40
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZİNE
my first introductîon to the yilderim telegram of Turkey. Yilderim means "lightning," and well cleserved is the name, for messages are usually delivered in about ten minutes from their point of origin. Ali lines are cleared. The cost is five times that of regular service. Ll How did yon find me here?'' I asked. "Oh, your hotel clerk gave the hint. Someîimes it's not so simple, but we kave to locate the recipient if humanly possible." Turkey's post knows no special delivery for letters, and its big centers have no pneumatic telegraph, as do Paris and some other cities. For three days I scoured İzmir and its surrounding country with a guide assigned me by the governor because of his command of French, a comnıand \vhich probably encompassed ali of a hundred words! Like many men of few words, he used them often. it was not the season for activity in the large fig-packing estabüshments. I regretted that I could not see this sight and hear the mild bickerings and chatter of the thousands of men, women, and giriş who perform the work. Tn from the Bİg and Little Menderes Valleys come the figs, sun-dried, packed in camel's-hair sacks. At the Bourse they are bought by the exporting houses and taken to the packing plants. Here they are fıımigated, hand-graded accordİng to size and quality, and manipıılated into foıır classes: lokums. pulled, fayers, and natural. Lokums are worked into cubes. The pulled are pulled out and rounded into plump fruit shape. Layers are split, opened in crescent form, and packed in boxes. Naturals are simply packed in linen bags (page 37). \Vorkers are obliged to wear spotless white overalls and to cover the hair with linen caps. Thorough hand-vvashing with permanganate of potash solution is compulsory before handling the figs—a comforting thoııght to the ultimate consumer. Plants are today equipped with loudspeakers; between radio programs. gossip drones locustlike through the busy rooms. Tales of Xasr-ed-Din Hodja are retold as they have been for half a thousand years. Thoııgh the fig-growing valleys lie fifty miles ör more from İzmir, the figs are commercially known by the name of the port from which they are shipped. Cııttings from Aydın trees, planted in San Joaquin Valley, California. produce
figs sold in America under the name '"Calimyrna." Sun-dried raisins, the famous Smyrna sultanas, are, like the figs, sold at the Bourse and taken to the packing plants. l"p-to-date macbinery does the cleaning, removal of stalks. bleaching, and packing. At the end of August the season starts: the finished product is svvallowed by the iron mavvs of freighters which plow with saltcaked smokestacks through the Seven Seas to the vrorld's markets. Phylloxera has done much damage to the Tıırkish crop. Turkey has not until now produced wîne intensively. The wine, under Government monopoly, is of good quality, but lacking in variety of types. Plants for increasing the output are now being built at Manisa and İzmir. İzmir's \vater-front area, destroyed by fire in 1922, is now growing İnto a new model city. Here is situated the permanent show groıınd of the yearly International Fair (page 36). As in Ankara, there is a tower for parachute-jumping practice. A COLLECTOR OF KUGS TUENS BOAR HUNTER
T had a rendezvous with an amateur collector of rugs. He expatiated ruefully on the decline and fail of Tıırkish handicraft under the impact of machine-age mentality. "Aniline dyes, mixîng their harsh pigments \vith the new philosophy, have killed this industry pro tem. Connoisseurs have cleaned the markets of treasures dyed \vith vegetable colors. \vhich were woven in Kula. Gördes, Bergama, Lâdik, and Konya a century ör more past. Those of mixed vegetable and aniline colors, made a generation ago, are not uncommon. "The chemically pignıented articles coming from the village weavers of today would cause their great-grandfathers to weep. \\i\\ they take the time and trouble to search the forests and fields for the hidden plants? Xo. Forty years ago the Persian Shah ordained that anyone using anything but vegetable dyes should suffer severe penalties (Plate II). "I have given up rug hunting now and employ my spare time in the more esciting sport of shooting wild boar. These beasts, fieet and tusky. are so common hereabouts îhat, after they are killed, we merely cut off the hams and leave the rest of the body. They are also plentiful around Bursa