184S.] DEPARTURE FROM NEW YORK. 465 



of Galilee.* To these were added suitable tents lor camping, 

 cooking utensils, gum-elastic water bags, books and instru- 

 ments. 



Every requisite preparation having been made, on the 20fh 

 of November, the Supply dropped down from the Brooklyn 

 Navy Yard, where she had been fitted for the Expedition, to 

 the anchorage off the Battery. The unfavorable weather 

 detained her here for several days, but on the 26th instaut it 

 changed for the better, and she stood down the Narrows and 

 thence out to sea, with her sails distended by the prosperous 

 breezes that wafted her rapidly along toward the storied 

 land whither she was bound. Making brief stoppings at Gib- 

 raltar, Port Mahon, and Malta, on the 16th of February, 

 1848, she anchored in the harbor of Smyrna, the Ismir of 

 the Infidel, lying in the midst of an amphitheatre of lofty 

 hills, towering above which is the ancient Mons Pagus, on 

 whose slopes are spread out the blooming environs, and the 

 perfumed groves of citrons, oranges, and lemons, that sur- 

 round it ; on the north, the Mysian Olympus rearing its 

 hoary summit to the clouds, on the south the peaks of Tmo- 

 lus clothed with their dark canopies of sombre oaks and fune- 

 real pines and melancholy cypresses, and between them a 

 varied, scene of floral loveliness, — green hills fringed with the 

 richest vegetation, intermingled with delightful valleys, where 

 the nectarine and almond, the fig and plantain, the acacia, 

 the palm, the olive, the mulberry and the mimosa, flourish 

 and blossom in an atmosphere which the keen frosts of winter 

 •can never penetrate, — and by the water's side the long lines 

 of flat roofed houses, some well built of brick, and others 

 shabbily constructed of planks, and offering a strange contrast 

 to the many colored domes and lofty minarets that surmount 

 the temples of the Moslem, while far as the eye can reach in 

 the interior the landscape is dotted with pillared kiosks and 

 handsome villas sweetly embowered amid the most luxuriant 

 foliage, and the most beautiful flowers. 



* The boats were so made, also, that they could be taken to pieces, if neces- 

 sary, and carried on the hacks of camels. 



