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exposed to dry, dyed of a most lively red. At one of the fountains is an ancient coffin, used as a cistern. The port was filled with small craft. Before it is an old fortress on a rock or islet, frequented by gulls and sea-mews. By the water-side is a large and good khan, at which we passed a night on our return. This place once belonged to the Ephesians, who exchanged it with the Samians for a town in Caria. We shall conduct the reader to the confines of Ionia with Caria, by the route we pursued in our first journey, and then return again to Scala Nova.

CHAP. XLI.

We continue our journey--Mount Mycale and Trogilium--At Suki-We pass Priene Perplexed in the plain.

WE arrived at Scala Nova from Aiasalúck at about eleven in the morning, and drank coffee, while our men procured provisions to carry with us. We mounted again at twenty minutes before twelve, and leaving an aqueduct, with a road leading toward the sea, on our right hand, passed over a broken causey to a village pleasantly situated on a hill covered with vines, called Cornea. We had frequent views of the coast, and of the adjacent islands. Twenty minutes after two we stopped at a fountain of excellent water, by which is a coffee-house, with a shady tree, where we dined.

We went on at half after three, and in ten minutes overlooked a beautiful cultivated plain, lying low beneath us, bounded by the sea and by Mycale, a mountain, now, as anciently, woody and abounding in wild beasts. The pro

montory, once called Trogilium,* runs out toward the north end of Samos, which was in view, and meeting a promontory of the island, named Posidium, makes a strait only seven stadia, or near a mile wide. The city of Samos was toward the south, forty stadia or five miles from Trogilium. The passage from this from this cape to Sunium in Attica, was sixteen hundred stadia, or two hundred miles.†

We met several strings of slow, melancholy camels, and numerous flocks of goats. The hills were covered with a short verdure from the late rains. Before us were lofty mountains. Entering within the range, we had Mycale on our right hand, and on our left the termination of Mount Pactyas, and of Mount Messogis; the latter, which was once famous for wine, reaching hither from Celænæ in Phrygia, bounding the plain on the north side of the river Mæander. The road was broken and rough. As we advanced, the passage widened; and we had on our right a water-course. We discovered the dome and minaret of a mosque, with a cypress-tree or two before us; and ten minutes after five came to Suki, a Turkish village by a plain. We were lodged in a mean caravanserá, with mud walls.

In the morning it lightened and rained; with awful thunder, at intervals, on the mountain-tops, which were envelloped in fleecy clouds. We left the village at seven, and travelled along by the foot of Mycale, on the edge of the plain, which is very extensive, and skirted round with mountains. My

See a

Before Trogilium was an islet of the same name. Pliny reckons three, Trogiliæ, Psison, the Naked; Argennon, the White; Sandalion, the Sandul. chart in Tournefort, v. 1.

† Strabo, p. 636

cale rose very high on our right hand, appearing as a single ridge, with many villages on its side. By the way were flowering shrubs, and we enjoyed the fragrance and dewy freshness of spring in autumn. We came in two hours near Kelibesh, where our guide was bemired. From this place we afterwards examined the ruins of Priene, which we now passed; and at a quarter before eleven turned to the left, slanting over the plain toward Palat or Miletus, which was. in view. Behind us was a village named Aurtborgusi,. bearing 15 east of north.

Our guide had mistaken his way, and led us on too far by the foot of Mycale. This occasioned us much perplexity in the plain, where in twenty-five minutes we came to the water-course, which winds before Priene. The bed was wide, almost dry, and the banks steep. After crossing again and again, it still continued to meet us, and to become more and more formidable, until we were quite at a loss how to proceed, when fortunately we espied some low scattered huts made of reeds, and procured a peasant to conduct us. He waded over, and informed us, this was called Cali-bech-osmoc, The little River. The water appeared stagnant. After passing it six times in an hour and twenty minutes, we left it on the right hand, and went on without farther obstacle across the plain, with the theatre of Miletus in view before us. At ten minutes after one we were ferried over the Mæander, now called Mendres, below it, in a triangular float, with a rope. The man was a black, and in his features strongly resembled a Satyr. The stream was smooth and placid, but muddy.

CHAP. XLII.

The theatre at Miletus-Inscription on the wall-Other remains -The mosque, &c.-Modern history of Miletus-Its ancient greatness.

MILETUS is a very mean place, but still called Palat or Palatia, The Palaces. The principal relic of its former magnificence is a ruined theatre, which is visible afar off, and was a most capacious edifice, measuring in front four hundred and fifty seven feet. The external face of this vast fabric is marble, and the stones have a projection near the upper edge, which, we surmised, might contribute to the raising them with facility. The seats ranged, as usual, on the slope of a hill, and a few of them remain. The vaults, which supported the extremities of the semi-circle, with the arches or avenues in the two wings, are constructed with such solidity, as not easily to be demolished. The entrance of the vault or substruction, on the left side, was filled up with soil; but we examined that next the river; one of our Armenians going before us with a candle in a long paper lanthorn. The moment we had crept in, innumerable large bats began flitting about us. The stench was hardly tolerable; and the commotion of the air, with the apprehensions of our attendant, threatened us with the loss of our light. After we had gone a considerable way in, we found the passage choked with dry filth, and returned.

On the side of the theatre next to the river is an inscrip

tion* in mean characters rudely cut, in which "the city Miletus" is mentioned seven times. This is a monument of heretical Christianity. One Basilides, who lived in the second century, was the founder of an absurd sect called Basilidians and Gnostics, the original proprietors of the many gems, with strange devices and inscriptions, intended to be worn as amulets or charms, with which the cabinets of the curious now abound. One of their idle tenets was, that the appellative "Jehovah," possessed signal virtue and efficacy. They expressed it by the seven Greek vowels, which they transposed, into a variety of combinations. The superstition appears to have prevailed in no small degree at Miletus. In this remain the mysterious name is frequently repeated, and the deity six times invoked, " Holy Jehovah, preserve the town of the Milesians, and all the inhabitants." The archangels also are summoned to be their guardians, and the whole city is made the author of these supplications; from which thus engraved, it expected, as may be presumed, to derive lasting prosperity, and a kind of talismanical protection.

The whole site of the town, to a great extent, is spread with rubbish, and over-run with thickets. The vestiges of the heathen city are pieces of wall, broken arches, and a few scattered pedestals, and inscriptions,† a square marble urn, and many wells. One of the pedestals has belonged to a statue of the emperor Hadrian, who was a friend to the Milesians, as appears from the titles of saviour and benefactor bestowed on him. Another has supported the emperor Severus, and has a long inscription, with this curious preamble, "The senate and people of the city of the Milesians, the first settled

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