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fore day-break, going southward. A string of camels was in motion at the same time, the foremost with a bell fastened about his neck, and tinkling. The dawn soon after began to disclose the blue tops of the mountains, and the sun rising coloured the sky with a rich variety of tints. The air was soft and fragrant. We passed by an ordinary bridge or two over water courses, then dry; and, through a wet bottom, and a heath covered with pines, wild thyme, and many large thickets of myrtle in flower. On the slopes of the mountains were several villages. We dismounted about eight at a coffee-shed standing by the side of the road near a hut, called Olalanazzi. One of the rivers, which we crossed in travelling along the coast, rises there from four heads. The streams soon unite in a clear brook, and wind in the shade over a clean gravelly bed, with gentle cascades and a pleasing murmur. In it were many small fishes and tortoises. Each source is enveloped with bushes of myrtle, intermixed with plane-trees; and the hut is between two, about fifty yards asunder. The agreeable freshness and verdure produced by these lively currents, afford a most grateful relief to the thirsty sun-burnt traveller. That the ancient Ionians were not insensible to the charms of the spot, may be inferred from the vestiges of building near it, and from the remnants of marble.

After drinking coffee we went on, and entering a hollow way shaded with pines, came in view of a ruined caravansará, or building for the reception of travellers, near an extensive plain. Here a stream descends through a pleasant vale, in which are some scattered cottages, named Terrenda, with a mill, by which we dined on a green plat, when we returned. Among the low bushes, on a gentle rising close by, are

some marble fragments; and, searching about, we found by the road an inscription, which has belonged to an ancient sepulchre. It was well cut, on a square stone, and perhaps near the site of the edifice. At ten we passed by Hortená, a straggling village. On the left hand is a small Turkish burying ground by a fountain, and vestiges of building. We arrived an hour after at Tourbali, where we dined by a well near the khan under a spreading tree, and were much incommoded by dust and wind. The roof of the stable was supported by broken columns, and in the wall was a piece of doric frieze, with some fragments removed, it is likely, from the ruins of Metropolis.

We were told here, that the road farther on was beset with Turcomans; a people supposed to be descended from the Nomades, Scythæ, or Shepherd Scythians; busied, as of old, in breeding and nurturing cattle; and leading, as then, an unsettled life; not forming villages and towns with stable habitations, but flitting from place to place, as the season and their convenience directs; chusing their stations, and overspreading without control, the vast neglected pastures of this desert empire. These wanderers were early a nuisance to the Greeks, and in a treaty with one of the sultans, the emperor requires him to punish as many of them as were his subjects, and had trespassed on their territories.‡ They are there said to live by theft and robbery, an article in which likewise the uniformity of character has been preserved. They vary in savageness and violence, as the respective clans happen to be, more or less, humanized by social intercourse, and attention to civil life.

+ Inscript. Ant. p. 11.

Cinnamus, l. 4. p. 225.

The aga of Tourbala, and our Armenians, would have persuaded us to stay until the next morning, but as it was not yet noon, we resolved to go on. The aga then appointed a Turk to accompany us as a guide and safe-guard, asserting that he was responsible to Elez-Oglu, if any stranger suffered on that road. We set out, and had on our right Depueci, a village, in which we could discern a large, square, ruinous edifice, with spaces for windows. Soon after we came to a wild country covered with thickets, and with the black booths of the Turcomans, spreading on every side, innumerable, with flocks, and herds, and horses, and poultry, feeding round them. We crossed an extensive level plain, over-run with bushes, but missed Metropolis, of which some vestiges remain; our guide leading us to the left of the direct road from Smyrna to Ephesus.

About three o'clock we approached a valley, which divides two very lofty mountains. The extremity of Gallesus, or The Alemán, which was on our right, is covered with trees, rising beautifully in regular gradation up the slope. The other, opposite to it, is quite bare and naked. We now perceived four men riding briskly toward us, abreast, well mounted and armed. Our janizary and Armenians halted, as they passed, and faced about until they were gone beyond our baggage. We came soon after to a fountain, and a coffee hut, above which, on the mountain side, is Osbenár, a Turkish village We then discovered on our left a ruined bridge, and the river Cayster, which met us again at four, the water still and apparently stagnant, the banks steep. A castle, visible afar off, stands on the summit of Gallesus.

+ See Wheler and Chishull.

We turned westward at the end of the opening between the mountains, and had on our left a valley, bounded by a mountain called anciently Pactyas. The road lay at the foot of Gallesus, beneath precipices of a stupendous height, abrupt and inaccessible. In the rock are many holes inhabited by eagles; of which several were soaring high in the air, with rooks and crows clamouring about them so far above us, as hardly to be discernible. By the way was a well, and part of a marble sarcophagus, or coffin, on which were carved heads and festoons. The Cayster, which had been concealed in the valley, now appeared again; and we had in view before us the round hill and stately castle of Aiasalúck, very seasonably for man and horse, both jaded with heat and wanting rest. Mount Pactyas here retires with a circular sweep, while Gallesus preserves its direction to the sea, which is the western boundary of the plain. This has been computed five miles long. The Cayster met us near the entrance on it; and we passed over an ordinary bridge, little below which are pieces of veined marble, polished, the remnants of a structure more worthy Ephesus. The streami was shallow, but formed a basin crossed by a weir of reeds. We purchased some live mullet of the fisherman who was there. A narrow track, winding through rubbish and loose stones round the castle-hill, brought us in about half an hour more to Aiasalúck.

I shall insert here an account of a journey to Aiasalúck in 1705, from an imperfect dairy,* found among Chishull's

* In the possession of John Loveday, Esq. of Caversham, near Reading.

The other gentlemen were the Rev. John Tiffer, chaplain to the English factory; and Cutts Lockwood, and John Lethieullier, two capital merchants, of great spirit and generosity.

papers, written in Latin by Dr. Antony Picenini, a Grison, who happened to be then at Smyrna, joined in company with consul Sherrard, and other gentlemen of the English nation. They set out on the 13th of August, at four in the afternoon, and, passing through the plain of Bujaw, came about five to a little hill, and a rivulet then dry; and, after riding about three hours, pitched their tents by a small village, called Sinofocheli. They set out again the next morning before six, through an uncultivated plain; and after two hours crossed a narrow but deep stream, which he calls Halesus; going on in this plain, the road good, they observed, in less than two hours, some vestiges of an aqueduct reaching toward a village on their left; where also were ruins on a hill. A wide paved way led through cultivated fields to the mountain-foot, toward the left, where they halted to rest about noon in a wood. They had seen fragments of columns and other remains of Metropolis. They proceeded at three, and soon had the Cayster on their left, and the castle on the precipice in view. This was then called Kezel-hissar, The Castle of the Goats, perhaps as scarcely accessible but to those animals. They turned, as we did, westward; and at six arrived at Aiasalúck in thirteen hours from Smyrna.

CHAP. XXXIII.

Aiasalúck-The evening-Remains-The castle-The mosque-The aqueduct-An ancient bridge.

AIASALUCK is a small village, inhabited by a few Turkish families, standing chiefly on the south side of the castlehill, among thickets of tamarisk and ruins. It was dusk when

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