Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-01-25
Geographic News
Bulletins by the
National Geographic Society
OLD LINCOLN HIGHWAY

iii
Aleppo, Syria, which has appear
ed In recent date lines as the point
! to which $4,000 Armenian refugees
| have painfully made their way in
| flight from their old homes in Tug
| key, is the subject of the following
| bulletin from the Washington, d. c.,
| headquarters of the National Geo.
! gr.phic Society.
"Aleppo's name was once more
! familiar to Western ears than that
of any other city of the Near East
except Constantinople, and it is
| probably destined to be great again
| when that part of the world settles
down." says the bulletin. THE army
of American motorists will under
| stand why Aleppo has always been
| of great Importance If told that it
stands where Asia's age-old Lincoln
Highway crosses its Meridian
Trail
Crossroads Town in Abraham's Day
-Four thousand years ago when
Abraham moved to Palestine there
| was an established caravan route
| north and south through Syria from
Egypt toward Babylon. And at least
| from the time of Phoenician great
| ness there was a similar route be-
tween coast cities on the west and
Assyria and Babylonia to east. The
| oasis near which these great trade
| routes Joined became the site of one
Of the worlds first crossroads
| towns;' and since then, whenever the
| world about it has enjoyed peace
! and carried on trade, it has reaped
| the benefits in prosperity and i'm
| portance.
Its own world sufficed for many
--- I@~nn n 81 ,fyfn O
| city into which scores of long camel
! caravans came yearly. The Cru
| sades did not greatly interfere with
this prosperity for the successes of
the Crusaders stopped literally at
Aleppo's walls. Antioch. on the Medi-
terranean, barely 70 miles away. was
the first Syrian stronghold to be
CAPTURED by the Christian Knights
and the last to be surrendered; but
they were never able to subdue Al
eppo which stood for 800 years as a
bar to Christian advance inland. This
Mohammedan city, SO close to the
Crusaders stronghold, became Sala-
din's capital, and it was from there
that the Christians were finally driv-
en- out of the country.
De Cana and Columbus Almost
Ruined 1t
Geographic exploration in other
parts of the world may seem far re-
moved from the prosperity of an an
cient city in Syria, but EUrope's dis
coveries in the fifteenth centu-y
were quickly felt in Aleppo. After
the Crusades, Europe demanded an
ever increasing supply of spices and
other products from the Far East,
and Aleppo, e the western end
of land route over which such goods
came, became mor and more pros
porous. Nearly all the Western trad
ing nations established representa-
tives and warehouses in the city.
'"The establishment of a sea route
around Africa to the East injured
Aleppo somewhat, and the opening
of the Suez Canal almost dried up
it's stream Of east-west trade and
brought up the pessimistic picture
of a time when camel-trains might
be a curiosity.
but the railroad locomotive
which Westerners nickname the
steel horse" has proved Aleppo's
steel camel and is bringing the city
to its old place Of Importance. The
famous Bagdad Railroad, which con-
meets the mouth Of the Euphrates
with the Bosporus and Europe dips
to Aleppo almost exactly at its mid
point and meets the railway which
now extends from Egypt northward
through Syria. The old important
camel trails have thus given way to
more important trails of steel, and
where the one contributed the equiv
alent of pennies the latter may yield
the equivalent of dollars. Aleppo is
in a fair way to become the Chicago
of the Near East"