Identifier: travelspolitic00mill (find matches)
Title: Travels and politics in the Near East
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Miller, William, 1864-1945
Subjects: Eastern question (Balkan) Balkan Peninsula
Publisher: New York : Frederick A. Stokes
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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capital of the whole Balkan Peninsula.Against its walls, as against those of Constantinople, theforces of many great captains have been directed, andin the late Greco-Turkish war the bombardment ofSalonica by the Hellenic fleet would, if it had not beenprevented by the Powers, have materially crippled theresources of the Turks. Since the completion of theConstantinople Junction railway, which was the rightarm of the Ottoman Government in that struggle, andenabled the Turks to strike hard and quickly at their foes,the old town has become a railway terminus of theutmost value to its Turkish owners. Three lines nowconverge at this spot—that from Constantinople, thatfrom Belgrade and Nis, and that from Monastir, whichconnects the sea with the heart of Macedonia. Besides,Salonica, in spite of the depression caused by the politicalevents of the past three years, is one of the mostflourishing commercial towns of Eastern Europe. Itwas intended by nature to be the outlet for the trade of 363
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Travels and Politics in the Near East the whole Peninsula on the ^Egean, just as in mediaevaltimes Ragusa was the outlet on the Adriatic. And whenthe long-planned railway line between Sarajevo andMitrovica is at last made, Salonica may perhaps supersedeBrindisi as the port of embarkation for travellers andmails cii route for India and Egypt. Seen from the sea, Salonica is one of the most beautifulcities of the East. As you enter the gulf, with the broadmass of Olympus, crowned with a diadem of snow, onyour left, you see at the end a walled city, lying in anamphitheatre of low hills straight before you. As youapproach, the countless minarets and the dark cypresses,which form a background to their snow-white com-panions, have that unmistakably Eastern look whichmodern Athens lacks and modern Belgrade has lost.And the white walls which still surround Salonica onthree sides give it an appearance of compactness whichthe average straggling nineteenth century town neverpossesses. The round N

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