in stones to choke up the entrance of the port; and that he built a tower there, the walls whereof consisted partly of stone, and partly of human skulls, ranged in very exact order. After the retreat of the Tartars, Smyrna remained in the power of Cineites, son of Carasupasi, governor of Ephesus, who had been governor of Smyrna under the Turkish emperor Bajazet: But Mussulman, one of Bajazet's sons looking with an evil eye upon the greatness of Cineites, crossed over into Asia, in the year 1404, with a design to humble him; and Cineites, on his part, made the necessary preparations to oppose his enemy, and strengthened himself by proper alliances; but they made peace without coming to any engagement. Cineites did not succeed so well against Mahomet the First, another son of Bajazet, who came and besieged Smyrna, though it was well fortified, and provided with stores for a long defence: But Cineites, it seems, not thinking himself safe in Smyrna, retired to Ephesus, and the city surrendered after ten days siege. Mahomet caused the place to be dismantled, and demolished a tower that the knights of Rhodes had erected at the entrance of the port; since which time the Turks have remained in peaceable possession of Smyrna, and, instead of the tower destroyed by Mahomet, have built a kind of castle on the left of the entrance into the galley-port which is the ancient port of the city, and probably that which Strabo says could be shut at pleasure, as has been observed already.

The English factory in this city is perhaps the noblest in the world, consisting generally of eighty or a hundred persons, most of them young gentlemen of

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the best families, and frequently younger sons of peers. As there is a necessity of serving an apprenticeship of seven years, in order to be entitled to trade to the Levant, it is the custom for persons of fortune to bind their younger sons to some merchant, who, in consideration of three or four hundred pounds sterling, agrees, after the three first years of their apprenticeship are expired, to send them to Smyrna, where they have not only the management of their master's affairs with very plentiful allowances, but are likewise permitted to trade for themselves; whereby they are enabled to live splendidly the rest of their apprenticeship, and to encrease their fortunes by good œconomy, and at length come out of this seminary of merchants, if I may so call it, the best qualified for business of any young persons in the world.

The caravans of Persia are continually arriving at Smyrna, from the beginning of November to May or June, bringing sometimes near two thousand bales of silk a-year, besides various other sorts of merchandise; for it is to be observed, that most part of the raw silk exported from the Grand Signior's dominions is the product of Persia. These silks, with the goats hair of Angorat and Beibazar, are the richest commodities of the Levant; but cotton-wool

In the campaign of Angora, according to M. Tournefort, they breed the finest goats in the world. They are of a dazzling white; and their hair, which is as fine as silk, naturally curled in locks of eight or nine inches long, is worked up into the finest stuffs, especially camlet; but little of this hair is exported unspun, because the people of the country get their livelihood by spinning it. The workmen of Angora use this thread of goats hair without mixture, but at Brussels they cannot work it in that manner. In England, says the same author, they mix up this

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and cotton-yarn make also a considerable article in the trade of Smyrna, besides a vast variety of drugs and other commodities. The Jews have a great share in managing the trade of this city, most of what is bought or sold, passing through their hands; and it must be acknowledged, they have excellent capacities for mercantile affairs.

The neighbourhood of Smyrna is very pleasant, the hills around it being covered with vines, which afford plenty of grapes and a delightful prospect. In the vallies and plains between these hills are the pleasure-houses of the European merchants, agreeably interspersed among little woods of olives and other fruit-trees, whither they usually retire during the summer-season. The country is well stored with game of all kinds, particularly deer and wild hogs, and there is great plenty of wild fowl; so that the Franks here frequently take the diversion of hunting and shooting. Their seas also abound with variety of good fish, and their markets are well supplied with all manner of provisions, but not quite so cheap as in some other parts of Turkey, on account of the populousness of the city, occasioned by the great resort of foreigners. This town is chiefly furnished with water from a stream coming from mount Mimas, conveyed by several aqueducts, two whereof are well built, with stone arches, crossing the valley or deep channel which the brook itself has formed between two hills, on the Northernmost of which are the ruins of the ancient castle. The two chief points or summits

hair in their perriwigs. These fine goats are only to be seen within four or five days journey of Angora and Beibazar, for thebreed degenerates if they are carried farther.

of mount Mimas are now called the two brothers, because they seem to resemble each other, being nearly of an equal height, and only separated by a cleft or opening.

Upon the whole, the good company and liberty a foreigner enjoys in Smyrna, and the agreeableness of the adjacent country, make it a pleasant place to reside in; but the pleasure is considerably abated by the excessive heats and the unhealthfulness of the situation*; and above all by the frequent earthquakes that happen there, from which they are scarce ever free two years together, and which have sometimes been felt for thirty or forty days succes. sively. The city has been several times almost entirely destroyed by earthquakes, and in the year 1688 there happened a very dreadful one, by which great part of the houses and castles were overthrown, and four or five thousand persons perished; whereupon the merchants retired to the island of Scio, but returned to Smyrna when it was rebuilt, and

*It may be true in general that the air of Smyrna is unhealthful, but M. Tournefort tells us, that when he was in that city in the year 1702, there was a Venetian consul, one Signior Lupazzolo, who was a hundred and eighteen years of age, but how long

he had lived there indeed he does not mention; so that I only relate the story as a remarkable instance of longevity. This gentleman used to boast that he was in the third century of his life, having been born the latter end of the sixteenth, and being then alive the beginning of the eighteenth. He was a square, middle. sized man; and M. Tournefort was informed he had had near sixty children by five wives, without reckoning those by his slaves and mistresses; for the good man, it seems, was of an amorous disposition. It is very certain, adds the French traveller, that his eldest son died before him at the age of eighty-five, and the youngest of his daughters was but six years old at that time.

commerce was thereby restored to its former channel.

One curiosity about Smyrna I had almost forgot to mention, which is their large sheep, with tails of an extraordinary size and fatness. They are indeed mere lumps of fat hanging to the rump of the animal, which I may venture to say, without danger of exceeding the truth, often weigh ten or twelve pounds, and sometimes more; but the fat of these rumps is no better than tallow, except that of the lambs, which is esteemed as good as marrow. The sheep are not peculiar to the country near Smyrna, but are common in many parts of the East, especially in Persia, as we are informed by travellers.

Now I have entered upon this subject, I cannot forbear giving some account of the pelican, a sort of fowl very frequent about the seas near Smyrna, which perhaps is the same that Pliny calls Onocrotalus, from its making a noise like the braying of an ass. This bird is either white or of a greyish colour, like a common goose, and has a body as big as a swan, but the neck is not so long. It has a beak sixteen or eighteen inches in length, and about two inches broad where it is widest; but when it opens, the under part of the beak, being of a flexible nature, enlarges itself to the breadth of five or six inches. Underneath this beak, near the entrance of the throat, it has a bag of a skinny substance, which, when it is empty, and the bird's mouth is shut, shrinks together like a bladder before it is blown, and is scarce to be perceived; but when it is filled, it stretches to an incredible bigness, so as to contain ten or a dozen quarts of water. In this receptacle