N.Z. PRISONERS IN TURKEY

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 19 January 1917, Page 2

N.Z. PRISONERS IN TURKEY

The following is a description which. recently appeared in a London newspeper of Afion Kara Hissar, in Turkey, where there are some Now Zealand prisoners of Avar: "An officer who has been a prisoner of Avar in Asia Minor for over a yearwrites from Afion Kara Hisar, about 200 miles east of Smyrna., where he has been for some months with other British officers. Our four houses are situated half-way down a long road which leads from the station to the town. We get a lovely view from our windows of the plain, bounded by ridge after ridge of mountains. We are over 3000 feet above sea level. The air is bracing, the climate ideal, and the atmosphere wonderfully clear. The plain around us is under cultivation, but little is got from the soil, th e main crop being pop- j pies for opium—hence Afion—opium. ! The town clusters at the foot of a range of hills, winding about their base ; like an enormous snake, from the centre j of which rises a gigantic rock,, with J perpendicular sides, on which is perched the citadel, with its massive walls, tur- j rets and vast water-tanks carved in I solid, rock, which enabled it, hundreds ; of years ago, to resist a siege for six ! years. I have been up to the top three . times the view is marvellous. Kara ' Hissar mean Black Bock. The streets j j in the town are fairly wide, and paved j with cobbles,, very irregular. The j houses, except a few public buildings, j mosques and baths, arc all made of mud j and wood, with tiles laid on the roofs—ours are. The walls are whitewashed, j the ceilings wood. There is not a scrap \ of paint anywhere inside or out. The j windows arc covered with a wooden trellis-work shutter, so that its inmates can look out without being seen.'' ;