of mountains between the two rivers afford fine herbage for sheep and black cattle, in which the country abounds. The reader will observe, that he has given a much longer course to the China than that assigned by us to the Harpasus ". He was ignorant of the transparent springs, which we discovered, and which plainly appeared the sources of this or the principal stream.

OF GUZEL-HISSAR

CHAP. LXI.

INTELLIGENCE OF THE PLAGUE-THE

BASHA-FRIGHT OF OUR JANIZARY-MAGNESIA-THE RI

VER LETHAUS-THE

REMAINS-OF

HYLE-DISTANCE

FROM EPHESUS AND TRALLES.

GUZEL-HISSAR, the beautiful castle, is a large and very populous town; the houses mean, with trees, lofty domes, and minarees of mosques interspersed ; a high hill, anciently called Thorax, towering behind. It is the place of residence of a basha. The air, in the hot months, is so bad as to be almost pestilential. We met many passengers on the road: and the burying-grounds were strewed with broken columns and remnants of marble. At entering the town, we were surprised to see around us innumerable tame turtle-doves, sitting on the branches of trees, on the walls, and roofs of houses, cooing unceasingly. We were conducted to a miserable khan, close, and crowded with people.

We had here alarming intelligence of the plague

m Most likely he is right, and ours only a rivulet that runs into it. See the note, p. 249. R.

at Smyrna, the daily havoc it made, and the rapidity with which the fierce contagion was then propagated; threatening to overspread the whole country before the end of the summer. It was impossible a great thoroughfare, situated like Guzel-hissar, if free, could continue long without infection. We had room to be apprehensive of the malady, and to be impatient to leave so suspicious a place, where we were pent up in a small chamber and gallery, among doves and travellers, chiefly Turks; devoured by myriads of insects; and suffering alike from extreme heat and from chagrin, not daring to go out of the gate before we had permission from the basha.

This important officer lived in a despicable house on the hill; his haram, which is more shewy, standing separate, and both surrounded by an ordinary wall. Eight agas, each with a retinue of an hundred men, were then in the town, waiting his commands. We had a recommendatory letter to his mohurdar, or treasurer, which was delivered, with a present of a handsome snuff-box, by the janizary, and graciously received. He promised to mention us to the basha, but his engagements were so many, it was not easy to find an opportunity; and in the mean time we were confined to our khan.

Our unwieldy janizary had several tiresome journeys on this business up to the castle. On the second afternoon he returned with the welcome news that we were at liberty. The mohurdar had requested for us letters to the agas farther eastward, but was denied; the basha being then at enmity, and, before we left Asia Minor, at open war with some leading men in that part of the country. The janizary was pale and quivering, as with fear.

He refused even

coffee, and lay down to sleep with strong symptoms of violent perturbation. He had been engaged, as he afterwards related, in an insurrection of the janizaries in the island of Candia, to depose the governor, who, for some offence, had seized on six of their brethren; and when he was admitted into the presence of the basha, a privilege which the janizaries claim, to kiss his hand or garment, he immediately knew him to be that person; but fortunately was not in turn recognized. This unexpected rencounter had confounded poor Mustapha to such a degree, that he came back almost doubting whether his head was still on his shoulders.

Magnesia was peopled by a colony of Eolians from Thessaly. The city was in the plain by Thorax, at no great distance from the Mæander, but much nearer to the Lethæus, which rose in the Ephesian mountain Pactyas, and fell into that river. Its principal ornament was a temple of Diana, called Leucophryene, or the white-browed, which had the privilege of an asylum or sanctuary, and was larger than any in Asia, except the two at Ephesus and at Branchide. It excelled the former in elegance and in the fitting up of the cell, but was inferior in the number of offerings. It was a pseudodipteros, and had eight columns in front, and fifteen on the sides, counting the angular columns. The order was Ionic; and the architect the celebrated Hermogenes, who invented that species. He was a native of Alabanda; and a treatise on the fabric was once extant, written by him. A favourite citharist was painted in the market-place, clothed with the sacred purple of Jupiter Sosipolis, or the saviour of the city; and had also a brass statue in the theatre. Some hillocks, CHANDLER, ASIA M.

$

which we passed in our way from the ferry, were once the islets called Derasida and Sophonia, mentioned by Pliny as taken by nature from Magnesia. The town, which, when this happened, was not very remote from the sea, had in a more early period been maritime. The shore has since been gradually removed still farther off.

The river Lethæus divides the present town, which has a lofty but ordinary bridge over the course. It descends through a narrow and deepworn vale, on the east side of the castle, with a mountain behind it of light brown earth, being a portion of Messogis. The stream, which in winter is a deep torrent, was now shallow. It received many brooks and rills on the sides, and was clear and rapid. Water bubbled up in several places in the bed, which was wide and partly dry. One of these springs is noted as remarkably cold and copious; and, as our guide told us, is highly esteemed and much drunk of by the Turks and other inhabitants during the hot months.

Magnesia was given to Themistocles to supply bread for his table. The goddess Ceres, standing in a car drawn by winged serpents, and bearing in each hand a lighted torch, is seen on the reverse of a medallion of the emperor Antoninus ", struck by this city and in one of the streets we found a square capital, which it is likely belonged to her temple. The device on it was a poppy between two wheatears and two torches. We saw also many fragments of architecture of the Corinthian and Ionic orders. After viewing the town, we ascended to the castle,

n See Museum C. Albani v. 1. pl. 26.

and were conducted to an eminence, about a quarter of an hour beyond it, where is a ruin which resembles the arcade at Troas; consisting of a piece or two of wall standing, and three massive arches, each painted with a garland in the centre, and two on the sides, encircling an inscription, of which some letters, with ends of fillets, are visible. The fabric has been repaired or reedified, and some inscribed marbles are inserted in it, but too high to be legible. A Turk had purchased the materials; but the arcade is too solid a building to be easily and suddenly demolished. We enjoyed from it a delicious prospect of the plain and of the Mæander. We discovered no stadium or theatre. The vestiges, if any remain, were concealed in the town by the buildings; or, without it, by stone fences, olive-trees, and nigh corn.

In the territory of this city was a place called Hylæ, with a cave sacred to Apollo. This was of no extraordinary size, but the image of the god was one of the most ancient. It was believed that he furnished ability for every undertaking. His servants leaped down the steep rocks and precipices; or, felling tall trees, walked on them, with burdens, over the narrow passes of the mountain. The cave perhaps remains. I could get no intelligence of it or of Hyla; but Picenini relates, that in the way to the house and garden of the basha on the hill, they were shewn a cave near the walls of the ancient city, which, they were told, extended underground as far as they could go in two days.

• But some remains of a theatre. R.