person indeed tells us, in an address to the Muses, that he had been inspired by them with his whole song before the down covered his cheeks, while he fed sheep in the territory of Smyrna, by the temple of Diana, on a mountain of a middling height, three times as far from the Hermus as a man, when he hollows, can be heard. His work, containing a sequel to the Iliad, in fourteen books, was found by cardinal Bessarion in the church of St. Nicholas, near Hydrus, a city of Magna Græcia, and by him communicated to the learned. The name of Quintus, perhaps the owner, was inscribed on the manuscript; and the author has been since called by it, with the addition of Smyrnæus or Calaber. He appears to have been well acquainted with the country in which he lived, and has left some valuable descriptions of its antiquities and natural curiosities.

The bed of the river Meles, behind the castle, is crossed by a lofty aqueduct, which, when we saw it, had been recently repaired, and then supplied the fountains in Smyrna. Higher up is one larger, but ruinous; and near this is a remnant of an ancient paved causey, which led over the hills from Smyrna toward Ephesus and Colophon. The stones are smooth, broad, and massive. By the aqueduct are several petrifications, and one, of which an aged tree was the mould. The wood has perished, but the large hollow trunk, which incrusted it, is standing. The Meles rises above the aqueducts, out of a dry course, deep-worn by torrents from the mountains.

The Smyrneans were extremely jealous of their property in Homer. They distinguished a brass coin or medal by his name; and an Homerium, his

temple and image surrounded with a quadrangular stoa or portico, stood in the new city. They likewise shewed a cave, by the sources of the Meles, where they said he had composed verses. I searched for this, and in the bank above the aqueduct, on the left hand, discovered a cavern, about four feet wide, the roof a huge rock, cracked and slanting, the sides and bottom sandy. The mouth, at which I crept in, is low and narrow; but there is another avenue, wider and higher, about three feet from the ground, and almost concealed with brambles. It may be entered also from above, where the earth has fallen in. Beyond it we found a passage cut, leading into a kind of well, in which was a small channel, designed to convey water to the aqueduct. This was dry, but near it was a current with a like aperture.

The river-god Meles is represented on medals leaning on an urn with a cornucopia in his hand, to signify that he dispensed fertility; or bearing a lyre, as a friend to the Muses. He has been much extolled by the ancient poets, and raised, from his supposed connexion with Homer, to a kind of preeminence among the river deities. A sophist k, alluding to epithets bestowed by Homer, says of the Meles, that, boasting such a son, he needed not envy the silver-vortexes of one river; or another, his smoothness; a third, that he is termed divine; or a fourth, beautiful; Xanthus, or Scamander, the river near Troy, his descent from Jupiter; nor the ocean, that he is stiled their general parent.

k See Philostratus.

THE

CHAP. XXI.

GULF OF SMYRNA-MENIMEN-THE RIVER HERMUS -THE STRAIT-THE SHOALS-THE PLAIN OF THE HERMUS-THE MOUTH-OF LEUCE-THE EXTREMITY OF THE PLAIN OF PHOCEA-FUTURE CHANGES TO BE EXPECTED.

THE gulf of Smyrna, which has been computed about ten leagues long, is sheltered by hills, and affords secure anchorage. The mouth of the Hermus is on the north side, within two leagues and a half of the city. The mountain, which bounds the bay of old Smyrna on the north, extends westward to a level plain, in which the river runs. This, with the Mæander, was anciently famous for a fish called glanis, and for mullet: which came up from the sea in great numbers, particularly in spring.

The fertility of the soil by the river, and the plenty of water for the uses of gardening and agriculture, with other advantages, has occasioned the settling of numerous villages on that side of the gulf. Menomen, or, as it is commonly called, Menimen, is the principal, and supplies Smyrna with fruits, fish, and provisions, boats passing to and fro without intermission. Near the scale or landingplace, which is three hours distant, is a large quantity of low land, bare, or covered only with shallow water. This tract is the site of a considerable fishery; being enclosed by reed fences with gates or avenues, which are shut up to prevent the shoals from retreating, when they have once entered. We saw on the beach many camels laden, or standing by their burdens; and met on the road some travellers from Arabia and other countries, going to, or

returning from, Constantinople. The hills were enlivened by flocks of sheep and goats, and resounded with the rude music of the lyre and of the pipe; the former a stringed instrument resembling a guitar, and held much in the same manner, but usually played on with a bow. We were then engaged · with some of our countrymen in a shooting party, and in traversing the mountains I had a distinct view of Menimen. It is situated on a rising ground by the Hermus, and appeared as a considerable place, with old castles. I have sometimes suspected it to have been anciently called Neontichos; but these parts, with the whole country of Æolia, still remain unexplored.

The Hermus, which in the winter had spread a wide flood, now, after passing Menimen, pursued its way to the sea, through low grounds, in some places still under water. The stream was not wide, but full; winding toward the mouth, by which the soil appeared bare, and as mud undried. In summer it has a bar at the entrance, and is often shallow; and some of the shoals marked in the map are then dry. The plain had many channels formed by torrents from the mountains.

Near the mouth of the river is a sand-bank or shoal. The channel there is very narrow, the land on the opposite side running out, and forming a low point, on which is a fortress erected, to secure the approach to the city, soon after the battle of the Dardanelles in 1656, when the Venetians defeated the fleet of Mahomet the Fourth. It is called Sangiac castle, because the grand signior's colours are on some occasions hoisted there.

Besides the visible accession of land by the Her

.

mus, and on the margin of the gulf, several banks lie concealed beneath the water, on either hand, sailing up to Smyrna. The principal one next the river, it is said, was formerly a dry and green flat, which suddenly sunk after an earthquake; probably that which happened in 1739, and was so great as to occasion a general terror: many families, from apprehension, abandoning their houses after it, and sleeping all the summer in huts in their gardens and court-yards. Ships often go upon it, without much danger, and are soon afloat again, if the wind set in. The end is driven out in an elbow toward the Sangiac castle by a strong current from the bay of old Smyrna; but the head is firmly fixed, and it will gradually re-emerge, and become dry and green as before. I have sailed often by shoals on the same side as the castle, in the way to the olivegroves, which, I was told, had risen above the surface of the sea, within a few years. On one or two of them was a hut belonging to some poor fisher

men.

The beautiful and extensive plains, which were of old regarded as peculiar to the country, have been justly stiled the offspring of its rivers. The Hermus, the Cayster, and the Mæander, were each noted for producing new land; and had each a district, aptly called by its name, as by that of the pa

rent.

The mouth of the Hermus has been continually shifting and changing place, in consequence of the encroachments made on the sea. Hence Pliny writes, "The town of Temnos has been, but the "rocks within the extremity of the gulf, called "Myrmeces, the Pismires, now are, at the mouth