DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5541#0028
INTRODUCTION.
xxvii
nors, have kept up, until within a few years, a system of
hostility between the different provinces, while the uncer-
tain tenure of their command, and their jealousy of each
other, prevented the chiefs who were well disposed from
checking the incursions of the Nomad tribes of Turcomans
and Kurds, who had settled in her central plains. These
combined causes paralyzed also, for many years, the energies
of European travellers. Dangers and difficulties, which
could neither be anticipated nor prevented, rendered a great
part of the interior of Asia Minor a sealed book to the
enquirer; and her many interesting records of antiquity,
towns, temples, citadels, and sepulchral monuments, in
various stages of decay, were long unknown. During this
dark period the avarice and bigotry of the Turks systema-
tically destroyed them, or consigned them to the chisel or
the limekiln.
But there is a dawn, however faint, of happier days in the
East. The bigotry of the Turk has yielded to a more
frequent intercourse with the Christian, and many of the
former difficulties are removed by the establishment, for a
time at least, of the authority of the Porte throughout the
Asiatic provinces from the Euxine to the shores of Cara-
mania, and from the coast of Ionia to the eastern confines
of Cappadocia. The effect of this partial improvement is
already visible in the crowds of eager and enterprising
travellers who direct their steps to the shores of Ionia and
Caria, and penetrate into the districts of Phrygia, Lydia,
and Galatia; and I trust that the time is not far distant
when their combined information may secure to us a cor-
rect map and perfect knowledge of every portion of this in-
teresting country.
xxvii
nors, have kept up, until within a few years, a system of
hostility between the different provinces, while the uncer-
tain tenure of their command, and their jealousy of each
other, prevented the chiefs who were well disposed from
checking the incursions of the Nomad tribes of Turcomans
and Kurds, who had settled in her central plains. These
combined causes paralyzed also, for many years, the energies
of European travellers. Dangers and difficulties, which
could neither be anticipated nor prevented, rendered a great
part of the interior of Asia Minor a sealed book to the
enquirer; and her many interesting records of antiquity,
towns, temples, citadels, and sepulchral monuments, in
various stages of decay, were long unknown. During this
dark period the avarice and bigotry of the Turks systema-
tically destroyed them, or consigned them to the chisel or
the limekiln.
But there is a dawn, however faint, of happier days in the
East. The bigotry of the Turk has yielded to a more
frequent intercourse with the Christian, and many of the
former difficulties are removed by the establishment, for a
time at least, of the authority of the Porte throughout the
Asiatic provinces from the Euxine to the shores of Cara-
mania, and from the coast of Ionia to the eastern confines
of Cappadocia. The effect of this partial improvement is
already visible in the crowds of eager and enterprising
travellers who direct their steps to the shores of Ionia and
Caria, and penetrate into the districts of Phrygia, Lydia,
and Galatia; and I trust that the time is not far distant
when their combined information may secure to us a cor-
rect map and perfect knowledge of every portion of this in-
teresting country.