market held in this town. Our road today for the first six miles skirted the lake to the north and north-west, and at the foot of mountains covered with cedars and large trees of the arbor vitæ. The shrubs are the rose, the barberry, and wild almond, but all are at present fully six weeks later than those in the country we have lately passed. I observed on the lake (called by the people Avelangouluh) many stately wild swans, and several large red-ducks; smaller waterfowl

were numerous.

This plain is the largest tract of corn-land, and the best cultivated, that I have seen in Asia Minor. The season is late before the state of the ground allows the use of the plough, as for several weeks after the snow disappears this dead level remains too swampy for culture. The extensive lake has apparently no river running from it; but the singular disappearance of a rapid and large stream of water, probably thirty feet wide and six deep, which crossed our track over the plain about three miles from this place, may suggest other modes of dispersing the water besides evaporation. The river of which I speak rushes into a large cave in the mountain with a tremendous roar, and is lost amidst the masses of rocks deep in its dark recesses. The cavernous limestone of this district fully accounts for the sudden appearance of several rivers in the plains of Phineka; among these I may mention the one at Limyra, and probably the Arycandus, which we lost sight of so abruptly near the top of the mountain, as well as its great tributary near the ancient city.

A few hundred feet above the plain of Almalee, to the eastward, is another, many miles in extent and covered with corn; each of these has its villages on the rise of the surrounding mountains. Upon my remarking the very few minarets of mosques seen on entering this town, I heard that most of the inhabitants were Armenians and Greeks. The houses of the town are good, but entirely built of mud

and timber; consequently even the garden walls, chimneys, and gateways have a wide roof of thin warped boards, giving an unsightly appearance to the whole town. The principal mosque is the handsomest I have seen out of Constantinople. The ornaments of the minaret, cut in stone, are a beautiful specimen of the best arabesque. The minarets of some of the other mosques are entirely formed of wood. Water, the indispensable element to the Turk, runs through each street, and several mills are turned by the streams. Around the town, and up the ravines in the steep mountains at the back, are excellent gardens, well cultivated with the vine and other fruit-trees, but the almond alone is yet in bloom. The surrounding mountains have not even a bush upon them, and the fire-wood for this town is brought from the forests of cedars which we had passed on the mountains. For a few pence a load of excellent cedar was placed at our door, showing in its fracture the rich colour of the wood of our pencils; and as we walked upon the house-top in the evening, the smoke from the various chimneys quite scented the air with the perfume of cedar-wood. The evening view from the roof of our khan was very picturesque; the cry of the Iman from the mosques, the bells of the camels, and rattling bills of the cranes upon the surrounding roofs, the varied costumes of the people in the streets, with jewels and coins on the heads of the females, into whose harems* our exalted situation commanded a view, added a peculiar interest and beauty to the

scene.

A variety of trades are here carried on by this active people. Tanning is among the chief, but this is unaccompanied by the disagreeable odours of an English tan-yard: the tan is here of the Velanea, and gives the well-known scent to Turkey leather: the scent of the Russian leather is still more agreeable. I observe camels loaded with roots

*The harem is the portion of the house of the Turk set apart for the use of his family.

resembling very fine horse-radish*: this is found plentifully here, and used in making a sweetmeat, but it is principally obtained as a substitute for soap, and used in the raw state. Several woods and roots used in dyeing are also articles of merchandize in this town, and there is a considerable trade in the skins of hares.

I was somewhat surprised to learn from my servant that the people are so well informed as to the nature of the disappearance of the waters into the earth, which I have already noticed; such phenomena being here, and even in parts of our own country, accompanied by traditionary superstitions. A person in our khan told my servant the following tale. Seven years ago there was very little snow during the winter, and the following summer was unusually dry; the consequence was the perfect exhaustion of the supplies of this stream, and the cave ceased for above a month to receive any waters. The Pasha by rewards induced five men to explore the cave with torches; the relator of this account said that he was among the number, and that they walked for three hours along a level sandy plain within the mountain. The following year the season brought as great a deluge as the former did a drought; the whole plain of Almalee was a flood, like the sea, and many of the mud houses were washed away. The consequences of the cessation and again the rush of turbid water were successively felt in the rivers which rise in the plains of Phineka around Limyra. The lake here is permanent, and seldom less than at present; but the annual floods on the melting of the snows render a great portion of the plain a morass until about the end of April.

I have observed that here, at Kastelorizo, and other places where the Greek population is considerable, the Governor of the town always sends a guard or policeman to wait on the

* The Silene.

outside of the door of our room. I have frequently declined this honour as unnecessary, but the reply has always intimated that we and our property are, while in the town, under the protection of the Governor, and that he cannot answer for the honesty of all the people. This has never occurred in the towns where the number of the Greeks was small.

May 9th.-On leaving Almalee this morning our road lay towards the north-west, rising considerably as we wound round the girth of the mountain, at the foot of which the town is built. From the elevation we attained, the extensive valleys, all green with the springing corn, were traced to an immense distance. A branch of the great plain wound beneath our hill, and at the end of this we descended through the village of Esky-Hissá, which was said to be full of ruins its name implies an ancient city. Two or three tombs in the rock, without inscriptions, and a rude Cyclopean wall, are all the works of art that remain on its site, well formed by nature for a fine city: this may probably have been the ancient Podalia. At the pointed end of this plain a river enters it from the mountains, which we found was formed by the united waters of two considerable streams from the north-east and north-west, which joined a few yards above. Up the ravine of the latter, from the north-west, we followed a good track by the side of the rapid and picturesquely-broken torrent: the high rocks rose abruptly on either side, and the space for the road and river was so narrow that the asses loaded with wood had to wait in recesses of the rocks while we passed. At the distance of a few miles up this ravine, on the face of the rock, which stood out and caused the waters to change their course, was cut in a somewhat rude style this monument: if it was funereal the tomb had not been opened, nor did there appear to be any chamber in the rock. We found no tombs, nor any traces of an ancient site in the neighbourhood, but all was wild and rocky. From the natural portal formed by the rocks, I should have fancied this a

barrier between two districts, and the inscription may record it*.

We continued our ascent through the same ravine, and, at the distance of nearly twenty miles from Almalee, reached the abrupt source of the river, gushing out of the mountain-side in a picturesque cascade, and falling into the bed of the rippling stream, along which our course still continued towards the snow mountains to the north-west. This stream is one of the sources of the river, which disappears in the plains of Almalee. Ascending through a winterly climate, with snow by the side of our path, and only the crocus and anemones in bloom, we soon stood upon the summit of this barren part of the range, at a height exceeding five thousand feet. From hence we beheld a new series of cultivated plains to the west, being in fact table-lands, nearly upon a level with the tops

*

Milyas was the ancient name of the whole of this elevated district of Lycia.

S