Close to the road on our left, and standing upon a precipitous promontory, at the foot of which wound the river, were the ruins of a city, but apparently one of those I should class as Venetian or Genoese. Some hewn stones around the doors, and a few columns, as well as the corner-stones of the walls, showed the power of execution; but the rest of the numerous buildings were formed of small stones, unhewn and held together chiefly by cement, which I have never found to be the case in those of the early Greeks. No theatre or other public building was visible; and seeking elsewhere for more remains, I saw at the distance of a mile and a half, up the side of the mountain on our right, massive Greek walls of considerable extent. Leaving our horses, we went to explore them, and soon found an inscription, but too imperfect for me to copy the whole without much trouble, and awaiting the change of light. The name of Arycamda however caught my eye, and we copied the line containing it, without reference to any other part of the inscription, and then proceeded through the numerous tombs around, hoping to find others more perfect. The absence of other inscriptions, and the interesting names of Themistocles and Attica occurring in this fragment, which I did not notice until I was many miles distant, make me regret my want of perseverance in not endeavouring to copy the whole: there were four preceding lines and one following.

Passing the tombs, we saw that this highly ornamented city had been built on the side of a steep mountain, and that the buildings had formed terraces one above the other. To one series of these I cannot give a name; they were generally rooms twenty to thirty feet square, covered by one fine arch, the walls Cyclopean-built into, and with, the rock behind the front alone was visible, the roof often serving as a terrace for buildings above. The beautiful execution of the doorways in front, which were coeval with the Cyclopean walls, may be seen from the accompanying sketch.

The large doorway represented in the subjoined woodcut is in the centre; within, the arched roof was generally plastered, and had been painted; along the back, and half-way down each side, was a raised bench, five feet wide, the height suitable for a seat, but far too deep; there was no appearance of recesses for lamps or other purposes, usually found in the mausoleums of the ancient Greeks.

These buildings appear too large for tombs, and they must have been, I think, small for temples. The ornaments were not funereal, and no inscription occurred but the following:

The above inscription was cut upon the wall of one of these buildings, of the Corinthian style of ornament, and is a strong argument for their having been temples; it may also be of interest to the moralist, probably describing the exultation of the Christians of the Byzantine age over the vanquished Pagans; how soon did the Christians disappear before the Moslems, and how has time robbed both of this now ruined and deserted district! I should attribute the style of these buildings to the time of the Roman emperors; they are not sufficiently simple in their ornaments for an earlier age. A coin found amidst the ruins bears the name of the city Arycanda, and the head of the emperor Gordian. At the back of the theatre, which stood still higher up the mountain, was a wall, with buttresses to oppose the avalanches of stones rolling down a slight ravine in the rocks; but this has given way before the masses which have fallen during so many centuries, and have buried the back or centre seats of the theatre; the rest were quite perfect, and the proscenium could be traced by its bold Cyclopean walls. Below the theatre was a platform, which had seats on the rising side of the rock and at the ends: this I imagined to be a stadium, but the length of the course was only eighty yards. The most conspicuous building in the city had several halls, and two tiers of windows at the end; some of these halls terminated (like several others I have seen in Greek * "It conquers"?

cities) with a fine arch and a circular end; within this recess were windows, the whole being on a large scale. There were numerous other piles of ruins, to which I can give no name, as well as several detached kind of towers, of fine massive Greek structure: these are scattered at some distance from the ruins of the city.

Leaving Arycanda, we in half an hour crossed a river, which appeared suddenly from the mountains to the east, forming a main tributary to the Arycandus; the city might therefore be said to be at the head of the river as soon as it became worthy of a name. This valley, as we continued its ascent, became more wild, and fir-trees and cedars alone remained to clothe the rocks; the few patches of cultivation indicated a change of season, caused by our increased elevation. The corn, which we had the day before seen changing colour for the harvest, was here not an inch above the ground, and the buds of the bushes were not yet bursting.

Having left the course of the river for about three hundred yards, we found on our return that its bed was dry. Riding up the stony ravine until we reached a ridge, we descended slightly for about a mile and a half to Avelan, which consists of only three houses: although in a comparatively cold region, we have preferred the tent to the stable-like accommodation these huts afforded.

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CHAPTER XXII.

AVELAN.ITS LAKE. — EXTENSIVE PLAINS. — DISAPPEARANCE OF A RIVER.-ALMALEE.-ITS POPULATION. MOSQUES.-TRADE.-SITE OF ANCIENT CITY, PROBABLY PODALIA.-SOURCE OF RIVERS.-PASSAGE OF MOUNTAIN.-HIGH PLAINS. THE YEEILASSIES.-ANNUAL MIGRATION OF THE TRIBES.-VALLEY OF THE XANTHUS.-MACRY.-RHODES. -CITY OF RHODES.-SAILORS.-LAVISSE.-CARMYLESSUS.-RETURN TO THE YEEILASSIES.-REVIEW OF LYCIA.

May 8th, Almalee. This district is entirely unknown to Europeans, and has quite a distinct character from that of the country through which we have before passed: no maps of course exist. The disadvantages of this are very great, as we know not where to steer or what places to ask for; but there are also advantages, and the surprise on arriving last evening at Avelan was one, for at this elevation (above three thousand feet above the sea) we found a large lake, three or four miles wide and ten long, and a plain of three times that size covered with corn just springing above the ground, without a tree to break the perfect monotony of the level. At the north-east end of this plain stands the largest town in Lycia-almost the largest in Asia Minor; it far exceeds the size of Idin, and probably contains twenty-five thou sand inhabitants. We were in some degree prepared to expect this, by the hundreds of people we yesterday met on the road, at the distance of twenty miles, returning from the