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as cruel, the instant they board a vessel, put every individual of the crew to death. They lurk about the isle of Fourmi, in great numbers; taking possession of bays and creeks the least frequented by other mariners. After they have plundered a ship, and murdered the crew, they bore a hole through her bottom, sink her, and take to their boats again.*

*An extract from Mr. Walpole's Journal, containing an account of his journey from Smyrna to Halicarnassus, will here give the reader some information concerning the coast along which we were now sailing.

As many of the monuments and superb remains on the coast of Asia have been minutely and faithfully described in the Ionian Antiquities, and by Chandler, I shall not repeat their remarks. The various inscriptions which I copied, both on the coast, and in the interior of the country, many of them entirely unknown, cannot obtain room here. I shall state a few miscellaneous remarks, which occurred as I travelled along the coast southward to Halicarnassus.

"The country between Smyrna and Ephesus is very mountainous: in one part of the road, near the Caister, you pass the base of the ancient Gallesus, under most frightful precipices, the habitation of some eagles: a few pines are seen on the sides of the mountains; lower down is the arbutus, in great abundance, with its scarlet fruit, called now, as anciently, uapaixλa (see Hesych.); and by the torrents, occasionally crossing the road, is the plane and the oleander. The fields are laid down in cotton plantations, Indian corn, and wheat; among these are olive trees, with vines growing around them. The present inhabitants of Ephesus are a few fishermen, who live in huts on the banks of the Caister, over which they ferried me. This river winds through a muddy plain, in some measure formed by it, and through lofty reeds, with a slow yellow stream, without any of the swans which the ancients describe; it empties itself into the sea, at the distance of an hour from the morass, near the supposed site of the famous temple of Diana. The subterranean vaults and passages, close to the east of this marsh', (into which I descended with a rope, and found only hats above, and water below,) are imagined by some to be the remains and substruction of this temple. The church of St. John, built at Ephesus by Justinian, and which Procopius says was very magnificent, may have been raised from the materials presented by the temple of Diana; and this will in some measure account for the little that can be seen or known of the latter. Near these remains, to the southwest of the stadium, is an arch; on the top of this, climbing by the wall, as no ladder was to be found, I copied a Greek inscription, in perfect preservation. The agha of the place rode about with me the first time I was at Ephesus; and imagined that every inscription I copied, pointed out the situation or sum of a hidden treasure. The bushes in the plain, among which are the agnus castus and centaurea benedicta, conceal many remains of antiquity. The Ephesians were supplied with their marble from the hill (Prion) whereon part of their city was built; and porphyry and granite, of which gigantic specimens are lying in the plain, were brought up to the town by means of the river, and by the canal into the actual morass which once formed the port.

"As you advance southward from Ephesus and Scala Nuova, (anciently Neapolis,) the high mountain, Mycale, covered with arbutus, wild olive, and ilex (from which the peasants make charcoal,) presents itself; and soon after a lofty white summit is seen to the south; this is the top of Mount Titanus, called now, from its form, Bisber-mach, Five fingers. The most commanding view of this was from the Acropolis of Priene, from which I descended, on the southeast side, by a way almost impassable, resting at times to contemplate the ruins of the temple of Minerva at Priene, and to cast my eyes over the plain of the Meander, toward the Lake of Myus, on the northeast side of which rises Mount Titanus in all its majesty. In the Ionian Antiqui ties" a minute detail of the architecture of the temple of Minerva has been published; and in Chandler's "Inscriptions," a faithful copy from the inscribed marbles that lie among the ruins. From the summit of the Acropolis of Priene I saw to the south the vast accretion of land, marshy, and muddy, occasioned by the Meander. Priene, once on the coast, was, in the time of Strabo, five miles from the sea. I crossed the river, winding through tamarisks, in a triangular boat; its breadth here was about thirty yards: at a later season of the year I passed it again, higher up, in Caria, over a wooden bridge, sixty paces long. From the summit of the theatre of Miletus, facing the northwest, is good view of the inazes of the river. The distance of the sea from the theatre I conjecture to be seven miles. The high mountains which are to be passed! in going from Miletus, and the site of the temple of Apollo, near the promontory Po

The next morning we came to anchor in the harbour of the Isle of Cos, now called Stanchio, where the sea appears entirely landlocked; as indeed it does for a very considerable distance from the island, toward the north. One of the inhabitants, as soon as we landed, brought me a brass medal of the island, with the head of Hippocrates, and the word KAIN. It is the more interesting, as few medals are now found at Cos. I could neither procure nor hear of a single one in silver. In other respects, the island abounds in antiquities; but they are scattered in such a confused manuer, that nothing decisive can be collected from their appearance. In the wall of the quay, facing the port, I observed the colossal marble statue of a female, with drapery finely executed, but the head, arms, and feet, had been broken off. On the left-hand side of the gate by which we entered the town, an inscription remains, in a high state of preservation, beginning ABOYAAKAIOAAMOZ: this has already been published by Spoo and by other authors, and therefore needs not to be inserted here. -

A plane tree, supposed, and perhaps with reason, the largest in the world, is yet standing within the market place. It was described as the famous plantain tree, half a century ago, by

sidium, toward Jassus, are also covered with arbutus, the dwarf oak, and the pine: those mountains are the haunts of numerous beasts, particularly of the jackal, (called by the Turks, chical,) which disturbed us in the night by its cries. The road is often cut through masses of slate; sometimes it is paved; by the side of it are small huts, of wood, covered with boughs, for the purpose of selling coffee to travellers, chiefly in summer time; they are generally by the side of a running stream. The soil was loose, and easily yielded to the plough. The quantity of ground, which might be brought into cultivation for corn, or pasture for cattle, is very great; but it is neglected, from want of persons to till it. The rain had now increased the torents descending from the mountains so much, that it was quite dangerous to pass them. The southwest brought with it rain; the northeast, a sharp cold air; these two winds are called by the Turks, lodos, and voreas; names borrowed from the Greek.

"The road leads on to Casikli for three hours, by the sea: you then turn to the east, for the same time; and reach Assum, (Jassus,) the situation of which, in the recess of a bay, looking over olive grounds to the sea, and thence to the high mountains near Halicarnassus, is beautiful. To this last place now called Bodrun, the road led me through groves of myrtle, and ilex, by the seashore, for two hours and a half. I shall here subjoin the distances of some of the places on the coast.

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The direct route from this last place to Halicarnassus I cannot give as I wish; as we lost our way, going for three quarters of an hour, through a bay of the sea, up to the horses' girts; and riding all the day in rain, until half past nine, when the barking of dogs guided us to a Turkish hut, where I slept; the next morning at eight. 1 set out again, passing some fluted columns; and in a valley, some beehives, made of earthenware, cylindrical, about two feet and a half in height; riding among mountains, I reached a coffee hut, at Guverchin, by the shore, in a bay, running east and west; and in four hours and a half arrived at Halicarnassus." Walpole's MS. Journal.

Egmont and Heyman.* It once covered with its branches upward of forty shops; and enough is still remaining to astouish all beholders. An enormous branch, extending from the trunk almost to the sea, supported by ancient columns of granite, gave way and fell. This has considerably diminished the effect produced by its beauty and prodigious size. Its branches still exhibit a very remarkable appearance, extending, horizontally, to a surprising distance; supported at the same time, by granite and marble pillars found upon the island. Some notion may be formed of the time those props have been so employed, by the appearance of the bark; this has encased the extremities of the columns so completely, that the branches and the pillars naturally support each other; and it is probable, if those branches were raised, some of them would lift the pillars from the earth.

Beneath this tree, I observed a cylindrical marble altar, adorned with rams' heads supporting festoons in relief, exactly like the altar from Delos, engraved in Tournefort's Travels, and lately presented by Mr. Harvey, of Jesus College, Cambridge, to the vestibule of the University Library. Such altars are common in the Levant; they are usually scooped, as this of Cos has been, and used for mortars, to bruise corn. Where they cannot find altars for that purpose, they employ the capitals of columos. Thus have been preserved a few Grecian antiquities, which otherwise would long ago have been converted into line.. The inscription upon this altar was very legible. Its antiquity may be noticed, although its peculiar age cannot be ascertained, by the manner in which the n is written. It was evidently a Votive donation, given by the person whose name appears inscribed.

ΑΠΟΛΛΩΝΙΟΥ

ΤΟ ΑΠΟΛΛΩΝΙΟΥ

ΜΑΓΝΗΤΟΣ

Near the same place, another altar, and a few marbles with imperfect inscriptions, might be noticed, but none of them merit

*Egmont and Heyman's Travels, &c. vol. i. p. 263.

Their dimensions are generally the same. This of Cos we measured.

Height -
Diameter

Feet Inches
3. 6

[blocks in formation]

more particular description. In the interior of the town, by a public fountain, is a large cubic block of marble, whereon the inhabitants are accustomed to wash the bodies of dead persons. For this reason, it was difficult to obtain their permission to turn the stone, in search of an inscription; and still more so, to copy the legend we there found, when we had so done. At last, however, I succeeded in transcribing the following characters: these form part of an inscription in honour of some one who had filled the offices of Agoranomos, of president of the games, and Gymnasiarch: he is celebrated for his piety toward the Di Augusti, and for his courteousness* toward the college.t

ΑΓΟΡΑΝΟΜΗΣΑΝΤ

ΑΑΓΝΩΣΑΓΩΝΟΘΕΤΗ

ΣΑΝΤΑΕΥΣΕΒΩΣ ΕΠΙ..

ΛΗΤΕΥΣΑΝΤΑΤΩΝ

ΤΑΣΣΕΒΑΣΤΑΣΡΕΑΣΙΕΡΩΝ

ΕΥΑΡΕΣΤΩΣΓΥΜΝΑΣΙΑΡΧΗ

ΣΑΝΤΑΤΩΝ ΠΡΕΣΒΥΤΕΡΩΝ

ΣΕΜΝΩΣ ΔΙΑΤΕΤΑΝ

ΕΣΤΟΣΘΕΟΣ ΣΕΒΑΣΤΟΣ
ΕΥΣΕΒΕΙΑΝ ΚΑΙ ΔΙΑΤΑΝΕΣ

ΤΟ ΣΥΣΤΑΜΑ ΦΙΛΟΦΡΟΣΥ
ΝΑΝ - ΕΥΝΟΙΑΣ ΧΑΡΙΝ

Two other Inscriptions were pointed out to us, in the wall of a narrow street, by the French consul, a very intelligent man of the old regime of France, who had suffered severely in the oppression and cruelty, to which his situation had exposed him, from the Turkish government. In describing this island, it may be proper to introduce them. In the first, the sigma is represented

* The word φιλοφροσύνη, although frequently translated friendship, properly signifes what in Latin is called comitas. Vid. Not. Valesii in Euseb. lib. vii. c. 22.

+ The word corresponding to Συστημα, in Latin inscriptions, is fret, as well callgium. Vid. Reinesii Inscript. p. 263.

by three sides of a square;* a circumstance characterizing, perhaps, rather the country, than the age of an inscription. It was very common among Dorian colonies settled in Asia Minor.

ΔΙΟΝΥ

ΣΙΟΥΠΟ

ΛΕΩΣΚΩΙ

ΩΝΟΙΚΟ

ΝΟΜΟΥ

The truncature of its angles introduced the semicircular letter; but this was of remote antiquity, and in use long prior to the age often assigned to it; as may be proved by the manuscripts found in Herculaneum, and by a fragment of the writings of a very ancient author, who compares the new moon to the sigma of the Greeks.t

The other inscription is in the same wall, and relates to gladiatorial and hunting sports, exhibited by the persons mentioned in the inscriptiou. The expression Φαμίλια Μονομάχον occurs in an inscription found by Peyssonel at Cyzicum. This "troop

*It is a curious fact, and perhaps a proof of the great antiquity of the angular Alphabet of the Greeks, that two or three of its characters, in different positions, afford the whole. Indeed, as such a form of writing must consist wholly of the same straight line, under different circumstances of combination and position, every letter may be derived from the sides of a square The cryptography of the moderns expressed by the four extended sides of a square, and with, or without points, was in use among the Greeks, as may be proved by a document in one of the manuscripts brought home by the author now in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford.

The late Professor Porson used to cite this fragment, as proof of the antiquity of the semicircular sigma. Vid. Tzetzes in Commentario MS. in Hermogenem, quoted by Ruhnken in his Notes on Longinus, Sect. 3. p. 135.

πόῤῥω δὲ λαμβάνονται ὥσπερ ποιεῖ Χοιρίλος

καλῶν τοὺς λίθους γῆς ὀστᾶ, τοὺς ποταμούς, γῆς φγέβας

ὡς τὴν Σελήνην οὐρανοῦ πάλιν Αἰσχρίων σίγμα.

οὕτω γὰρ λέξεσιν αὐταῖς αὐτὸς Αισχρίων λέγει,

ΜΗΝΗ ΤΟ ΚΑΛΟΝ ΟΥΡΑΝΟΥ ΝΕΟΝ ΣΙΓΜΑ.

On which Ruhnken remarks; " Pro olyava, v. 3. et 5. scribendum olyua. Sic enim Eschrion novam lunam vocabat a figura sigmatis Græci C. Ex quo loco refellitur, quod is. Vossius et Ez. Spanhemius statuebant, hanc sigmatis figuram serius in Græcorum consuetudinem venisse. Nam schrion, sive Samius sit, sive Mitylenæus, certe vetustus scriptor est." Vide Jonsium de Script. Hist. Phil. ii. 2. p 124.

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