DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4752#0055
TURKISH VILLAGE LIFE IN ASIA MINOR 45
had fallen altogether ... all displayed a depressed
and languishing appearance, as if life were fast
waning from Csesarea". In 1890 the parts of
Kaisari which I saw were much better : the develop-
ment of Armenian activity in recent years had
caused a general renovation.
Thus almost everything in Turkey, whether
public or private property, with few exceptions
(and those usually directed by Europeans), goes
surely to ruin.
Akhmet, a Koniali (from a village, eleven hours
west of Konia), who was one of our men in 1886,
had served seven years as a soldier, had risen to
the rank of sergeant, had gone through the earlier
stages of the Russian war, and the siege of
Plevna; he had been taken prisoner when Plevna
was captured (one of 140 men who survived out
of a regiment 700 strong), and had been released
at the end of the war. During his seven years of
service, he had received one dollar as pay. He
was an excellent specimen of a village Turk : ab-
solutely trustworthy, strong, slow, steady, modest,
quiet, perfectly well-behaved, and perfectly useless
in all the departments of work where any skill or
readiness was required. When he came to a village,
instead of putting on some show and making an
impression of importance, he would take the hum-
blest inhabitant aside and inquire in a whisper where
had fallen altogether ... all displayed a depressed
and languishing appearance, as if life were fast
waning from Csesarea". In 1890 the parts of
Kaisari which I saw were much better : the develop-
ment of Armenian activity in recent years had
caused a general renovation.
Thus almost everything in Turkey, whether
public or private property, with few exceptions
(and those usually directed by Europeans), goes
surely to ruin.
Akhmet, a Koniali (from a village, eleven hours
west of Konia), who was one of our men in 1886,
had served seven years as a soldier, had risen to
the rank of sergeant, had gone through the earlier
stages of the Russian war, and the siege of
Plevna; he had been taken prisoner when Plevna
was captured (one of 140 men who survived out
of a regiment 700 strong), and had been released
at the end of the war. During his seven years of
service, he had received one dollar as pay. He
was an excellent specimen of a village Turk : ab-
solutely trustworthy, strong, slow, steady, modest,
quiet, perfectly well-behaved, and perfectly useless
in all the departments of work where any skill or
readiness was required. When he came to a village,
instead of putting on some show and making an
impression of importance, he would take the hum-
blest inhabitant aside and inquire in a whisper where