands render the country unsafe, but once over the border into Persian territory there is no danger.

We are now in the north-western corner 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 Europe.

Here goods were collected from far and near, packed in mats of bast and bound with ropes so as to form bales, which were laden on fresh camels and carried in fourteen days to Trebizond.

Now not more than a fifth part of this trade remains, but still the caravan life is the same, and as varied as ever.

The Tatar leader rides in front; beside every seventh camel walks a caravan man, who wears a black lambskin cap, a blue frockcoat, a girdle round the waist, and pointed 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 to and fro between Tabriz and Trebizond.

On every journey he has seen Ararat to the north of the road, like a perpetually anchored vessel with its mainsail up; and he knows that the mountain is a gigantic frontier beacon which marks the spot where Russia, Turkey, and Persia meet.

On December 13 I arrived at Teheran, having driven 800 miles in a month.

India was still 1500 miles off, and the route lies almost entirely through deserts where only camels can travel.

I therefore bought fourteen fine camels, and took six Persians and a Tatar into my service.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] A government servant or courier.

[5] A light scarf wound round a hat or helmet in tropical countries, especially India.

[6] A kind of cloth hood covering the ears.

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