Introduction
has a uniform sub-tropical climate, producing the same kind of vegetation and the same human type all along its sea-board. Shut in by high ranges of mountains, this narrow strip of coast-line is protected from the cold plateau winds, and moistened by the soft sea breezes. The produce of the tiny maize-fields, perched up amid forested slopes, and the fruit of the terraced vineyards, which surround the red-tiled houses, are brought along narrow by-ways to the cool bazaar towns, from which they are transported by ship to the West. Thus the inhabitants of this coast are by nature a race of small cultivators of sub-tropical produce, merchants and mariners. From the earliest times the waves of Greek civilization have lapped along these shores, and the people, though their racial origins are various, have turned their eyes in each successive generation to the mother-cities of Athens and Constantinople. Their commercial life brings them into constant contact with the maritime peoples of the West, and tends to make them keen business men. Their great historic past, and their position on a sea highway, have made them politicians with imperialist leanings. The sub-tropical climate also in which they live, and the moderate degree of leisure which most of them can enjoy, have been favourable conditions for controversial and speculative thought.
Behind the ranges bordering the sea-coast the country opens out into the wide table-land of Anatolia,[1] varying from 2,500 to 4,000 feet above sea-level. The tempera-
- ↑ The Greek name for Asia Minor, corresponding to the "Levant" of the Italians—the "Orient," or "Land of the Rising Sun." Anatolia is by the Greeks strictly limited to Asia Minor; Levante is by the Italians extended to all the lands lying East of the Mediterranean, and Orient is applied to the East in general.
