Angora

“ He was large, but he had nothing of the fat grossness of the celebrated Angora family; though powerful, he was exquisitely proportioned, and as graceful in every movement as a young leopard. When he stood up to open a door—he opened all the doors with old-fashioned latches—he was portentously tall, and when stretched on the rug before the fire he seemed too long for this world—as indeed he was. His coat was the finest and softest I have ever seen, a shade of quiet Maltese; and from his throat downward, underneath, to the white tips of his feet, he wore the whitest and most delicate ermine ”

“ Even now, I cannot say all it has cost me to reach Angora!
Mustapha Kemal must put on record “The Birth of 185a Nation”; and from Halidé Hanoum we want the thousand and one pictures of the agony of simple folk—desolate village homes, women who weep and work, the little ones crying, “What is it, mother?”; all that war means to men, all that men can endure for liberty and the right.
“What does it matter,” she has written, “though the world call us pariah? We will die with honour. What does it matter if food be denied us by all our neighbours? ”

“ I wonder whether the Pasha will do the same in the house I saw, also presented to him, at Broussa, which an historian and architect came over from Constantinople to redecorate.
From Tchan-Kaya one obtains an excellent bird’s-eye view of Angora; whether at midday or at sunset, sprinkled with, or buried in, snow, always picturesque. We get a few hours of sunshine every morning until quite late in the year ”

“ The Angora cats are confined to the same district with the goats. The soil is a fine red marl; but there is no peculiarity so striking in the site, soil, or air, as to offer any probable induction concerning the origin of those two remarkable breeds of animals, so dissimilar from those of other regions of the East.
Angora is one of the neatest cities I have yet visited. The streets are paved with large granite, but without foot-paths. Wax is produced in the neighbourhood, to the value of two thousand piasters a year; one fourth of which quantity is generally consumed in the city itself. ”

“ When I asked him what to expect in Angora, he warned me that “I must not look for the luxuries of the Savoy.”
33“Well, I can leave our jazz bands without one pang,” I replied.
“But you may find worse things in Angora than Jazz bands.”
Men like Fethi Bey, ready to meet all emergencies without complaint, make the right material to face the problem of Reconstruction, in a country ruined from end to end; and what a comfort it is to meet a man without a grievance! ”

“ The millions spent in propaganda may serve to prolong the legend, they cannot alter facts. To visit, with glowing anticipations, this land of our dreams, means the awakening to bitter disillusion. Those only are still blind who will not see.
In Angora I could but plead for England: “We have loved Helen; must we divorce her?”
More than the eloquence of Venizelos, more than the gold of Zakaroff, more than any pity for Christian martyrs; it is our age-old loyalty to the civilisation to which we owe our visions and our ideals—that has led us so woefully and so wilfully astray. ”

“ Angora, our native place, has a well-deserved reputation throughout Asia Minor for its varied and extensive fruit-gardens. Almost all the families residing there have their own gardens a few miles outside the town, and most of them have their summer residence in the midst of their gardens. ”

“ Only a few of the more persistent breeders continued the experiment and their investigations. They sent and went to the home of the Angora, and brought more of the original animals to America. It took the American breeders about thirty years to find out just what the Angora goat was and how he should be handled. During that thirty years large flocks of common goats, which had been crossed with the Angora, and which might be properly termed "grade flocks," had been formed. Only a few thoroughbred flocks, that is, flocks of the original Angora, as he came from Turkey, were in existence. ”

“ I should not myself call many Turkish men I met blonde; but I have a certain impression of noticing a number of surprisingly fair men in Angora; and, maybe, the energy of the Nationalists is thus evidenced in the lighter colouring of their hair. If there be even a grain of truth in the theory, it seems a pity that women of all nations should resort to peroxide and henna, when a little hard work would have a better, and more lasting, effect. ”

“ The horns of the Natolian or Angora Goat are of great length in the male, and lie in an horizontal position, twisted like a cork-screw; to the female the horns are very different, the form nearly a complete circle round the ear.
The hair of the Angora Goat exceeds in beauty that of every other animal; the silvery locks formed by Nature’s careless, though graceful hand, flow in ringlets of about nine inches long, with a silky fineness, and resplendent whiteness. ”

“ Other animals show nothing of the sort.”
“The Angora cat forms a third variety. It is a magnificent animal, of majestic carriage, with silky and very long hair, especially around the neck, under the stomach, and on the tail. But its qualities do not equal the fineness of its fur. The Angora is the friend of sweet idleness, fond of prolonged siestas in drawing-room arm-chairs. Do not try to make it watch patiently for a mouse in the garret. Pampered by its mistress, assured of its saucer of milk, it finds the business of hunting too arduous. Repose and caresses and a soft bed are its lot. ”

“ It is a soft, downy article, like the fur of an Angora cat. Very showy toilets are of Angora cloth, trimmed with velvet applique work to form passementerie.
Angora cloth may be fashionable, but the odor of the Angora goat is losing favor. A herd of these goats crossed the Sierra Nevadas during the autumn, and as soon as they got over the range, we knew it at Laramie just as well as we knew of the earthquake shock on the 7th instant.
The Angora goat is very quiet in other respects; but as a fragrant shrub, he certainly demands attention. ”

“ Angora immediately ordered the arrest of the few British officers who remained in Asia Minor, chief among them Lord Rawlinson’s brother who was jailed at Erzerum, but with Rauf Bey and his colleagues on their way to Malta as prisoners of the British, the Nationalists lost some of the best brains in the Party. The Italians soon opened their cable from Adalia to Rhodes whence a wireless was in communication with Rome, but Angora’s sole contact with the West was even then at the disposal of a foreign Power. ”

“ When he comes to breeding the Angora he leaves that to his servants, if he be wealthy enough to have any. Most of the breeders cannot read or write. They have never traveled. They have no ambition, and they know nothing of the principles of selective breeding.46 As a natural consequence the Angora goat of to-day has not improved, nor is he likely to improve under Turkish management. ”

“ ANGORA, or Enguri, the ancient Ancyra, a city of Turkey in Asia, capital of the vilayet of the same name, situated upon a steep hill, near a small stream, which flows into the Angara, a tributary of the Sakaria or Sangariuo, about 220 miles E.S.E. of Constantinople. The modern town is not well built, its streets being narrow and many of its houses of mud ”

“ As we had only a few sheep, but possessed a flock of several hundred Angoras, our standing dish was, of course, goat. Let not the traveller pity us who on his journeyings—in Southern Europe for instance—has had the misfortune to partake of the tough, stringy, and strongly-flavoured goat's flesh too often iniquitously substituted for mutton by unprincipled hotel-keepers. As different as black from white is that unholy viand from our delicious Angora meat; equal, if not superior, to the best mutton. ”

“ What is it one admires the most? For me, certainly, the all-conquering gift of the truly brave.
As my father used to say of General Gordon: “In the service of God and humanity, he was the bravest of men; and in his sorest need or his greatest loneliness, his courage rose all the time. To have known Gordon is to say with certainty, ‘God is courage!’”
This fragile and thoroughly feminine little lady was first in the field against Abdul Hamid, one of the first to understand Angora, to leave all for the Pasha, to work without ceasing for Nationalism and the new Turkey. ”

“ Binns, an English gentleman at Angora, engaged in the exportation of mohair, and contains an invitation to become his guest while at Angora. A well-deserved backsheesh to the good-natured zaptieh and a penitential shake of the young man's hand silence the self-accusations of a guilty conscience, and, after riding a short distance down the hill for the satisfaction of the people, I continue on my way, trundling up the varying gradations of a general acclivity for two miles. ”

“ Angora. 1. Leroy Dict. Pom. 1:147, fig. 1867. 2. Mas Pom. Gen. 5:35, fig. 306. 1880.
This is a member of a group of pears rather loosely termed Pound Pears. By some authors Angora is given as a synonym for Belle Angevine or Uvedale’s St. Germain. In an account of a voyage he undertook in 1700 on command of King Louis XIV of France, M. Tournefort, the noted botanist, states that he saw at Beibasas, Asia Minor, the pears known in Constantinople as Angora. ”

“ Little tufts of hair growing between the toes indicate high breeding. The Angora cat, in good condition, is one of the most beautiful and elegant creatures in the world, and few can resist its charm. The tail is long and like an ostrich plume. It is usually carried, when the cat is in good spirits, straight up, with the end waving over toward one side. The tail of the Angora serves as a barometer of its bodily and mental condition. If the cat is ill or frightened, the tail droops, and sometimes trails on the ground ”

“ Mr. De Mousa escorted Mrs. Tabitha with much graceful dignity, and Mr. Tortoshell followed with Lady Angora; Young Tom just rushing into the room in time to offer his attendance to his sisters, who could not but wonder what extraordinary business could have kept him so late in the City. Dinner was served. The rats'-tail soup was burnt; Lady Angora could not touch it: but Sappy, in removing the plate, managed to spill a considerable quantity over her ladyship's dress. The fish was overdone on one side, and nearly raw on the other; so her ladyship could not eat that. The fowls were old and tough ”

“ There is some of the Angora mohair imported for manufacture in our Eastern States, at prices ranging, according to quality, from 60 cents to $1 a pound. The Angora goat has been successfully introduced into the British colonies of South Africa. Cape Colony alone exported in 1878 the sum of 1,300,585 pounds, valued at £105,313, or about 32 cents a pound. It is believed that it can be raised with profit in the mountainous parts of Georgia and Alabama, and still farther north; and in the mountainous districts of California and Oregon. ”

“ His responsibilities are heavy indeed. With the terrible heritage of “ugly debts” incurred in the name of England, of which he will personally be held guilty for 290years to come! For him, the right way is not the easy way.
The British officials of Constantinople have been most kind to me; as the only Englishwoman who knows the story of Angora, and has been near to the “heart” of the Turks; they hope I shall go to Lausanne.
But who will listen? From the beginning of time, has an Englishman ever asked a woman for her opinion, or listened to her if she expressed one, even after being consulted! ”

“ As a rule, they do not possess the keen intelligence of the ordinary short-haired family cat, but their great beauty and their cleanly and affectionate habits make them favorites with fashionable people. The proper breeding of the Angora cat is a regular science. Of the colors of the Angoras, the blue or maltese is a favorite, and rather common, especially when mixed with white.
The white Angora is extraordinarily beautiful, and brings a high price when it has blue eyes and all its points are equally good. The orange, or yellow, and the black with amber eyes are also prize winners. ”

“ In fact, the hair under the Angora cat's body often resembles the finest of the Angora goatskins. Angora cats are favorites with the Turks and Armenians, and exist in many colors, especially since they have been more carefully bred. They vary in form, color, and disposition, and also in the quality of their hair. The standard calls for a small head, with not too long a nose, large eyes that should harmonize in color with the fur, small, pointed ears with a tuft of hair at the apex, and a very full, fluffy mane around the neck. ”

“ Sections of the country modify the characteristics of the Angora. Probably climatic conditions, varieties of food and water, and certainly mental vigor of the owners is largely responsible for this. One man selects large, well formed, rapidly maturing goats and breeds for this type. It is surprising how soon his flocks assume this type. Another breeder works for fineness of fleece, regardless of size or shape of the animal, and he gets his points. ”

“ One reason for the great success with which the Angora breed flourishes in South Africa is pointed out by Mr. Schreiner in the fact that "our veld and climate are almost identical with those of the province of Angora." And this remark is true for the Colony, for practically "the Transvaal has no Goats and the Free State not a very large number." In 1893, the Cape had 2,811,206 Angora Goats, and 2,819,749 Common Goats. The effects of crossing is favourable to the fecundity of the Angora, the modern breed having often two kids at a birth, the Kurd Goat having seldom less than two ”