would be swallowed, like a ship in a storm, into the abyss: and Ephesus lamenting and weeping by the river banks, would inquire for it, then inhabited no more. If the authenticity of the oracle were undisputed, and the sibyl acknowledged a genuine prophetess, we might infer, from the visible condition of the place, the full accomplishment of the whole prediction. We now seek in vain for the temple; the city is prostrate; and the goddess gone.

CHAP. XL.

WE LEAVE AIASALUCK-ROAD TO SCALA NOVA-OF PHYGELA

OF ORTYGIA -THE LOWER WAY TO SCALA NOVACHANGES-OF SCALA NOVA.

AFTER staying at Aiasalúck four days, we set out at half past seven in the morning, with a guide on an ass, for Neapolis, or Scala Nova, distant three hours. The plain was covered with mud and slime from the recent inundation. It produces corn, cotton, sesamus, and tobacco; but in several places was swampy, and overgrown with rushes and reeds. Flocks, and herds, and camels were feeding on it. We had Ephesus, and the morass or port, on our left hand, until we were opposite the square tower, which has been mentioned as standing on a precipice.

We came in an hour to the gap in Corissus, and left the plain behind; our course winding southwestward, and the castle of Aiasalúck bearing 10m. north of east. We soon had the back of Corissus on our left hand, with the exterior front of the city

wall, high in the air, on the ridge, which is steep and inaccessible. On the mountain, between the gap and the sea, are likewise traces of a wall. Before us was a pleasant valley, with a Turkish burying-ground, and a village named Arvisia beyond a mean, ruinous aqueduct, which the road approaches, and then becomes rough and rugged; leading over the rock, in view of the sea, of the mouth of the Cayster, and of the extremity of the plain of Ephesus; into which a track descends, crossing a piece of wet low ground at the end of the mountain. We met a peasant on an ass laden with grapes, and purchased some of admirable flavour.

Going on southward, we passed under a fragment of a wall, which appears, from the earthen pipes in it, to have conveyed water across the road from the mountain on our left, which had a channel still in use, running a considerable way along its side. Near this remnant, on our right, were vestiges of a small town, Pygela, or Phygela, upon a hill. There was once a temple of Diana, founded, as they related, by Agamemnon. He was said to have touched at this place, in his voyage homeward, and to have left behind some of his men, who were disabled by rowing. The wine of Phygela is commended by Dioscorides; and its territory was now green with vines. We had remarked, that about Smyrna the leaves were decayed, or stripped by the camels and herds of goats, which are admitted to browse after

* Descending from the mountain, we passed first the head of a bay with a rivulet, the aqueduct on our left, then Phygela, and after that the fragment of wall. R.

the vintage. We came soon after in sight of the sea and of Scala Nova.

In the Ephesian decree, inserted in a preceding chapter, the city is stiled the nurse of her own goddess. The local story was, that Latona had been delivered of her in Ortygia, a beautiful grove of trees of various kinds, chiefly cypresses, near Ephesus, on the coast, a little up from the sea. This place was filled with shrines and images. A general assembly was held there yearly; and splendid entertainments were provided, and mystic sacrifices solemnized. The Cenchrius, probably a crooked river, ran through it; and above it was the mountain Solmissus, on which, it was fabled, the Curetes stood and rattled on their shields, to divert the attention of Juno y.

As the site of Ortygia is marked by a mountain and a river, we expected to discover it without much difficulty; and with that view preferred, in our second journey from Ephesus, the lower way to Scala Nova, going from the gymnasium, where we had pitched our tent, to the extremity of the plain, and then along by the sea. We came in sight of the town sooner than before, and turned into the road near Phygela, a little beyond the broken wall, without meeting with any thing remarkable.

The improved face of a country is perishable, like human beauty. Not only the birthplace of Diana and its sanctity are forgotten, but the grove and buildings which adorned it appear no more: and, perhaps, as I have since suspected, the land has encroached on the sea, and the valley, in which Ar

visia is, was once Ortygia. The houses of Damianus, in the suburbs of the city, with the pleasant plantations on his estate, and the artificial islands and portlets which he made by the seaside, are all now equally invisible.

Scala Nova, called by the Turks Koushadase, is situated in a bay, on the slope of a hill, the houses rising one above another, intermixed with minarees and tall slender cypresses. A street through which we rode was hung with goat-skins 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 seamews. By the water-side is a large and good khan, at which we passed a night on our return. This place belonged once 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 promontory, 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 cape to Sunium in Attica was sixteen hundred stadia, or two hundred miles a.

We met several strings of slow, melancholy ca- · mels, 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

Before Trogilium was an islet of the same name. Pliny reckons three Trogiliæ: Psilon, the Naked; Argennon, the White; Sandalion, the Sandal. See a chart in Tournefort, v. 1. a Strabo, p. 636.