File:Travels and politics in the Near East (1898) (14783950832).jpg

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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ulpit from which St. Paul is said to havepreached to the Thessalonians, and the great mosque ofSt. Demetrius, with its sweating columns and its tombof the saint. Thither once a year the Greeks repair,without let or hindrance from their Turkish masters, todo honour to the holy father, and he who eats the mouldaround his tomb is said to go away cured of whateverdisease he may have contracted. Scattered about allover the city you may find memorials of SalonicasByzantine greatness, in the shape of sculptured andlettered stones, once forming part of some ancient archor church, but now devoted to the meanest uses. Eventhe noble arch of Galerius is spoiled by the wretchedbooths which have clustered around it, and in one placea sacrilegious Turk has driven two wooden poles tosupport the canvas roof of his shop right into the marblebas-reliefs of a Roman triumph. But it must be admittedthat the conversion of the churches into mosques has atleast saved them from that destruction which would 367
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THE FIXE OLD ARCH OF THE EMPEROR GALERICS. Travels and Politics in the Near East otherwise have been their lot. Here, if in Httle else, theTurks have shown themselves more enlightened thansome of the Western barbarians, whose acts of vandalismhave wrought such havoc at Rome and elsewhere. Salonica is at the present time in a period of expectancy.All persons who have any knowledge of the Easternquestion admit that, in spite of the recent success of theTurkish arms over a weak and ill-prepared antagonist,the rule of the Ottoman in Macedonia is drawing to aclose. If only the various competitors for the SickMans Macedonian estate could make up their minds,his rule would be numbered by months rather than years.But they cannot agree between themselves, and mean-while the Turk remains in possession by the time-honoured expedient of playing one off against the other. The Macedonian question is perhaps the most dangerousproblem which the statesmen of Europe will have to facein the near future.

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