J. A. Zahm

“ Surprising as it may seem, she was, as scholars now concede, none other than Semiramis, the famous legendary queen of Assyria.
What a marvelous discovery! What a vindication of long suppressed truth! What an unexpected substitution of reality for fiction, of fact for fancy, of authentic history for myth and legend!
To no other woman of antiquity have there been attributed so many brilliant achievements as to Semiramis. Nor has any one of her sex during the last two thousand years and more, occupied a more conspicuous position in myth and legend, song and story. ”

“ Although to the traveler the Alfold—the Hungarian word for lowland—offers little of scenic interest, the Magyar bard finds in it as much to awaken his muse as does the Arabian poet in the broad expanse of his much-loved desert; and each would recognize as his own the sentiment of Sandor Petöfi, when he sings:
I love the plains. It is only there I feel free.
My eyes can wander as they please, quite unconstrained.
One is not confined by barriers.
Throughout the region which we are now traversing legend still lingers, but it is history that has now most to tell. ”

“ Everywhere are evidences of past refinement, splendor and greatness. And over all the prostrate columns and broken entablatures, the domed mosques and black-green cypresses, the fertile valleys and the great desert, the dark-visaged men and the silent, veiled women lingers the spell, undefinable but wondrously fascinating, of Asia; the cradle of the human race, the land of luxurious magnificence, the abode of mighty empires that rose and crumbled long before the western world had emerged from darkness ”

“ The old capital of Cilicia is, of truth, a city of a wonderful historic past. But among all her proud memories those which have made her best known throughout the ages and which will endure the longest are not those of her abounding wealth and luxury, her superb monuments and palaces and temples, long in ruins; not those that clustered around her poets and philosophers and made her a favored sanctuary of the Muses; not those of her schools and gymnasia and her one-time eminence as the rival of Athens and Alexandria as the home of learning and culture ”

“ On our way thither we strolled along the east bank of the Euphrates which, in places, is fringed with stately palms whose feathery crowns are always a delight to the eye. Indeed, the palm is so indispensable a feature of an eastern landscape that no picture of a town or a river seems complete without groves and clumps of this most picturesque of oriental trees. I was glad to find so many of them bordering the Euphrates and the western ruins of Babylon, as I had always imagined that they must here, more than anywhere else, be an essential part of the environment. ”

“ As the Carmelite monastery is in the heart of the city, we soon found ourselves in the midst of a colorful scene that could not be surpassed by anything similar either in Damascus or Stamboul. Such a seething cauldron of races, such an utter confusion of tongues, such a motley carnival of costumes from plain white and black to the gay fabrics of Madras and the tawdry prints of Manchester! Here we meet men of countless types and creeds and nationalities—Turks, Afghans, Persians, Arabs, Indians, and Europeans ”

“ Again, he declares: “The fact that Constantinople has been and is and ever must be the head of South-eastern Europe is a practical fact which stares us in the face. And while this fact may, with those who look below the surface, awaken some fears which do not lie on the surface, allay some fears which do. Constantinople can never be the head of a province; it must be the head of an empire. But it does not follow that it can now be the head of an universal empire. Its annexation by a distant power would, in all moral certainty lead to the dismemberment of the power that annexed it.” ”

“ There is nothing in Brusa, Stamboul, or Cairo that can surpass its rich and delicate traceries and arabesques, its profusion of jeweled lamps, its wealth, precious tapestries, wondrous faïence, its magic glories of color from the looms and kilns of Persia and India. But over and above all this wealth of ornamentation there is a religious atmosphere that does not exist in the ordinary mosque. For the dervishes, unlike the orthodox Moslems, make a special appeal to the emotions of their followers, and hence their widespread influence and popularity throughout the Mohammedan world. ”

“ Although erected in the twelfth century, it has survived all the sieges to which Vienna has been subject and is still, after seven centuries, the most conspicuous of the many grandiose structures of Austria’s superb capital. As I examined the exquisite carvings of portal and window and delicate crocketed spire of this stupendous fane I realized as never before how the builders of the Ages of Faith wrought the parts unseen by men with the same care as those which were exposed to the gaze of all. For they labored for God, and God sees everything and everywhere. ”

“ How often does not the explorer in Anatolia unexpectedly come upon a dead city on a mountain slope or in a hidden hollow, which was abandoned a thousand years ago, whose streets are choked with brushwood, whose palaces and theaters are covered with a tangle of vegetation, whose marble tombs are hidden by brambles, where the only human being ever seen is a wandering shepherd who is absolutely indifferent to these marvelous vestiges of a marvelous past? ”

“ Coffee is our gold and in the place of its libations we are in the enjoyment of the best and noblest society. Coffee is as innocent a drink as the purest milk from which it is distinguished only by its color. Tarry with thy coffee in the place of its preparation and the good God will hover over thee and participate in His feast. There the graces of the salon, the luxury of life, the society of friends, all furnish a picture of the abode of happiness. ”

“ Broken stars quiver in the swift-flowing waters of the Bosphorus and, while we are still gazing at the venerable, ivy-mantled walls and towers that so long guarded the City of Constantine, we enter the Sea of Marmora—known to the ancients as the Propontis—the sea before the Pontus or the Euxine of which Herodotus says “there is not in the world any other sea so wonderful.” ”

“ All feel their hearts dilate and their pulses beat strong as they look down from their dromedaries upon the glorious desert. Where do we hear of a traveler being disappointed by it? It is another illustration of the ancient truth that Nature returns to man, however unworthily he has treated her. And believe me, when once your tastes have conformed to the tranquillity of such travel, you will suffer real pain in returning to the turmoil of civilization. You will anticipate the bustle and confusion of artificial life, its luxury and its false pleasures with repugnance. ”

“ As a boy no part of the world possessed a greater fascination for me than Babylonia and Assyria. This was, probably, because the first book I ever read contained wonderful stories of the Garden of Eden; of Babylon and its marvelous hanging gardens; of Nineveh and its magnificent temples and palaces; of the Tigris and the Euphrates whose waters were made to irrigate the vast and fecund plain of Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization. ”

“ To the student traveling through the Near East—especially along the route which I selected—the experience is, in many respects, like that of one passing through a vast museum. At every turn he meets something of rare and enthralling fascination. Now it is a remnant of a marble capital or architrave in a nomad’s hut; then it is a forlorn granite column near a squalid Turkish village—all that remains of some stately temple or sumptuous theater of Greek or Roman greatness. ”

“ And while the eye delighted in the marvelous succession of contrasts in the landscapes—where rugged mountains alternate with endless plains and “spots of verdure lie strewn like islets amid shoreless seas of sand”—the mind ever pondered on the whirlpool of vicissitudes which has made Mesopotamia unique among the regions of the earth—where, during its long and eventful history, civilization has been succeeded by barbarism and grandeur by decay and death. ”

“ During the zenith of its glory, Cilicia was one of the most densely populated countries in the world. But it has long since so fallen from its high estate that, like the lands of the Nile and the Euphrates, it is a region of ruins. So great indeed have been the ravages of time and warring mortals that “ruins of cities, evidently of an age after Alexander, yet barely named in history, at this day, astonish the adventurous traveler by their magnificence and elegance.” ”

“ But, in order fully to realize how greatly the size of Babylon was exaggerated by the ancient writers and to understand how this capital of thousands of years was able, throughout the ages, to cast so great a spell upon the peoples of the earth, one must briefly consider some of their statements respecting its vastness and magnificence. Only in this way is it possible to appreciate the glamour that has so long attached to it and to discover the reasons for the countless legends and romances to which it has given rise since the days of Nebuchadnezzar and Semiramis. ”

“ Though your mouth glows and your skin is parched with heat, yet you feel no languor, the effect of humid heat; your lungs are lightened, your sight brightens, your memory recovers its tone and your spirits become exuberant; your fancy and imagination are powerfully aroused and the wildness and sublimity of the scenes around you stir up all the energies of your soul—whether for exertion, danger or strife. Your morale improves; you become frank and cordial, hospitable and single-minded: the hypocritical politeness and the slavery of civilization are left behind you in the city.... ”

“ Must we, then, as many have done, look upon the Garden of Eden as a religious or a philosophic myth? Has modern research—especially research in the domain of the new science of Assyriology—done nothing toward clearing up the mystery which has so long enveloped the site of the Biblical Paradise, or are we forever to renounce all hope of even an approximate solution of the great enigma? ”

“ Surrounded by a barren and desolate country, Konia, when seen from afar, looks like an oasis in the desert. It is situated on an elevated plateau well-watered by mountain streams and blessed with a salubrious climate. It was these attractive features that led the Seljukian Turks to choose it for their capital. Its luxuriant gardens and orchards have long been famous and add much to the city’s picturesqueness—especially when viewed from a distance. For when one enters the old Seljukian capital there is little to attract attention except a few mosques. ”

“ When a harem is referred to in Europe or America it is pictured as consisting of a swarthy, fierce, and sensual pasha, seated on a broad divan, garbed in richly embroidered robes, armed with a highly ornate scimitar, and contentedly smoking his narghile while his ever-youthful wives are entertaining him with music and dance and song.
Nothing could be more preposterous, or further from the reality. For monogamy and not polygamy is the rule in the Ottoman Empire especially in Anatolia, and always has been. ”