Life in Asiatic Turkey

Book excerpt: This travel diary covers territory in Syria and the rural Asian provinces of the Ottoman Empire, areas the author deems to be sadly unvisited by American tourists. The author made a special effort to avoid officials, rather spending time with average people, and he was sympathetic to them. He asserts that Christians are not especially oppressed by the government; rather both Muslims and Christians are misruled. The book was researched and written in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War and so the author includes discussion of the relative virtue of Russian rule as well as the impact of the war on the common people. Much of the account is taken up with describing the landscape and physical features of the territory rather than just cultural description and political commentary. The author includes a historical summary of the region and an analysis of the Muslim poor in separate sections at the end of the book.