The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-05-16
JAS. BOWRON TALKS
 OF TRIP ABROAD
Spent Eleven Weeks Under the
 Star and Crescent
BRINGS BACK MANY CURlOS
Says That Country Under the Rule or the Sultan Is Exact Antith- esis of the United
 States.

James Bowron and Mrs. Bowron arrived in Birmingham yesterday afternoon at o'clock after a trip abroad of nearly eighteen weeks. Their time was spent chiefly in Egypt. the Holy Land, Turkey and Greece. They were under the flag of
 MT. Bowron has now crossed the Atlan- tic thirteen times and has taken sixty sea voyages. Such a trip as he has just com- pleted naturally appealed to man of his poetic imagination and broad information, especially the days spent In the Holy Land, for Mir. Bowron enjoys the repu- tation of being one of the most thorough students of biblical history in Alabama. He talked in a highly interesting way last night of the impressions formed while abroad
 "The country over which the sultan ted States" he said. Everybody is poor. outside capital shuns the dominions, peo- pie are lazy and thriftless and beggars swarm along all the streets and roads.
 "Along the Nile thousands of people are employed to dip up water from the river to use for irrigation which could be done much more easily by electrical pow CT generated by turbine wheels. No one will invest any money, however, for at the slightest whim of the ru1er 1t could be taxed to death and its profits turned into the coffers of the government
 Barrenness of Holy Land.
 'I was particularly impressed by the barrenness of the Holy Land. Three fourths of the country consists of noun tains and the only trees are olives. One oak tree is pointed out to visitors with much pride. How the hordes of people that lived there during biblical times could have gained sustenance is a mystery to me. Every little tree that comes up Is cut down by the inhabitants and sold for fuel. The people are taxed unmercifully. The tax collector asks the amount of property each man owns, this is multi piled by four and taxes are levied on the multiplied amount If payment Is refused the taxpayer Is throwh into jail
 Tn Constantinople there are no tele- phones because 1t Is feared that a man could say seditous things over the phone and not be identified. It is only within the past few years that typewriters have been allowed and even now there are very few. There is no system whatever about the postal service. I mailed letters from Constantinople bearing postage stamps of England, France, Germany, Austria, Rus sia and Turkey to my friends in Birming- ham. Each of these countries has post office there, and if you mail letter at one bearing the stamp of any of. the others 1t Is thrown in the waste basket.
 Messenger Service.
 "Constantnople has a million people and covers an immense area and if you want to communicate with a man in an- other part of the city you must write letter and then hire a messenger to take 1t to it's destination. l had always consid- cred passports as an idle formality in my travels until I went to Constantnople. Our boat was met in the harbor by guards to whom we had to show them, and half dozen other officials inspected them and made records of them before we could get into the city No books or newspapers can be carried into the city because they might contain something derogatory to the government. A foreign sojourner must have his mall come through his consulate, otherwise it may never reach him.
 There are hundreds of mosques in the city, and while they have a capacity for from one thousand to five thousand people there are never more than two or three people in them at devotions at one time"
 Many Souvenirs.
 Mir Bowron brought back a large num- Der of souvenirs of the trip and the bil- lard room al his home on South Highlands now looks like an oriental curio museum. There are peculiar dresses and costumes in the collection, pipes, firearms. delicate cloth fabrics. mother of pearl ornaments of dozen kinds, fancy bead work, trim kets carved on olive wood from the Holy Land and a hundred other things to remind him of the various places visited. MT. and Mrs. Bowron are both in ex- cellent health and enjoyed every moment of tbair Iop0 atav abroad