itself, on which a new light has been cast in consequence of
the discoveries recently made towards the south-western side.
The name Asia, according to some learned critics, belongs
to a very remote period, and different geographical interpretations
of the word have been given, among which are an elevated
or a primitive country, and one on which the sun does
not set. It is not, however, easy to imagine that a very ancient
people would have given a general designation to the whole
of this great continent; and it is more probable that the name
belongs to a comparatively late period : it is supposed that, in
the first instance, the name was applied to the country nearest
Greece, from whence it extended to the Halys, and from thence
gradually further eastward, till the whole tract from the shores
of the Mediterranean to Behring’s Straits was so called.
The peninsula of Lesser Asia extends northward from the
Sea of Cyprus to the shores of the Black Sea, and eastward
from the shores of the Mediterranean to the hanks of the
Euphrates; its breadth in the former direction being about
360 miles, and its length nearly 600 miles. It has the shape
of an irregular parallelogram, which, exclusive of Cyprus and
the other islands, contains 151,699 square geographical miles.
In a general way this diversified country may be described
as a wide spreading table-land sloping westward of the
Euphrates, and gradually sinking below the level of the plateau
of I'ran, of which, however, it may be said to form the
continuation: in fertility, and in some other particulars,
Asiatic Turkey differs from the Persian territory, though
many of the leading features in both are precisely alike. The
interior of the former contains many sheets of water of great
magnitude, but for the most part it consists of a succession
of extensive plains not unfrequently furrowed by deep valleys,
either separated from each other by lofty chains, or completely
inclosed by them, becoming, in the latter case, so many
remarkable mountain basins. The limits of the extensive
upland containing these plains and basins are marked by an
elevated and almost continuous chain, around which, at a lower
level, a succession of narrow plains border the shores of the
Mediterranean and Black Seas; the culminating points of the
whole, like those of the eastern territory, being amidst the
groups intersecting one another in the interior. The different
directions of these numerous chains were, till recently, almost
unknown; but in the journeys made by myself, and subsequently
by other travellers, they have been followed' at intervals
in many different places, and therefore a general description
of them may now be given with a considerable degree of
accuracy.
The most remarkable peaks appear to be in the prolongation
of the range which, at p. 68, has been already followed to the
north-eastern extremity of the territory. This chain is designated
the Anti-Taurus by Strabo,1 who also seems to have
included under this name the mountains of the Moschi and
their continuation along the western shores of the Caspian.2
But as the writer elsewhere speaks of the source of the
Euphrates as being on the northern side of the Taurus,3 it is
evident that he then applies the name to the chain northward
of Erz-Rum. We find, moreover, that even the Caucasus
itself was so called in the days of Pliny;4 and as it included
Armenia, Media, &c., within its branches,5 it may be inferred
that Anti-Taurus had a local, and Taurus a more general
application, particularly as the width of 3000 stadia6 (in many
places) nearly agrees with the space between the Cilician
Taurus and the northern abutments of the Western plateau
of that mountain.
In branching from the Caucasus this last chain skirts the
eastern side of Imiretia, and afterwards, under the name of
the Perengah Tagh, it runs nearly south-west along the deep
valley of Ajirah, in the district of Tchildir, from whence it
turns southward and again westward along the valley of the
Acampsis, westward of which, bearing the name of the Kop
Tagh, it enters Lesser Asia.
1 Lib. XI., p. 521. 2 Ibid, p. 522. 3 Ibid., p. 527.
4 Taurus mons, e tc .: atque ubi se quoque exsuperat Caucasus.—Hist. Nat.,
lib. V. c. xxvii.
5 Strabo, lib. XI., p. 491 ; Pliu., lib. Y. c. xxvii.
6 Strabo, lib. XI. pp. 490, 491: at 700 to a degree, this measure would give
about 260 miles, or nearly the mean distance between the ranges.