These countries directly and indirectly governed by the Turkish empire command the interest of the Biblical, classical, and historical student beyond any other part of the earth. No other land possesses so many antiquities of such priceless worth. Turkey is the stage upon which many of the best-known characters of literature and history have lived and acted. It is the battle-field where, for more than thirty-five centuries, contending civilizations and hostile religions, under ambitious leadership, have met in bloody conflict. There is hardly a section of it that has not been connected directly with some well-known historical personage or race or that has not given the setting to some event of world-wide renown. This is true from Salonica on the Ægean Sea to Persia upon the east, and from Trebizond upon the Black Sea at the north to Aden at the southern point of Arabia. The ruins of massive castles and fortresses, moats and walled cities, that tell of former strength, of pride and of conflict, are found in almost every part of the empire. Inscriptions in many languages adorn the cliffs or are built into walls now crumbling to ruin. Fragments of ancient roads with arches of bridges and of aqueducts still standing, as old as our Christian era, tell of the engineering skill of the early possessors of the land. In the soil thrown up beneath one’s feet are found gold, silver, bronze, and copper coins, with dates varying from six hundred years before our Christian era to the coin of the present ruler of the realm. The ancient city of the Trojans, for ten years defended by Priam against the finally successful assaults of Agamemnon and his Greeks, was upon what is now Turkish soil. Many of the scenes pictured in the Iliad and the Odyssey have their staging in what is modern Turkey. Assyria and Babylon and Nineveh there arose into prominence, wielded their power, and passed into ruin. Darius and Xerxes crossed and recrossed this country; and Cyrus met his great defeat and Xenophon made his immortal retreat and all within Turkey. Alexander the Great, born in Macedonia, conducted many of his brilliant campaigns, fought with Darius and defeated him, occupied Sidon and annexed Babylon and Nineveh to the throne of Greece, and died in Babylon while planning the conquest of Arabia; all in territory now subject to Sultan Hamid II. At the time of Christ much of Asia Minor was a Roman province. Ruins of Roman roads and Roman bridges, in many parts of the country, extend to the northern borders of Mesopotamia, while Roman coins and Latin inscriptions are too common to attract special attention. It is safe to say that there is no other part of the world which presents so much of permanent interest to the student of classic literature and life as the territory now covered by the Turkish empire.