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Excerpt from The Fringe of the East a Journey Through Past and Present Provinces of Turkey A distinguished French writer, the late Vicomte E. M. de Vouge, once declared of the East: "L'Orient, qui ne sait plus faire d'histoire, a le noble privilege de conserver intacte celle d'autrefois." This sentence seemed just and true at the time when I returned from the journey which this book describes, that is to say, two months before the outbreak of the constitutional revolution in Constantinople in 1908; but in the period which has elapsed since then events have occurred which have destroyed its relevance and have changed many things in the regions with which I am here concerned. The East is again making history, and, in the process, it seems likely that some of the records of its past will fail to be preserved intact. So many vicissitudes have lately befallen the Turkish Empire that it has not been possible to adapt this book to every changing phase. Consequently, in so far as it deals with the political status and conditions of the Ottoman provinces through which my journey took me, it describes them as they were toward the close of the reign of 'Abdu'l Hamid. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."