Le Tour du Monde; d'Alexandrette au coude de l'Euphrate

A vivid travelogue unfolds as the French scholar Victor Chapot steps off a steamship onto the stark, slate‑coloured shoreline of Alexandrette in early April 1905. He writes with the eye of an archaeologist, seeking the faint footprints of Greek, Roman and Byzantine civilizations that linger beneath the town’s modest factories and weather‑worn houses. The narrative captures the tension between a rugged, almost hostile landscape and the quiet persistence of its inhabitants, whose lives are still closely tied to the land and sea.

Chapot’s observations are grounded in the rhythms of daily commerce and the wary curiosity of locals who eye the lone European visitor with a mix of suspicion and intrigue. He notes the looming, cloud‑laden mountains, the bustling customs inspections, and the early stirrings of a future railway that will soon cut through the region. Through his measured, descriptive prose, listeners are invited to glimpse a corner of the Near East on the cusp of modern change, long before the sweeping transformations of the twentieth century take hold.