* Continuing our course toward the south, after passing the town of Tenedos, we were struck by the very grand appearance of the ancient Balnea, already described, among the remains of Alexandria Troas. The three arches of the building make a conspicuous figure, to a considerable distance at sea, like the front of a magnificent palace; and this circumstance, connected with the mistake so long prevalent concerning the city itself gave rise to the appellation of "The Palace of Priam,” bestowed by mariners upon these ruins. Thence we sailed to the promontory of Lectum, now Cape Baba, at the mouth of the Adramyttian Gulph: the southwestern extremity of that chain of mountains of which Gargarus is the summit. This cape presents a high and bold cliff, on whose steep acclivity the little town of Baba appears, as though stuck within a nook.* It is famous for the manufacture of kuives and poignards: their blades are distinguished in Turkey by the name of Baba leeks. 'Afterward, crossing the mouth of the Galph, we passed round the western point of the island of Mitylene, anciently called the Sigrian Promontory. It is uncertain at what time the island changed its ancient name of Lesbos for that which it now bears; but Eustathius says it was so called from Mitylene, the capital town. Its situation, with regard to the Adramyttian gulph, is erroneously delineated in maps and charts: some of these place it at a distance in the Egean Sea.†

I had surveyed the whole of this island, with considerable interest, from the peak of Gargarus; and now, as the shades of evening were beginning to conceal its undulating territory, a vain wish of enjoying nearer inspection was excited. The consciousness to a traveller of the many interesting things he cannot see, often counterbalances the satisfaction derived from the view of objects he has been permitted to contemplate. Few

A very accurate view of it is engraved in Mr. Gell's "Topography of Troy,” p. 21, from his own drawing. The place was called Baba, from a dervish (Baba) buried there, "who always gave the Turks intelligence when any rovers were in the neigh bouring seas." Egmont and Heyman's Travels, vol. i. p. 162,

at Our geographical documents of the Archipelago are a disgrace to the age; the very best of them being false in their positions of latitude, and in the respective bearings of the different islands, as well as remarkable for their unaccountable omisRions

Some amends for my own deficiency, with respect to Mitylene, will be made by Communication of a different nature; namely, by those extracts from the MS. Journal of my friend Mr.Walpole which relate to his travels in Asia Minor. These, while Tam describing the islands and the coast, will afford an accompanying view of the interior, and of those objects which I did not see near the shore. I shall begin with his journey from Pergamus to Smyrna.

The antiquities of Pergamus are very deserving of a minute examination: particularly those on the Acropolis; on one part of which, toward the south, is a wall of granite, a most stupendous work, eighty or ninety feet in perpendicular depth. Vast Cisterns and decayed towers, tin one of which I copied a Greek inscription relating to Ꮮ

literary strangers would pass the shores of Lesbos with indif ference. Its land was peculiarly dignified by genius, and by wisdom. Æolian lyres were strung in every valley, and every

a decree ratified by the people of Pergamus, and inscribed in the temple of Bacchus,) are to be seen there. The Acropolis was adorned with a temple of the Corinthian order, whose pillars, of nearly four feet in diameter, are lying prostrate among other parts of it. This temple, I conceive, was erected to Minerva: we know from Vitru vius, that her temple was built in excelsissimo loco," (lib. i. c. 7.;) and the silver money of Pergamus bears her image constantly games also were, as Polybius informs us, celebrated here in honour of her, by Attalus, (lib. iv.) Below, to the south, is the town; and to the west of it was the stadium, and a theatre above itThe relative situation of these two buildings at Tralles in Asia was the same, according to Vitruvius, (lib. v.) "Trallibus porticus ex utraque parte scena, supra stadium.” Farther on to the west, are the remains of an amphitheatre, or naumachia; there is water dividing the two semicircles; so that if the building was used for the first, it must have flowed beneath, in a channel, whenever the sports were represented.

"There is no part of the Turkish dominions where you may travel with greater safety, than in the district under the family of Kara Osman Oglou. The two capitals as they may be called, are Pergamus, and Magnesia. In coming from the former place to Smyrna, I passed through part of their territory. The country was, for Turkey, well cultivated; most of it laid down in cotton and corn land. They plough, as I was told, with a pair of oxen, more than an acre a day; and the manure they use is burnt weed. The whole country was now (April) wearing a beautiful appearance; the anemone, ranunculus, and hyacinth, were seen in the fields, and by the road side. Having slept one night in the open air, by a fire which the driver of the caravan kindied with dried horse dung, I arrived the next day at the banks of the Hermus ; winding, and muddy; daily adding to the land, which it has already formed on the north side of the Gulph of Smyrna. I crossed it at the ferry, and reached Menomen; whence I sailed to Smyrna in an hour. From Menomen, boats come daily to Smyr na, in the season, laden with water melons (the cucurbita citrullus) called by the Greeks angouria. From the seed, a liquor is made, which is sold about the streets of Smyrna.

The fields and gardens about Smyrna are planted with almond, olive, fig, and pomegranate trees. The little village of Narli-keui takes its name from the abundance of the pomegranate trees there. Some of the plants, birds, and insects found at Smyrna, are described by Hasselquist. The francolin, (a kind of partridge, and called by Belon the arrάyn of the Greeks,) and beccafico, are found in abundance; the latter I have heard cailed by a name not unlike the ancient. * Συκαλίδες (says Athenæus) are taken in the fig season:" lib. ii. 69. Woodcocks, and a species of plover, are seen in December. Wild boars are frequently shot here in the mountains. I saw also a quantity of the ixivos (the sea egg,) which is eaten by the Greeks in their fasts; and called now by the same name. "It defends itself by its prickly shell;" Athenæus, lib. iii. 41. The octopodian, as the modern Greeks call it, is also eaten by them in Lent; it is a cuttle-fish, with eight rays, or tentacula, as the name indicates The hills round Smyrna are of granite. At a village to the south of it, called Bujaw, is a very fine grove of cypress trees; this tree, so great a favourite with the Turks in their burying grounds, is there planted on account of its balsamic smell; its wood, as well as that of the ficus sicomorus, was always prized in the East for its durability. The Egyptians made their mummy chests of it; and the Athenians buried those who had fallen in war in coffins of this wood. Between Smyrna and Bournabat, a village seven miles to the north east of it, is a very large cemetery, with remains of antiquity in ft, and Greek Inscriptions. The Turkish burying grounds are in general extensive, as they never put a body where one has been already deposited; and are also offensive as they do not put them deep in the ground. In the mosque as Bournabat, I copied A Greek inscription, from a pillar sixteen feet in length; it commemorates the river Meles: the last part of the inscription is a Senerian Iambic. This river, before it comes to Smyrna, is crossed by two aqueducts, to the southeast of the city; one of which may be 300 feet from one hill to the opposite; and the other about 200 feet.The Meles flows now through part of the town, turning a few mills; and empties itself in the sea to the northeast. In going out of the Frank street, at the north end, and toward the careening ground, you walk over soil which has been gained from the sea. The arrow-headed grass of Sweden, which Hasselquist found here, and which grows where the earth has remains of sea salt, proved to him that the earth had here been covered with the sea. This circumstance makes it difficult to arrange the present topography, in some respects, with the ancient.

The remains of antiquity, which the acropolis of Smyrna presents, are few: the

mountain was consecrated by the breath of inspiration.* While more ancient records tell of an Alcæus, a Sappho, and a Pittacus; of Arion, and Terpander; with all the illustrious names of Lesbian bards and sages, poets and historians; Cicero and Vitruvius expatiate on the magnificence of its capital. Such was the flourishing state of the Fine Arts in the city of Mitylene, when Marcellus, after the battle of Pharsalia, retired to end his days there iu literary ease, that a modern traveller, after the lapse of seventeen centuries, could behold nothing but proofs of the splendor to which they had attained. The me

dals of Lesbos are less known than of any other island in the Archipelago; because those which have been described as its sucient silver coinage, properly belong to Macedonia. Yet the island itself has never been fully examined in modern times; probably from its being so completely in the possession of the Turks. Tournefort, who has given us the best account of it, with that industry and eradition which characterize his writings, had little opportunity for its investigation. According to his own confession, he was for the most part confined to the shore at Petra ;** lest the captain, with whom he had contract ed for a passage to Constantinople, should sail without him. Next to the work of Tournefort ranks the information contain ed in the travels of Egmont and Heyman, who saw more of the actual state of the country; but still very little is known of the interior of the island; although, according to the observations of these gentlemen, it is fertile, and well cultivated; affording no less than seventy thousand quintals of oil annually to the port of Mitylene.tt The site and remains of the ancient towns chief are, part of the castle wall, perhaps of the time of Lysimachus, the cisterns, and the site of the stadium, built, as that at Ephesus was, with one side on vaults, and the other on a natural deelivlty; exhibiting now sports of a less cruel kind than it did formerly. In 1806, I saw cricket matches played here by some of the merchants. A kan and bazar were built with the marble brought from the theatre; and the only specimen of antiquity which was discovered while I was there, was a colossal marble foot. After Constantinople, there is no town in the Levant which presents a more beautiful and interesting prospect than that which is beheld from the castle hill, extending over the city beneath; the bay with the shipping; the mountains beyond; the winding Hermus on the north side of the gulf; and the highly cultivated plain adjoining to the city of Smyrna." Walpole's MS. Journal.

*

Where each old poetic mountain
Inspiration breathed around.

f Cic. De Leg. Agr. Vitruv. lib. i. c. 6.
'Hueyish modis. Strab. Geogr. lib. xiii.

"Aussi n'y voit-on que bouts de colonnes, la pluspart de marbre blanc, quelquesunes gris-cendre, ou de granit, &c. Il n'est pas croyable combien dans les ruines dont nous parlons, il y reste de chapiteaux, de frises, des piedestaux de bouts d'inscriptions," &c. Tournef. Voy. du Lev. tom. ii. p. 81. Lyons, 1717.

See Combe's account of Hunter's Medals, Num. Vet. Pop. et Urb. &c. Tab. 33. Fig 1. &c. p. 171.

**Voyage du Levant. tom. ii. p. 86.

Beef was then only one penny the pound in the market of Mitylene.

of Eressus* and Methymnaf were known in the time of Tour nefort; the former of which still preserves its original name, almost unaltered, in the modern appellation of Eresso; and the ruins of the latter are yet to be seen. Excepting Euboea, Lesbos is the largest island in the Egean sea. It was the mother of many Æolian colonies. Its happy temperature conspired with the richness of its soil to produce those delicious fruits, and exquisite wines, so highly extolled by ancient writers. The present state of its agriculture does not however entitle its products to the high encomium once bestowed upon them. Its wine is said to bave lost the reputation it formerly possessed; probably owing entirely to the ignorance and sloth of its Turkish masters, and the disregard shown by them to the cultivation of the vine.

Early on the following morning, passing the Promontory of Melæna, and the mouth of the Hermean gulph, or gulph of Smyrna, we entered the Straits, between Chics, now Scio, and the main land. All this voyage from the Hellespont, between the continent and adjacent islands, was considered by our captaiu as mere river sailing; but pirates lurk among the straits, in greater number than in the more open sea. Being always in sight of land, and often close in with it, the prospects afforded are in the highest degree beautiful.

In the channel between Chios and the opposite peninsula of Ery thræ,** the scenery is perhaps unequalled by any thing in

Famous for the births of Theophrastus and Phanias, the most renowned of Aris totle's disciples.

Famous for the birth of Arion.

Voy, du Lev. tom. ii. p. 84.

Vid. Horat. Lib. i. Od. 17. Virgil, Georg. lib. ii. 89, 90. Aul. Gell. lib. xiii. c. 5. &c. &c.

Travels of Egmont and Heyman, vol. i. p. 158. Lond. 1759.

**The ruins of Erythræ are at a place called Rytropoli, by the little river Aloes, Dear Tchesme. When Mr. Walpole was there, a number of very beautiful little bronze medals were discovered, all of ERYTHRE. He kindly presented some of them to me. They have in front the head of Hercules; and for the obverse, the letters EPY with the name of a magistrate. An extract from Mr. Walpole's Journal will here communicate the result of his remarks in Asia Minor, made subsequently to his arrival at Smyrna.

During my journey in Asia, I took up my abode for the night in the khans or caravanserais, choosing a room to myself in these bad substitutes for inns, rather than the private houses of the Turks, where my Janissary procured me admittance. For although the Turks are quiet and inoffensive, yet any thing is preferable to sleeping in a small room with half a dozen of them; or to a cross-legged posture at meals, round a low table, eating spoon meats, of which their repasts generally consist. As the road I travelled was not much frequented, I was forced to stop at the houses of individuals; and arriving generally at sunset, I found them beginning their supper: their dinner is at ten in the morning, as they rise at break of day. Sometimes a vilJage afforded a small hut of mud and straw, purposely built for travellers; half of this was raised about two feet from the ground, for men to lie on; the other half accommodated three or four horses. In the great towns it was necessary to go first to the governor, with some present, accompanied by my Janissary. At Guzel-hissar I waited on the Aga, who, after some conversation with my Janissary, ordered a Greek

the Archipelago; not only from the grandeur, height, and magnitude, of the gigantic masses presented on the coast, but from the extreme richness and fertility of the island filled with flowery, luxuriant, and odoriferous plants, and presenting a magnifi

(his tailor) to receive me into his house, where I remained some days. Presents to the servants are always given. At Melasso, I waited on the governor: it was the time of the fast of the Ramadan; I found him sitting on his divan, counting his beads of thick amber'; a pipe was brought to me, but not to him, as he did not smoke, eat, nor drink, from sunrise to sunset. He showed me guns and pistols made in England; these some Englishmen had brought to Melasso, coming to buy horses for the army on the Egyptian expedition. This fast of the Ramadan I found was most strictly observed. My Janissary was not so scrupulously abatemious as my guide, who never even took Snuff until the sun was below the horizon. I passed the evenings writing my journal, and reading some books of travels I had with me. The Turkish peasants would sometimes bring medals; these they found in the fields. The conversation of the Turks. turned generally, as I found from my interpreter, on the affairs of the village, and its neighbourhood. The women never appeared. I saw some by the road side; and in the villages young children made their appearance, with strings of copper money around their heads; and the nails, both of their hands and feet, dyed of a reddish colour, with henna, the leaves of which are powdered and formed into a paste, and then applied. This is a custom of great antiquity; Hasselquist says he saw the nails of some mummies dyed in this manner. Although the Turks, in their intercourse with each other, strictly adhere to the practice of taking off their slippers in a room, (a custom of the ancients; see Martial, lib. iii. deposui soleas,) yet they dispense with it frequently in the case of European travellers."

"Beside rice and fowls, it is possible to procure, at many of the villages and towns in Asia Minor, yowry, or sour milk, called in Greek öğúyana; caimac, or coagulated cream, in Greek ἀφρόγαλα; and soft cheese, xwpó rúpi, a literal translation of the caseus viridis of Columella. Mutton is universally preferred to beef; this, in general, is coarse and bad tasted: the former is double the price of the latter, and is two. pence the pound,

"A Greek labourer receives from thirty-five to forty paras a day, nearly fifteen pence: he works only two thirds of the year; the other third consists of holidays. During the four fasts, of which that in Lent is the most strictly observed, he eats shellfish, caviar (the roe of sturgeon), pulse, and anchovies.

"I observed but few Greek villages in Asia Minor; the Greeks all seek the great towns, to avoid more easily the different means of oppression resorted to by the Turkish governors; whose short residence in their provinces is spent, not in countenancing or furthering any improvement or plans of amelioration in the condition of those subject to them, but in exacting every thing they can, to repay themselves for the sum which the Porte takes from them; and in carrying away what wealth they are able to amass. It is difficult to ascertain what sum any given province pays annually to the Porte; but a near conjecture may be made, by adding the haratch (capitation tax) to the sum which the governor stipulates to pay every year.

The Turks, as far as my experience carried me, show no disposition to molest or offend a traveller. Something contemptuous may at times be observed in their manBer. But a great change for the better, in their general deportment, is to be attributed to their never being now exasperated by the attack of corsairs or pirates on the coast.

"No people living under the same climate, and in the same country, can be so opposite as the Greeks and Turks. There is in the former a cringing manner, and yet a forwardness, disgusting to the gravity and seriousness of the latter. The Turks treat the Armenians, who conduct themselves generally with great propriety and decorum, with much less harshness than they show to the Greeks. Their present condition is certainly not the most favorable point of view for considering the character of the Greeks; and their faults, which are those of their unfortunate situation, would disappear under more favourable circumstances, and a different government. When in office and authority, they are not so devoid of insolence to their countrymen, as might be wished The codja-bashis in the Morea are, many of them, tyrannical to the other Greeks. The treatment which the Jews experienced at their hands, in the time of the Greek empire, is that which the Greeks now meet with from the Turks. "No one," says Benjamin of Tudela, "dares to go on horseback, but the imperial physician; and the Jews are hated in the town by all the Greeks, without any regard to their good or bad character." p. 30. as cited by Nichbuhr. "Neither hay nor oats are known to the Turks; nor has any nation in the East ever ased them for their horses. They brought barley also and straw for the horses."