structed is a stone full of petrified shells and of cavities like honeycomb. Outside the city wall are some sepulchres; and behind these is an aqueduct erected by Adrian, (some of whose piers are still standing,) which extended several miles, crossing the country in the direction of the Hellespont. The Christian religion obtained an early footing in Troas, and St. Paul visited it in the year 60 of our era, as we learn from the Acts of the Apostles.*

The bold rocky cape of Baba, a promontory of Mount Ida, commands the entrance of the gulf of Adramyti, at the extremity of which stands a town of the same name, on the site of the ancient Adramyttium.

The island of Tenedos, called by the Turks, to whom it belongs, Bogtcha Adassi, is six miles in length and three in width. Its position, close to the mouth of the Hellespont, has given it importance in every age. Justinian erected here a magazine to receive corn imported from Alexandria; during the troubles of the Greek empire it became a rendezvous for pirates; and when it fell into the hands of the Turks in 1302, Othman made it his headquarters, whence he prosecuted his expeditions against other islands of the Egean. It was to

* Acts xx. 5.

Tenedos that the Greeks retired when they made a feint of abandoning Troy; and from Tenedos that the two serpents are said to have come which devoured Laocoon and his sons.* Bochart derives the name from the Phoenician word tinedum, red clay; a substance found here in great abundance, and used in the manufacture of earthenware. The appearance of the island from the sea is not promising, but in the interior it is fertile and well cultivated; its wine, which is exported to Constantinople, is famous; when a year or two old, the best sells for twopence, the more common for three farthings, a bottle.

Immediately opposite to Adramyttium, the eye is arrested by the castle of Molivo, which stands out in the sea, like a sentinel, on a promontory of Mitylene, and is backed by a chain of mountains on whose acclivity hills rise on hills in beauteous succession. The island was formerly called Lesbos; and its school of music was always celebrated; owing as fable tells us, to the head and lyre of Orpheus having been cast upon the shore near Methymnia, where the castle of Molivo is now seen. Arion, the inventor of dithyrambics, Pittacus, the Grecian sage, Terpander, "The Lesbian songster," Sappho Virgil. Æn. II. 203.

*

and Theophrastus, were all natives of Lesbos. To this beautiful spot Pompey sent his wife before the battle of Pharsalia; and here, in later days, died in banishment Irene, wife of Leo IV., the mother and murderer of Constantine V.

Mitylene is thirty-eight miles long, and twenty-eight broad; with a population of thirty thousand, of which one-tenth are Turks, the rest Greeks. It is mountainous and woody, and the scenery along the shore on the side nearest to the continent is exquisitely beautiful. Its chief productions are wine, oil, figs, and corn, with a quantity of gall-nuts, which are exported to Italy: but the cultivators of the soil are not suffered to reap the fruit of their industry; the rapacious governor must have his share, and he therefore compels them to sell all the oil to his agents at a reduced rate. In a similar manner many of the Turkish islanders are cruelly forced to send the whole of their produce to Constantinople, where the government pays them only half the market-price; and last year the bey of Smyrna, because he received a daily tax from every trader, obliged numbers of the poor Greeks to keep open their shops at a time when the plague was raging, and when they longed to fly from the contagion and take refuge in the country.

GULF OF SMYRNA.

31

Sailing to the end of this beautiful island, we saw Scio, the ancient Chios, in the distance, and turned into the gulf of Smyrna, coasting along its picturesque banks till we reached the principal town of the Levant.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE APOCALYPTIC CHURCHES. SMYRNA.

View of Smyrna from the bay.-Town.-Turkish quarter.Cemeteries.-Resort of females. Streets and houses.

Bazaars. Population.-Produce.-Trade.-Recession of sea. Accommodation for travellers.-Tundoor.-Climate. -Veneration for storks.-Etymology of name.-Countryhouses. Earthquakes. Plague. Curious fact. - Old fort. Bust of Amazon.-View.- Stadium.- Theatre.Aqueduct. River Meles.-Birthplace of Homer.-Æolic origin of the city. Its history. - Martyrdom of Polycarp. Celebration of its anniversary.-State of religion. -Protestant chapels and service. Comparison of present state of Smyrna with that of the other apocalyptic churches.

THE view of Smyrna from the sea is striking. It stands in the centre of an amphitheatre of hills which shelter it on every side except the south, where they form a gulf whose beauties have been compared to those