Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/495

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SIGHTS IN TREBIZOND.
489

fered somewhat by the opening of the Caspian route from Russia to Persia, but it is still very large.

Frank and Fred had two or three hours on shore at Trebizond, which enabled them to look at the walls and gardens of this very ancient city. Frank recorded in his note-book that Trebizond was the ancient Trapezius, and that it was a flourishing city at the time of Xenophon's famous retreat, which every college boy has read about in the "Anabasis." It was captured by the Romans when they defeated Mithridates. The Emperor Trajan tried to improve the port by building a mole, and made the city the capital of Cappadocian Pontus.

The Trebizond of to-day consists of the old and new town, the former surrounded by walls enclosing the citadel, and the latter without walls and


QUARANTINE HARBOR, TREBIZOND.

extending back over the hills. It has two harbors, both of them unsafe at certain seasons of the year. A few millions of the many that Turkey has spent in the purchase of cannon and iron-clad ships of war would make the port of Trebizond one of the best on the coast of the Black Sea.