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THE SHADOW OF RUSSIA 19
At the pass the air was clear enough for a yet wider
view of land and sea. It went for seventy or eighty
miles along the coast from the delta of the Iris to the
delta of the Halys, and covered much of the Turkish
province of Djannik, in which are the rich tobaccolands
of Baffra and Samslin. It is a province of
fertile coast-plains and inland valleys, and especially
of fertile mountain-sides. In the time of ripenmg
crops the far-off slopes—often so steep that ploughing
seems impossible—are dotted closely with haphazard
yellow squares and oblongs looking like carelessly
affixed postage stamps. But now, except for distant
snow and breadths of oak scrub and pine forest, these
swelling mountains of the coast, like enormous steepsided
downs tumbled in confusion and broken here
and there by deep valleys and ravines, were all
dressed in russet. Under the leaden sky scarcely
could a few low -roofed villao-es be distincjuished
against the drab background.
Over this Turkish Black Sea coast and a deep
hinterland pertaining to it Russia holds treaty rights
of no little importance. Without her approval no
concession for railway or harbour construction, mining,
oil-fields, and the like, may be granted by the Ottoman
Government to any foreigner other than Russian.
The territory shows few Russian subjects and little
Russian commerce ; but all the same upon it rests
the shadow of that Power which has already taken
Caucasian provinces and the northern shores of the
Black Sea from the Ottoman, and whose advance is
like inexorable destiny. The Moslem population of
Anatolia recognises no national enemy but Russia,
and looks for further Russian aggression as a matter
of course. Indeed all the varied inhabitants of
Northern Anatolia live in expectancy of Russian
annexation, an event which each race sees from
a different point of view. Moslems contemplate it
gloomily with the fatalism of their creed, Armenians
with hope, as bringing deliverance, and
Greeks with feelings drawing them both ways ; for