The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1909-05-12
THE LAND OF MASSACRES
For Centuries Fire and Sword
Have Visited Adana.
SCENE OF ARMENIAN MURDERS

Ever Since Days of Alexander and
POmpey the Turkish Province Has
Been a Region for Destruction.
When the BattIeship Shenandoah
Went Over There.
There is nothing like personal ia
miliarity with locality to arouse a
real interest in news concerning it
even if that news be of so startling
q character as to merit the name
of a massacre. Poor Adana, the
province in Asiatic Turkey where
many Armenians have recently been
killed! There was a time when |
knew its broad wheatfields, silvery
streams, luxuriant gardens and the
Wild mountains that hem the fertile
valley in, for | went there in smart
corVet and fetched away a marble
sarcophagus that had held the re-
mains Of a Roman princess for a
thousand years and more before it
came to be show piece in the New
York Metropolitan museum. Now
[ venture the assertion that not one
person in ten thousand who has read
the late startling dispatches ever
heard the pretty name before or
knows whether it belongs to a town
or a district or where to locate it
except as indefinitely somewhere in
the sultan Asiatic dominion In
TACT, the general tenor of the dis
patches, where the name is found in
discriminatory classed with Aleppo,
Beirut, Damascus, ETC., gives the nat
ural impression that it is somewhere
in Syria. If old St. Paul were alive
he would surely pour out the Walls
of his ready wrath upon any one
who dared to call him a Syrian, for
he was a Cilician, and the Roman
province of Cilicia of his day is the
yilayet of Adana today.
Off to the northeast of the island
of Cyprus, 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 it's
three principal towns of Mersina,
Tarsus and Adana lie almost in line
completely through it's center. Rid
ing and camping out on the banks
Of the Cydnus our care free band
heard from the native story tellers
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 mythical Sardanap-
alus is claimed as that of the founder
Of every town and village. Within
its boundaries Alexander the Great
won the most famous of his victories.
Pompey the Great reached the pin
nacle of his fame here when his
legiOns captured the province for
Rome, scarcely thirty years before
st. Paul was born. Then the Ara
bian Moslems swept up and across
1t from the east, the savage Arme-
mans from the mountains in the
north devastated it; the christian
emperor, Baldwin of Constantinople,
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 being a military key to
surrounding peoples was kept in pow
erty and desOlatiOn until the great
Haroun-al-Raschid gave it the new
name of Adana and brought peace
and plenty to the land.
There was a wealthy native of
Iarsus named Aldo Dabbas who for
many years had prospered under the
protection OF an appointment as con-
sular agent of the United States, and
1t so came about that in one of his
helds was unearthed a fine marble
sarcophagus, which, as a mark of ap-
preclation, he made a gift to the
United States, with only the proviso
mat some one should be sent to take
II. And so it came about that the
shenandoah was ordered to the east
ward to pick it up and in due time
let go her anchor in the snug harbor
OF Mersina.
1t was grand opportunity for old
Ado, beyond his dreams, to have a
mah-ot-War as ocular proof of his
Importance, and he made the most
Oh 1t in the best of ways, for not
only were his house and gardens
placed at our disposition, but at the
nISt mention to him of the interest
mat was most natural to see the
backgrounds of Alexander he equip
pea a complete camp, even to a de-
Iachment of Turkish infantry, to
Cdhe us throughout the province
over the campfire at night the stories