Note 90 — Chapter V · THE CRADLE OF THE OSMANLIS

“The fate of these cities,” observes a recent traveler in Anatolia, “is that of numerous others whose names are a part of classic history. Everywhere throughout Asia Minor decaying ruins mark the sites where art and culture were united with barbaric power. Everywhere are evidences of past refinement, splendor and greatness. And over all the prostrate columns and broken entablatures, the domed mosques and black-green cypresses, the fertile valleys and the great desert, the dark-visaged men and the silent, veiled women lingers the spell, undefinable but wondrously fascinating, of Asia; the cradle of the human race, the land of luxurious magnificence, the abode of mighty empires that rose and crumbled long before the western world had emerged from darkness; the birthlace, too, of subtle mysticism and of every religion that has soothed the soul in anguish and comforted it with hope.” Asia Minor, p. 317 (by W. A. Hawly, London, 1918).