Across Asia Minor on Foot

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. The journey described in this volume extended altogether to about 1300 miles on foot, and occupied five months; and the days spent in actual travel upon the road were fifty-four.

Asia Minor has been traversed from end to end, and sea to sea, by many Europeans in the past; American missionaries, too, not only men, but unattended women, go freely about the country as a matter of course, and often cover long distances. There must be, indeed, many worse regions for journeying in than Turkey-in-Asia.

But all these travellers have gone by araba or ridden on horseback, and, when possible, have been glad enough to use train, and bicycle, and even motor-car. None of them, I think, has ever attempted to go in the peasant manner, to follow road or track afoot, to sleep in the poorest khans or wherever shelter could be found, and to mix by day and night with the varied and doubtful pedestrian company of an Eastern highway.

To see something of Asia Minor in this more intimate fashion, accompanied only by a Turk, was the purpose of the journey now to be described. Only in the quality of adventure did realisation fall short of what might have been expected.