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Within a few miles of this town I saw the trace of a cartwheel, and I find that such vehicles are occasionally used here in husbandry; these are the first carriages I have seen or heard of in Asia Minor; and here there are no roads, but the produce is carried from the field to the farm, and then rolled into the town in carts, the street being made wide enough to admit them.

We arrived at Acsá at five o'clock, after travelling thirtysix miles, much of the way at the rate of six miles an hour.

This town teems with relics of a former splendid city, although there is not a trace of the site of any ruin or early building. In a portion not exceeding one-third of a burialground I counted one hundred and thirty parts of columns; and upon measuring them, and noticing their orders, I found that seven or eight distinct temples or buildings must have contributed; one Corinthian column was flat at each angle, ready for fluting, but only in part finished. The streets are in places paved with fragments of carved stone. I saw several columns of granite, some of red-veined white marble, and some of grey and white; also small columns, or rather two-third pilasters, I fancy of a later date than the other remains *.

[graphic]

For two miles out of the town the mouths or curbs of the wells are formed of the capitals of extremely fine Corinthian

* I have since found this kind of column an unerring indication of the Christian age; it probably formed a part of the interior ornament of the church.

pillars, the bucket being drawn through holes cut in the centre. I was prevented from sketching many that I admired by the rain, which continued during the day.

Just before I left, the ex-governor was escorted out of the town in state by all the Turkish grandees of the place, about thirty in number, in full dress, well-mounted and ostentatiously armed, producing a fine effect,

20

CHAPTER II.

MYSIA.

JOURNEY TO SÓMA. -INSCRIPTIONS.-PROCEED TO PERGAMUS.-ITS
ANTIQUITIES AND SITUATION.—A KHAN.—NATURAL HISTORY OF
THE COUNTRY. -ADRAMYTTIUM.-ASSOS.-ITS ARCHITECTURAL RE-
MAINS.ITS TOMBS. MANNERS OF THE
· PEOPLE.
PEOPLE. ALEXANDRIAN
TROY. ITS RUINS.-HOT-SPRINGS.-STONE QUARRY WITH COLUMNS.
-ENAE.-IMPLEMENTS AND CUSTOMS OF THE ANCIENTS RETAINED.
-PLAINS OF TROY.-ARRIVAL AT THE DARDANELLES.-ABYDOS AND
ITS ANTIQUITIES.

February 24th.-Travelling W.N.W. from Thyatira, we rode for several miles over low bog-land, at a foot-pace; then quitting the level, we gradually ascended to a rich cultivated country, which became more picturesque as we passed over a range of limestone hills. At about twenty miles' distance a splendid and extensive valley opened upon us, in which appeared, not far off, Kírkagatch, and immediately before us Bakir.

All the Turkish towns I have seen have, in their style of building, the appearance of Swiss villages, with the exception only of the white mosque towers: the towns before us resembled them in situation also, being at the feet of very high rocky mountains, and the valley in the front of them being bounded by another exquisitely beautiful range. I have nowhere seen valleys so wide, rich, and cultivated as in this part of Asia Minor. Cotton seems the principal produce.

Passing Kírkagatch, we kept close under the cliffs, which were of white marble, but in places stained almost scarlet with a kind of ochre, and in some parts yellow, the veins or perhaps original cracks being saturated with this stain; this is evidently the source of the varied stripes in the marbles seen in the ruins in the neighbourhood. I should have been disposed to think that this is also the cause of the masses of perfectly red marble (rosso antico), which lie about in all directions, carried down by the rivers from the mountains; but that I have frequently seen these red blocks themselves veined with white.

The stone-pine is extremely fine here, and the colour the most lively yet rich green that can be imagined; in the long spines are frequently seen tufts as large as a bird's nest; I opened one, and found that it contained some hundreds of full-grown caterpillars comfortably housed for the winter. The hedges are of a small kind of arbutus and jasmine, with myrtles, clematis, and other shrubs that I have before mentioned; the walnuts are magnificent, as well as the planes*, which I have not seen growing wild in any other country.

About eight miles more, making thirty-two in all, brought us to Sóma, at three o'clock, having ridden the distance in six hours. Since losing the traces of Acsá, I have seen no relics of antiquity, even in the most certain haunts, the burial-grounds, nor are any visible in this town. I was shown into a one-arched vault, about a hundred feet long and twenty-five wide, now used as a stable; it has three groins or projecting arches, rising on each side from as many marble pedestals, which I find are square, and let two-thirds into the wall, so as to appear like pilasters. On these are some Greek inscriptions. I have taken an impression of one by placing paper over the stone, and then rubbing the paper with a mixture of black-lead and soap. I imagine the building to be a work of the Romans, and that

* Platanus orientalis.

[blocks in formation]

these altar-shaped stones are old Greek materials used by them*

Hearing that there were some ruins within three miles of this place, I walked to the spot, passing up one of the beautiful dells so peculiar to a mountain-limestone country, clothed with such planes and walnuts as I never before saw. I reached at length a crow's nest town on the peak of a rock, surrounded on all sides by mountains, and so completely shut in that I could not see the ravine by which I had approached. Probably the people had never seen Europeans, for the whole town came out to look at us. The remains were evidently Byzantine, having stone ornaments with birds and snakes fighting, and the knotted arabesque patterns and rude carving of that age. In the street, for a horse-block, stood a marble pedestal, the wrong end upwards, with a Greek inscription, in form and age the same as those in Sóma†.

I am now in a little room in the khan at Sóma, where, on my return, I found a couple of excellent wild ducks ready for my dinner, which soon disappeared. It is about nine feet square, and is now fully furnished, though I found only bare walls. Demetrius is snoring at my feet, with his gun and saddle-bags hanging over his head; the contents of the canteen are arranged in readiness for my breakfast, and I am sitting with my canteen-box as my table, and writing by the luxurious but inconsistent light of wax candles, enjoying thoroughly the comfort of dry clothes, after having been all day wet through. My candles were purchased at Smyrna, and are "patent wax with twisted wicks," from England. Probably the wicks may have been in this country before. I understand that the people of Asia Minor find the Eng

* The translation of the inscription I copied is as follows:-"Onesimus, the father, and Chryseis, the mother, made [this tomb] for their sweetest child Polychronius, for the sake of remembrance, and for themselves."

+ The translation is as follows:-"Pompeius [erected this tomb] to his own [son ?], at his own expense, for the sake of remembrance."

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