DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5541#0098
70
ARRIVAL OF STORKS.
[Chap. v.
that wo had no difficulty in procuring horses all along the
road, even without a tatar, at the moderate price of one
piastre, or about twopence halfpenny per hour for each of
our nine horses.
Leaving Moudaniah we ascended amidst gardens and
orchards the hills which form the southern shore of the
Gulf of Nicaea, and left the cultivated plain of Bourgaz
below us on our left. We saw several storks to-day for the
first time : the regularity with which these birds return to
their summer-quarters is a very curious fact; as each suc-
cessive year witnesses their return almost on the same day*.
At Smyrna they generally appear on the 9th of March,
and when I was there in the following year during that
month, I saw them on the 10th for the first time. They are
much protected by the Turks; and independently of the
superstitious motive that a house on which they build is
insured against fire, they are of great use to the peasant
and the farmer by following the plough, and devouring the
grubs as they are turned up.
Between the sea and the river Nilufer, or Lufer Sou,
called by the natives "Delhi Cha'i," which we passed about
nine miles from Moudaniah, we crossed a chain of hills of
tertiary formation, consisting of white marly limestone, with
a few beds of sand and gravel, containing small calcareous
concretions. The soil was rich and loamy, and appeared
capable of the finest cultivation; but it was melancholy to
remark here, as in other districts of Asia Minor, the rapid
diminution of the population, to see villages in ruins and
abandoned, and large tracts of land, on which the former
marks of the plough were visible, now totally neglected,
producing in the spring a rich supply of thistles, or afford-
ing in the summer a scanty pasture to the flocks of wan-
dering tribes. The Nilufer flowed through a flat and rich
alluvial plain, having worn for itself a deep bed through
the clayey soil, the sides of which were thickly wooded with
tamarisks and plane-trees.
* Chandler, Asia Minor, vol. i. l>. 91-
ARRIVAL OF STORKS.
[Chap. v.
that wo had no difficulty in procuring horses all along the
road, even without a tatar, at the moderate price of one
piastre, or about twopence halfpenny per hour for each of
our nine horses.
Leaving Moudaniah we ascended amidst gardens and
orchards the hills which form the southern shore of the
Gulf of Nicaea, and left the cultivated plain of Bourgaz
below us on our left. We saw several storks to-day for the
first time : the regularity with which these birds return to
their summer-quarters is a very curious fact; as each suc-
cessive year witnesses their return almost on the same day*.
At Smyrna they generally appear on the 9th of March,
and when I was there in the following year during that
month, I saw them on the 10th for the first time. They are
much protected by the Turks; and independently of the
superstitious motive that a house on which they build is
insured against fire, they are of great use to the peasant
and the farmer by following the plough, and devouring the
grubs as they are turned up.
Between the sea and the river Nilufer, or Lufer Sou,
called by the natives "Delhi Cha'i," which we passed about
nine miles from Moudaniah, we crossed a chain of hills of
tertiary formation, consisting of white marly limestone, with
a few beds of sand and gravel, containing small calcareous
concretions. The soil was rich and loamy, and appeared
capable of the finest cultivation; but it was melancholy to
remark here, as in other districts of Asia Minor, the rapid
diminution of the population, to see villages in ruins and
abandoned, and large tracts of land, on which the former
marks of the plough were visible, now totally neglected,
producing in the spring a rich supply of thistles, or afford-
ing in the summer a scanty pasture to the flocks of wan-
dering tribes. The Nilufer flowed through a flat and rich
alluvial plain, having worn for itself a deep bed through
the clayey soil, the sides of which were thickly wooded with
tamarisks and plane-trees.
* Chandler, Asia Minor, vol. i. l>. 91-