It is a great annoyance to follow in a train of seventeen horses close behind each other; if one trips, stops to catch at the branches of the trees, or has occasion to have the baggage re-arranged, the whole cavalcade is checked. Towards the latter end of our journey I managed to take the lead, which not only prevented my feeling the interruption, but quickened the whole party. The Post in this country is established by order of the Government on all roads connecting large towns; it is used solely for the Tartars or Government couriers, and the diplomatic agents or governors communicating with the capital; the rate of charge is therefore fixed, and at the very low price of a piastre, or less than twopence halfpenny, for each horse per hour, or about four miles in distance: a small sum is added for the post-boy, and a present or backshish is expected by the ostlers at the stations. The charge of the post-master does not of course remunerate him, he being only an agent who obtains horses, on application of the travellers, from the farmers or people of the town, frequently paying them more than he can legally charge; he is therefore allowed by the Government a high salary, in order to indemnify him from loss. The traveller without a firman can demand horses, but the price then becomes a matter of bargain. Hitherto I have had post horses; but now, no longer travelling on a post road, there is a difficulty in procuring them, and therefore we are to be carried for two days by horses hired, the owners of which accompany us, and generally arrange to join other parties, in order to render mutual assistance. Like all travellers in this country, my companions are so much disposed to sociability, that we form a party of seventeen, instead of only my own four horses.

Having no firman at present, which is only to be procured at Constantinople, I am obliged to pay double the usual posting charges. When I have obtained my firman they will be very moderate, but for one person the travelling is

expensive. I pay sixteen shillings a-day for four horses, and the services of the owners, who accompany me.

From the highest point of the mountain today I had a fine view of another of those productive valleys so peculiar to this country, which towards the east is watered by the Mysius, a river joining the Caicus. In most countries that I have visited, with the exception of a part of Italy, hill and valley vary every mile; but here the perfectly flat plain, of immense extent, is girt in by its mountains; detached from these ranges not a hill is to be seen.

March 1st.-By seven o'clock in the morning we had breakfasted, packed, and were proceeding through the mountains. The whole distance from Bérgama to Keméreh is occupied by the pass of the mountains. We were fourteen hours making the passage, and nearly three hours more in crossing the valley to this place, Adramít, the ancient Adramyttium. This mountain-pass is extremely wild, and occa sionally beautiful; scarcely a trace of a cottage is to be seen the whole distance. About four miles from Karaváren I saw in a burial-ground several columns, and among the wilderness of immense round rocks or boulders, I observed many squared stones of considerable size; and overhead, on the peak of an isolated rocky hill, old walls of good masonry were visible. The exceedingly fine and commanding situation induced me to be on the look-out for some trace of former residents: at present the whole seemed deserted. This would appear from the map to have been the ancient Lyrnessus. At Keméreh also I saw columns and squared or wrought stones; but from the cross and other ornaments seen upon them, I fancy they must have been the relies of a later date than the Greek.

This valley of Keméreh, which is far smaller than the others I have passed, is highly cultivated and beautiful; the olive-trees are very fine, old, and numerous; and the vine is trained on trellis, as in Italy. I heard that this mode is

peculiar, in Asia Minor, to this place. Here I noticed two houses built in the European style, there being nothing else European in the town. It was the dirtiest place I ever slept in; all the streets were filthy.

During this day's ride it rained in torrents for seven hours; my hood screened my body, but my legs and saddle were soaked, and a stream was running from my heels all the morning. The series of hills that we had passed since leaving Bérgama had generally been of a soft granite, while some of the intersecting ones and higher ranges were of limestone, and one part of a shining slaty stone. The granite was generally spread over the country in immense boulders; and these were so rapidly decomposing, that each had to the leeward a heap, such as I have before described as looking like a snow-drift, formed of its particles. I observed much of the Lichen geographicus, covering, and indeed holding together, these decomposing stones. On this soil the oak seems to spring up spontaneously, and the whole country around is covered with brushwood. The boulders being of a description of granite, and evidently igneous, I was surprised to see them intersected with horizontal strata of marble, of course the gradual deposit of waters; the marble was not crystallized. After I had been puzzling over this appearance for some time, I noticed in the same stones veins of marble shooting out in all directions. Had the substances been reversed, I should have thought the heated liquid granite might have shot into the crevices of the marble; but shortly after I saw rock with perpendicular fissures filled with marble. This led me to think that the cracks and fissures in the cooling rocks had been the receptacles for the waters filtering from the limestone, forming moulds, in which these beautiful white veins, now girting in all directions the stones washed down the river, had been cast. Having noticed these facts, I saw that the mountains were ribbed with lines of white marble,

and the road afterwards became almost impeded by little walls, perhaps a foot high, of hard marble; the mould of granite in which they were cast having perished and been washed away in the sand. Afterwards, in winding along the side of a mountain, we passed into richly wooded ravines, with a sandy soil, and then had to proceed round a projecting cliff of bare rocky marble. Thus the same formation may be traced, from the striped stone on the road to the marble cliffs and the ravines, of decomposed granite rock.

The road from Adramít, a town in which no traces of antiquities are to be found, except in a few coins picked up in the neighbourhood, lay for nearly two hours through fine woods of olives, and along the sea-coast or gulf which takes. its name from this town. I here saw, on a font, a marble which had been part of a handsome frieze, exhibiting the bull's head and wreath, so common in Greek architecture, and one or two fragments of columns.

We then traversed the coast through woods of the richest trees, the planes being the handsomest to be found in this, or perhaps any other, part of the world. I have never seen such stupendous arms to any trees. There were a few walnuts and pines, and the country for fifty miles was covered with olives, which still furnish the principal trade of this part of Asia Minor. The underwood was of myrtle, growing sometimes twenty feet high, the beautiful daphne laurel, and the arbutus; and these seemed contending for preeminence with the vine, clematis, and woodbine, which climbed to their very tops, and in many instances bore them down into a thicket of vegetation, impervious except to the squirrels and birds, which, sensible of their security in these retreats, stand boldly to survey the traveller. A kind of grape-hyacinth and the arum, added to varieties of anemones, cover the ground. I observed that the crows

here are grey-bodied*, but am informed that the black crow is also known.

In the dirty khan at Adramít I had the choice of two rooms, the best of which was very offensive, having been recently filled with skins of cheese and oil. I had it swept, and a large fire made to purify it, but for nearly an hour it was not fit for me to enter; so I loitered about, and looked into the room next to my own. On a clean mat, crouching in the corner, were two fine slaves; their owner seemed very kind to them, and was feeding them with delicacies. All the slaves I have at present seen, generally from Ethiopia, are decidedly longer in the leg-joint from the ankle to the knee than any race of human beings with which I am acquainted. A person seeing the leg only would expect to find them extremely tall, but this is by no means the case.

As the post-master makes me take five horses, we have caused quite a sensation in this little village, which lies in a ravine high above the sea, another of the crow's-nest sites chosen by the early Greeks; its name is Chétme. There being no khan, I had to beg the governor of the place to extend to me the hospitality usual towards strangers, and this gave me an opportunity of observing Turkish manners. As I sat on my horse, surrounded by my little suite, and waiting the termination of the mosque service, I soon became the object of curiosity to the younger and perhaps lower persons among the inhabitants; but the elder, or those assuming any authority, passed by, merely giving me a salute in the Turkish language,-Oöroler, meaning, Welcome, stranger.' Among these was the Aga, or principal man, the governor of the village, who knew I waited only to speak to him, but would not compromise his dignity by transacting his official business in the street; and we consequently had to follow him half a mile to his hut, where, * Corvus cornix, the hooded crow.

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