United States or Guernsey ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Aside from some half-dozen carriages at Angora, and a few light government postaya arabas an innovation from horses for carrying the mail, recently introduced as a result of the improved roads, and which make weekly trips between such points as Angora, Yuzgat, and Tokat the only vehicles in the country are the buffalo-carts of the larger farmers, rude home made arabas with solid wooden wheels, whose infernal creaking can be heard for a mile, and which they seldom take any distance from home, preferring their pack-donkeys and cross-country trails when going to town with produce.
Martyn was, in fact, dying; yet Hassan compelled him to ride a hundred and seventy miles of mountain track to Tokat. Here, on October 6th, 1812, he wrote in his journal: "No horses to be had, I had an unexpected repose. I sat in the orchard and thought with sweet comfort and peace of my God in solitude my Company, my Friend, my Comforter." It was the last word he was ever to write.
He seemed to think that nothing would be so useful to Turkey as good roads, made to run from the principal ports of Asia Minor up to the depots of the interior, so as to connect Sivas, Tokat, Angora, Konieh, Kaiserieh, &c. with Samsoun, Tersoos, and other ports. At the Bairam reception, the Pasha wore his great nishau of diamonds.
It is possible to travel from Mosul by Tokat to Constantinople in this way. The best Arabian horses are found round Baghdad and Mosul. They stood in Mr. Rassam's stable. Their handsome, long, slender heads, their sparkling eyes, slight bodies, and their small delicately formed feet, would have filled any admirer of horses with delight.
During his stay, Mr Paton paid frequent visits to the Pasha, whom he generally found in an audience room overlooking the precipitous descent to the Danube, "studying at the maps: he seemed to think that nothing would be so useful to Turkey as good roads, made to run from the principal ports of Asia Minor, up to the depôts of the interior, so as to connect Sivas, Tokat, Angora, Koniah, Kaiserieh, &c., with Samsoon, Tersoos, and other ports."
There was "steel" in the resolve which drew Henry Martyn from the highest honours of Cambridge to preach and die in the fever-stricken solitude of Tokat; and "steel" in an earlier and even more memorable decision when Francis Xavier consecrated rank, learning, eloquence, wit, fascinating manners, and a mirthful heart, to the task of evangelizing India.
Their route lay along what at that time might be called, for the most part, the high road to Tabriz, and passed through Tokat, Erzroom, Kars, Tiflis, Shoosha, Nakhchevan, Echmiadzin, and Khoy, a distance of more than fifteen hundred miles. At Tokat, the travellers visited the grave of Henry Martyn, who died there in 1812.
Word Of The Day