Omaha daily bee., 1909-05-02
ADANA, LAND OF NASSACRES
Country Swept by Fire and Sword for
Centuries Past.
STAMPING GROUND OF ST. PAUL
Ever Since the Days Of Alexander and
Pompey ~ Has been n District
for DestructiOn-AncIent
Ruins.

There Is nothing like personal familiarity
with a locality to arouse a real interest In
news concerning II even II that news be
OF so startling a character as to merit the
name OF q massacre. Poor Adana! There
was a time when | knew it's broad wheat
fields, silvery streams, luxuriant gardens
and the wild mountains that hem the fer
tile vtalley in. for / went there In a smart
corvette and fetched away a marble sar-
cophagus that had held the remains of a
Roman princess for a thousand years and
more before it came to be a show piece
In the New York Metropolitan Museum.
Now / venture the assertion that not one
person I'm ten thousand who has read the
late startling dispatches ever heard the
pretty name before or knows whether II be-
longs TO a town or a district or where to
locate Il except as Indefinitely somewhere
In the sultan's Asiatic dominion. In fact,
the general tenor of the dispatches where
the name is found Unfortunately classed
with Aleppo. Beirut. Damascus, etc, gives
the. natural impression that It is somewhere
In Syria. II old St, Paul were alive he
would surely pour out the walls Of his
ready wrath upon anyone who dared to
call him a Syrian, for he was a Chilean,
and the Roman province Of Cillcia of his
day is the vilayet of Adana today.
VII U Alt hOINithEN VI NV AsidiiA VI ~
prus. Just after the mainland makes a
sharp bend from running north along the
Syrian coast to west along that of Asia
Minor. lies this. the finest natural granary
Of the whole Mediterranean coast, and its
three principal towns Of Mersina, TaTsus
and Adana lie almost in line completely
through its center. Riding and camping
put on the banks of the Cydnus our care
tree band heard from the native story tell
IRIS traditions innumerable of the fair land
that is so unfortunately located as to have
been the battle-ground of nations since the
dawn Of history. The name of the myth
teal Sardanapalus is claimed as that of the
founder Of every town and village. Within
It's boundaries Alexander the Great won the
most famous Of his victories. Pompey the
Great reached the pinnacle of his fame
here when his legions captured the prov
nce for Rome. scarcely thirty years before
st. Paul was born. Then the Arabian
Moslems swept mp and across 1t from the
sast; the savage Armenians from the
mountains in the north devastated 1t. The
Christian emperor, Baldwin of CONSTANT
hople, brought fire and sword from the
west; Greeks and Venetians harried the
coast from the south, and so down the
centuries the little province. simply from
Seing a military key to surrounding peo-
ples, was kept I'm poverty and desolation
until great Haroun al Rsschid gave it the
sew name of Adana and brought peace
and plenty to the land.
A Consular Agent.
There was a wealthy native of Tarsus
aamed Aldo Dabbas. who for many years
had ~prospered under the protection of an
appointment as consular agent of the United
States, and II so came about that in one
IF his fields was uneafthed a fine marble
Farcophagus, which as a mark of apprecia-
lion. he made a gift to the United States,
with only the I~roviso that some one should
be sent to take 1t. And so it came about
That the Shenandoah was ordered to the
eastward to pick it up. and in due time let
90 its anchor in the snug harbor of
Mersina.
II was a grand opportunity for old
Aldo, beyond his dreams. to have a man