'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From January 1865 to December 1867. (Edited by the Honorary Secretary.) Volume XVIII.' [‎13] (148/268)

BAGDAD TO CONSTANTINOPLE.
13
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BAGDAD TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 13
11. From Diarbekir to Kharput there is a good deal of cultivation
for the first two stages, and up to the foot of the mountain range, of
which the Argana hill is the more remarkable outwork, with sufficient
water from canals. The passage of the Batman Dagh is not altogether
sterile, for we found amid one of its wildest and most romantic valleys
a village or two yielding a fair portion of the necessaries of life. And
from hence to Kharput we have first a fertile plain, then a steep moun
tain called the ‘ Deva Boynun,’ or Camel’s Neck, and lastly the Kharput
plain itself, which holds villages teeming with supplies of every descrip
tion.
12. Kharput may be considered a good half-way point between
Bagdad and Izmid. Taking at one glance the whole of the second
half, my own experience tells of abundance in most places, of sufficiency
in many, and of want in very few. I would confine those few to the
right bank of the Euphrates, and when we were turning our heads again
northwards to Sivas. For although the roads through Asia Minor are
not strictly through unbroken fields of grain, as near Mosul, ample
stores could, it is presumed, be always gathered in for the large towns of
Sivas, Yuzgat, and Angureh, leaving enough for domestic consumption
to the agricultural population without. Our march was a continual
harvest-time, for the number of weeks occupied in travelling onwards
was just the difference recjuired to mark the respective periods at which
the sickle is brought into the cultivated plateaux of Asia Minor, in con
tradistinction to those acknowledged in the plains of Turkish Arabia A term used by the British officials to describe the territory roughly corresponding to, but not coextensive with, modern-day Iraq under the control of the Ottoman Empire. .
13. We had very little rain or had weather. Perhaps our hottest
days were passed in the Kurdish tents at the end of May and beginning
ot June, when the thermometer was as follows :—
In tents at Yarimja, 10 a.m. 100°
Do. Girdashina, 9 a.m. 92°
Do. Keremlik, 8|- a.m. 102°
Do. Zah Su, mid-day, 107-8°
14. As regards the more notable products of the soil in Asia
Minor, I regret having had. no oppor
tunity of visiting the copper or coal
Mines,' 1 ' though at no great distance from the former. The vast forests
°t oak and fir I was able to admire, and also to make inquiries on the
cotton cultivation in parts of the country where the plant has been most
cared for. \ letter which I addressed on this subject to Mr. Cheetham,
These are the particular hours at
which it chanced that a record was
taken. Higher figures would doubt
less have been shown had all ac
counts been taken at noon.
*
head and silver might be added.