mountains far off on the northern horizon. Thus far the country was well watered and with a fairly abundant vegetation even at this the dryest season of the year. The only trouble was that the water is badly controlled, causing much swampland, a breeding-ground of Anatolia's chief curse-malaria.

Presently, however, the coast lands were left behind, and we encountered the mountain barrier that runs like a giant rampart around the entire peninsula of Asia Minor, shutting off the moist seawinds from the interior plateau, and condemning it to relative sterility. Up and up the train panted, the vegetation growing scantier and the air dryer with every mile. It was among the foot-hills that we entered the broad belt of devastation which runs inland clear to the outskirts of Angora itself. These barren hills and sterile uplands were the sombre theatre of the ferocious drama played for three bitter years between Greek and Turk, in which the Greek finally went down in sudden and utter ruin. Not so sudden, however, but that the beaten Hellene left grim traces of his retreat. Throughout that entire belt of country-a belt averaging one hundred to two hundred miles-the retreating Greek armies left behind them a veritable wilderness of destruction. Not a town or a village was spared, the railway-lines were thoroughly destroyed, and the herds of sheep and goats which form a large part of the country's wealth were driven off or slaughtered. It is a melancholy experience to ride for nearly twenty hours through such a sombre land where one sees little but ruins. Where nature herself is so stern it is pathetic to see man's poor efforts against a harsh environment thus brought to naught by the hand of his fellow man.

Morning found us rolling across the inland plateau-a weird desert country, with magnificent vistas across sterile brown plains to gray, eroded hills and bare, grim mountains. The morning lights were beautiful, softening the hard outlines with those ethereal tints which only the desert can bring. The air was intensely dry and really cold, but an hour or two after sunrise the temperature rose rapidly, and by the middle of the forenoon

it was very hot, with a glare extremely trying to the eyes. Despite its general desert character, there were considerable changes in the scenery which gave it an interesting variety. For a considerable time we passed through a mesa country strangely reminiscent of our own arid West. Also, one does not have to know history to see that many regions must have enjoyed a much better climate even within historic times. Centuries of systematic deforestation, completed by the wholesale pasturing of great herds of sheep and goats on the denuded slopes, have decreased the rainfall and washed the soil from the hills and mountains into the valleys. Yet even to-day there must be considerable subsurface water, because, although I passed through the country at the dryest time of the year, every torrent bed had occasional pools. The trouble is that these waters are entirely uncontrolled, so that what water there is forms patches of marsh and tiny swamps, useless for agriculture and mere producers of malaria. At present the country is almost uninhabited, but this is evidently due to the late war and the Greek devastation. It was pitiful to pass the ruins of villages, at best only low huts of sun-dried bricks and now mouldering into the desert dust from which they sprang. Here and there rough attempts at restoration had been made, but the task had only just begun, and the population must be far below what it was before the war. Some progress has, however, been made in replacing live stock, for we passed large flocks of sheep and pure white Angora goats whose glistening fleeces stood out brilliantly against the dun desert background.

The latter part of the trip was decidedly trying. We were several hours late, so instead of arriving at Angora in the forenoon it was mid-afternoon before we reached our destination. By that time the heat and glare of the desert had become almost unbearable. During most of this time the train had to go at a snail's pace owing to the bad condition of the road-bed and the rails. Both had been systematically damaged by the Greeks, and the Turks had not yet had time for thorough repairs. Many of the rails were only a few feet long-short lengths

salvaged from rails torn up by the Greeks and warped by fire. Aside from the railway, transportation in these regions is of the most primitive description. The principal vehicle is a rough cart with solid wooden wheels. Instead of wooden sides, a huge bag of thick black camel's hair is stretched to wooden posts set in the cartframe, serving as a container for whatever is transported. The carts are drawn by small but sturdy oxen, and bump slowly over the appalling tracks that serve for roads, the ungreased wooden axles emitting shrieks which can be heard a mile away. The other form of transport is the camel. Long strings of them can be seen plodding silently across the plains, giving a final touch to the desert panorama.

It was mid-afternoon when, through the quivering heat-haze, we got our first sight of Angora. Seen from a distance across the plain, the city looks decidedly impressive, built as it is upon a high hill and spreading thence downward toward the flat lands about, across which winds a sluggish, half-dried river losing itself in patches of malarious marsh. The fact of the matter is that there are three or four distinct Angoras. On the summit of the hill stands the old town, girt by dull-red walls and curious pointed bastions. Below these walls the hill slopes sharply downward, forming the location of what used to be a second town, also surrounded by a line of walls. This quarter was, however, almost entirely destroyed by fire a few years ago, so that to-day little remains save crumbling ruins. Below the second line of walls (which also are in a very ruinous state) lies the lower town, typically Turkish, with houses mostly built of wood and plaster, and narrow, tortuous streets, filthy, evil-smelling, and inches deep in choking dust which the autumn rains would presently transform into sticky mud. Finally, on the very outskirts of the plain is what may be termed the "new" town, the recent creation of the central government which has made Angora its capital. Here one finds a number of buildings constructed on European lines-government offices, barracks, and the small but trim "Parliament" House. Here, again, one finds certain "modern improvements"-a few graded streets with curbstones and set

shade-trees, a fairly good restaurant, and a small park where, of an evening, parliamentary deputies, army officers, and government officials sit around café tables smoking and sipping coffee or cooling sherbets.

All this doubtless sounds poor and crude, but we must judge it, not by Western standards but against its local background. We must always remember that the Turkish Nationalist government chose Angora for its capital as a strategic refuge from its enemies, that until recently it was continually at war, and that at one time the Greeks were so near that the boom of cannon could be heard in Angora's streets. We must also remember that Angora is one of the smaller provincial cities of Asia Minor, far more backward and primitive than Konia, Kaisarieh, or some other cities of the Anatolian hinterland. At present the government is making commendable efforts to render Angora habitable for persons with European standards. A good-sized hotel, a club, and some blocks of bungalows and apartment-houses are actually in course of construction, and a year hence Angora will probably offer travellers the basic amenities of civilized existence. To-day the Western visitor who is not lucky enough to be put up at our consulate (as I was) must sleep in a railwaycar at the station, the local "hans" or inns being too filthy and verminous to be thought of save as a last resort.

Despite extreme heat, glare, dust, and other discomforts, I look back upon my stay in Angora as one of the most interesting weeks I have ever spent. The range of impressions and experiences was certainly very wide. For one thing, I was privileged to meet and converse with most of the Turkish Nationalist leaders, notably with that dynamo of human energy and iron resolution, Mustapha Kemal Pasha. Again, the various quarters of the city were extraordinarily different in their appearance. Starting from the more or less Western-appearing "government" quarter, a short walk would bring me to a section which might almost have been in Central Asia-a region of hardbaked open spaces, low hovels, and crumbling walls of sun-dried brick, and fat cakes of camel-dung drying for fuel. An

other turn in my rambles would take me into narrow, tortuous alleys with old wood-and-plaster Turkish houses, quaintly gabled and with low, iron-studded doors. Most interesting of all was the old town high up on the summit of the hill. Here, by contrast, I passed through narrow gates in the massive walls and found myself in the shadow of the remote past. Angora "old town" is built almost exclusively from the ruins of Greco-Roman Ancyra-a really great city, more extensive than its modern successor. Everywhere, even out on the plain, one comes across classic remains, but it is upon the hilltop that one fully realizes what a fine city Ancyra must have been. There evidently was the acropolis, and it must have been a mass of stately buildings, since from their ruins the massive walls and houses of Angora "old town" have been raised. The Turkish architects took their materials just as they lay to hand, the result being a most extraordinary jumble-huge foundation-stones, inscription tablets, marble altars, sections of columns, even hollow stone drain-pipes, built pell-mell to form a wall, perhaps topped along its upper courses with layers of Turkish brick. Since even the present town is more or less dilapidated, one gets the strange sensation of ruins amid ruins. From the mouldering keep of the Turkish fortress I had a most marvellous view of the surrounding country-the city (or rather cities) below, the broad plain, the barren, sombre ranges of enclosing mountains, and all mellowed in a gorgeous sunset, with splendid purples, mauves, and blues such as the desert alone can bestow. The journey back to Constantinople was without special incident, albeit more agreeable from the mere fact that we were going downward from the arid uplands into moister, cooler, and more fertile regions. I shall not soon forget the agreeable sensation which I experienced at dawn next day when, waking from my uneasy slumbers, I put my head out of the window, saw a sky overcast with clouds, sniffed moisture, and then felt upon my face a drop or two of rain. Dusty though even the coast lands were at that season, they seemed to me veritable bowers of luxuriant greenery after a week of the desert. Likewise, after Angora, Con

stantinople appeared a perfect metropolis, although as a matter of fact the poor old city is terribly run down after more than a decade of war and neglect, with shabbiness and disrepair the rule, and fully a quarter of the city lying in ruins as the result of the disastrous fires which have ravaged it during the past few years.

A final week in Stambul and I started on my next journey, this time by sea. I chose one of those leisurely but very comfortable Italian coasting steamers, which amble along the Anatolian and Syrian shores, putting in at many ports for cargo and such passengers as may choose this slow but agreeable method of travel. Sailing one cool autumn afternoon, with the fresh Black Sea breeze blowing crisply down the Bosphorus, I looked my last upon Stambul's marvellous, minaretcrowned silhouette against the sunset glow, and steamed out into the Marmora Sea. Next morning we were in the Dardanelles, dotted with transports and freighters proceeding with the British evacuation-for these were the transition days when the Allies were making ready to turn over to the Turk the keys of his own house once more. And mighty keys they are, those sun-scorched hills of Europe and Asia, guarding the winding blue ribbon of water which nature has laid down as the highway between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Then out into the Ægean, with the high profiles of storied islands rising before my eyes: Imbros, Tenedos, and, far away, the loom of distant Samothrace. Seen from afar, the "Isles of Greece" seem all that the poets would have us believe, but at closer range one feels a sharp disillusionment. Here, as nearly everywhere in this part of the world, centuries of misgovernment and reckless abuse of natural resources have had sad consequences. Those islands, which in classic times were crowned with fine forests and wel watered, are to-day bare, sterile rocks, rising bleakly from the blue sea. All that day the ship threaded her way between mountainous islands and the mountain wall of the Asia Minor mainland, which here, as in so many instances, reaches the sea with no intervening foothills or coastal plains.

Next morning we reached Smyrna, of dreadful memory. Sayrna lies at the

bottom of a noble gulf which runs far inland, guarded by majestic but terribly bleached bare mountains. Even at a distance one notes something strange about the city, and as one approaches nearer the reason becomes plain. Almost the entire water-front is a fire-scorched ruin. Since most of the buildings were of stone the walls still stand, but the gaping windows, twisted iron girders, blackened chimneys, and piles of débris make up a truly ghastly sight. Although I saw Smyrna a whole year after its disaster, the ruins looked almost as though they had been stricken yesterday. Very little rebuilding has been done. Here and there some rough repairing strikes a fresher note, but the general tone of the place is sombre in the extreme. Having provided myself at Angora with landing permits for Turkish ports, I went ashore without difficulty, though none of my fellow passengers were allowed similar privileges. Here, as elsewhere in Turkey, travel is a matter of grave difficulty and special favor. Once ashore the full magnitude of Smyrna's ruin becomes apparent. For an hour or more I wandered about silent, blackened streets, picking my way amid piles of half-cleared rubbish. For blocks I would not meet a soul, not even a stray cat or dog. The burned district is truly an abode of desolation. Through our consul I met several members of the foreign colony, and they all told me how depressing was the atmosphere, especially to those who had known the gay, busy life of Smyrna before it had been stricken down. The Turkish officials whom I met were full of plans for reconstruction, and expressed optimism, but few of the foreigners shared this hopeful spirit, at least as regards the immediate future. The full extent of the Smyrna disaster can be grasped only by ascending the summit of the high hill overlooking the city. From that vantage-point I obtained a magnificent panorama of mountain, sea, and sky, the whole drenched in the warm rays of an afternoon sun. But the sunlight seemed to turn gray when I looked downward and gazed over the city far below. Right across from the sea-front to the slopes of the enclosing hills stretched a broad band of absolute desolation, the ruins showing grim and bleak even in miniature and

through the softening perspective of distance. It reminded me of Pompeii or of Saint-Pierre de Martinique; I could hardly realize that this destruction was caused, not by a convulsion of nature, but by the hand of man. Once more the tragedy, the ferocity, the infinite loss wrought by recent wars in the Near East was brought home to me. And is the war series even yet over for these turbulent lands? I doubt it. Too many of the omens which one reads to-day denote fresh troubles in store.

Leaving Smyrna next morning we spent the next day threading our way through the picturesque Sporades archipelago, and the following morning found us in Rhodes. Rhodes is a story in itself, magnificently situated in the blue sea, with the massive Anatolian mountain wall looming across the wide strait which sunders it from the mainland. Although Rhodes has been only twelve years under Italian rule, it has already attained a strongly Italian character, and the Turkish imprint is fading fast under the torrent of wealth and energy which Italy is pouring into this corner of her colonial domain. Judging by all material evidence, Italy has no intention of abandoning Rhodes. On the contrary, she seems intent on making it the corner-stone of her sphere of influence in the eastern Mediterranean. For the present, to be sure, the triumph of Turkish nationalism renders all thoughts of footholds on the Asia Minor mainland the vainest of illusions. But—the Orient is in flux, the wheel of destiny may turn rapidly, and meanwhile Italy is intrenched at Rhodes, protected by a "silver streak" of sea which, in the absence of sea-power, no Turkish army, however victorious, can cross.

A night's run from Rhodes brought my ship to the Turkish port of Adalia, a charming old Turkish town situated in the bight of a wide gulf and backed by magnificent mountains. Bare and desolate as they appear, these mountains pour down their waters in the rainy season and saturate the low plateau behind Adalia, endowing it with perennial springs which, even at this dryest season, pour over the low cliffs in foaming waterfalls sheer into the sea. This makes Adalia a sort of oasis in a thirsty land, with the murmur of