This leather Edition is a high quality reprint. This hardcover book is a facsimile reprint of the original published in 1906

This is a British missionary's first-hand report of travelling to Turkey, starting at Lake Van, through Kurdish and Armenian Territories to Gaziantep (Antep) in the south east of Anatolia, not far from the Syrian border. Campbell witnesses the ethnic tensions between Turks, Kurds, Armenians and Assyrian Christians and observes how the Ottoman authorities try to navigate through the chaos, and to contribute to it. Gaziantep had a large Christian college, Central Turkey College, or Aintab College. - One plate is after a photograph, which must be one of the earliest skiing photos taken in Turkey.

Campbell, J. Alston.  In the Shadow of the Crescent. 240 pages, map and photographs, 8*.

     In 1902, after having spent a number of years in evangelistic work and in preparation for missionary labor, the author went on a long journey among Armenians from Tiflis, Etchmiadzin, Erivan, Van, Bitlis (Town of Terror), Mardin, Diarbekir, and Ourfa. The book vividly describes life of the Armenians in the places he visited and illustrated with many interesting photographs of Armenian people and missionaries working with them. 

About Armenians: “Their patriotism is a strong feature in their character, and this, together with a wonderful recuperative power which they possess, has often enabled them to rise phoenix-like from disasters, which would have ruined other nations.” (p.31). Turkish officials, he writes, “have an intense hatred of Christians, whom they regard as their legitimate prey, and, though they speak of them as dogs, do not treat them with as much consideration as is usually accorded to those useful animals.” (p.75). Under such methods of governing, and notwithstanding Armenians’ “recuperative power,” all Armenian provinces became “incomparably poorer than they were ten years ago, and possess barely one-tenth of the property that they then had.” (p.167). 

This original first edition is very scarce, appeared on eBay only once during the last twenty two years.