Thus, a distinguished French geographer,—whose statistics, however, on the populations of Asia Minor are not accurate, since they are presumably based principally on Turkish sources,—referring to the Greeks of the Province of Smyrna, says that “among all the Christian communities of the Province of Smyrna that of the Orthodox Greeks is the most considerable and that it is, in a general way, better educated and more prosperous. It is among them,—apart from the merchants who are best fitted for handling large enterprises,—that are found the most clever mechanics, often excelling in their various callings, and the best agriculturists, their well-known characteristics being industry and activity.” (See Vital Cuinet, _La Turquie d’Asie, Géographie Administrative_, etc., vol. III., p. 355.) So, too, the famous English historian of the Crimean War, Kinglake, writing in 1845, refers to Smyrna, which the Turks call, as he says, “infidel Smyrna,” in the following terms: “I think that Smyrna may be called the chief town and capital of the Grecian race. For myself, I love the race, in spite of all their vices.”[8] (See _Eothen, or Traces of Travel brought Home from the East_, by Alexander William Kinglake, p. 41, ed. 1876). Another English traveler, who made the tour of Asia Minor on foot, describing the American College in the city of Marsovan and referring to the Greek students there, says: “Like all Greeks, whether of Europe or of Asia, they have a quality which always compels interest. In general intelligence, in quickness of perception, in the power of acquiring knowledge, they are said, as a race, to have no equals among their fellow-students—nor in their capacity for opposing each other and making mountains of difference out of nothing. Watching them, it grows upon the observer that traditional Greek characteristics have survived strongly in the race, and that Asia Minor Greeks of today are probably not different from the Greeks of twenty centuries ago.” (See W. J. Childs, _Across Asia Minor on Foot_, p. 55, 1917.) An English general, who during the administration of Lord Beaconsfield was sent to Asia Minor on a special mission after the conclusion of the Cyprus Convention of 1878, after referring to some of the well-known characteristics of the Greeks of Anatolia as an enterprising, keen-witted people, well gifted with a rare commercial instinct, goes on to say: