Peeps at Many Lands: Turkey

GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY The Empire of Turkey, through which I propose to conduct you, stretches over portions of Europe and Asia—the slender thread of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles being the division between the two continents. A rapid current rushes through these channels, but in some places they are so narrow that you can shout across from Europe to Asia, and it is no uncommon thing to hear the dogs barking from the other side. Turkey in Europe spreads northwards from these points up to Bulgaria, and consists of a long strip of country extending from the Black Sea to the Adriatic. Turkey in Asia is more extensive, and stretches from the Black Sea to the Persian Gulf. Persia lies to its east, and the Red Sea and blue Mediterranean to its west. Turkey holds sway over some of earth's fairest lands, the homes of its most ancient civilizations and lands familiar to us through Holy Writ and profane history, and the sources of Jewish, Christian, Moslem, and other beliefs