acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

446 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
VEvangeliste. And how, while lying in Scanderoon
Roads unloading her cargo, the Thames got wind of
a great French ship due from Marseilles, " loaded
with cloth to the value of fifty thousand pounds."
The narrative tells of how the Thames put out and
captured this rich ship after a smart action ; but found
that the cloth was under a Turkish " manifesto," and
therefore, by the rules of the game, secure against
British capture. Then indignation comes into the
story, for this manifesto proved to be a false one,
and you hear how the " Aga of Scanderoon and ''
the
" Bashaw of Aleppo " had indulged in double-dealing,
to the disadvantao^e of honest British merchants and
seamen doing no more than ply their calling. You
learn next, how, having regard to this scandalous
duplicity which robbed British subjects of their just
opportunities at sea, the cry was raised that Government
neglected the rights of the Levant trade, and
that strong action was required. Familiar also, and
as it might be of the present day, is the complaint
made at the same time that Turkish officials "gaped
for dues to their own advantage." All which adventures
and grievances are set out under date of 1746.
Ninety years later were other scenes at Beilan
Pass and in Alexandretta. Then the great Egyptian
Ibrahim Pasha appears and claims a word or two,
as he does almost everywhere in this region. He
seized Alexandretta, and pushing his army up to
the pass stormed it in the teeth of a considerable
Turkish force, and made the port the chief base for
his Syrian operations. But he also made improvements,
as he did wherever he went, and is remembered
in Alexandretta now for the prosperitv which
he brought.
Looking from Beilan Pass an English traveller does
well to recall also that certain far - seeing fellowcountrymen
of his long ago proposed Alexandretta
as the starting-point for a British railway to India.
The railway was to come up the narrow Beilan gorge
on your left, pierce the mountain by a tunnel, and