CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 150, 28 June 1930, Page 24

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

Tragic revelations of a "City of Dreadful Night," peopled for generations by sightless human beings, follow tho incursion of Turkey's new civilisation into tho isolated region of Hisnimansour in Anstolia. This is ay discovery reported from Angora.

- The town of Adiyaman, sun-scorched under the dazzling Eastern sky, lies shadowed in eternal darkness." Of the 7000 inhabitants, 6791 are wholly or partially blind.

One of those few existing mysterious corners of the world forgotten by Time, overlooked by Progress, Adiyaman gradually succumbed to the spread of trachoma, until practically every man, woman, and child was inevitably doomed to the heritage of ilindness. Strict

Moslems, the Mosquo is filled five timos a day for prayer. Sightlees eyes turn heavenwards in supplication. Even tho most devout or fanatical of these-af-flicted sons of Islam allows his womenfolk to go freely unveiled. Disease provides the veil, hiding neighbour from neighbour, mother from son, daughter from father and brothers, wife from husband. No street lights are needed in this blind world, who grope their lives through everlasting night.

The Turkish Government is taKing urgent and vigorous - measures, not in Adiyaman alone, but also in 48 other villages in Hisnimansour. It is announced that already £25,000 has been spent on treatment for 155,144 trachoma patients.