2-798-667 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Smyrna, from a daguerreotype taken on the roof of the Governor's House, 1845. 'Smyrna [in Turkey] is one of the very few ancient cities which have survived to our times. It is the most important city of Asia Minor, and the centre ot the Levant trade. It is situated about 210 miles south-west from Constantinople, direct distance. The city rises in the form of an amphitheatre, from its capacious bay: its margin is lined with quays, on which there are handsome stone houses; so that the city, with its domes and minarets, has a fine appearance approaching it from the sea. But a great part of the interior consists of low wooden houses, and the streets are ill-paved, narrow, crooked and dirty'. From "Illustrated London News", 1845, Vol VII.