ASIA MINOK. 



87 



the seal were a spread eagle and imperial crown ; a sceptre and the 

 keys of St. Peter, with the Patriarch's name, Neophytus, Patriarch of 

 Constantinople. 



On the 3d of JNIarch, 1801, we quitted Constantinople, and passed, 

 on the 4th, the island of Pi'oconnesus *, now called Marmora, on 

 account of its quarries of coarse greyish marble, of which a great 

 quantity is sent in slabs and blocks to Constantinople for the pavement 

 of mosques and baths, and for making tomb-stones. The quantity 

 imported for this purpose from Marmora, and from the islands of the 

 Archipelago, is incredible ; the cemeteries of the Turks, Greeks, 

 Armenians, and Jews, round Constantinople, could now supply mar- 

 ble for building a large city. But mosques and public baths and 

 sepulchral monuments are the only objects that most of the inhabit- 

 ants of Turkey think worthy of durable materials : the possession of 

 private property is too precarious to induce them to build a solid 

 house ; their residences are, in consequence, a kind of slight, but 

 gaudily painted wooden barrack. 



The wind being against us, we beat about the entrance of the 

 Hellespont, where we noticed a tumulus on the European shore; but 

 making no progress for two days, we cast anchor in a small port on 

 the Asiatic shore called Camaris. Here we landed and purchased 

 some medals, those of silver having the letters riAPI round an antique 



* This place supplied the ancient Greeks with marble for their Sarcophagi; we find 

 mention of a Sopoc rTpoxowjjVia, and dyyeiov rTpoxovvjjViov, in Patin. 222. 



" Sept. 1794. — The marble is a white granulated species with greyish stripes, and is 

 employcil for the fountains, baths, and vases, which ornament the light and airy palaces of 

 the Sultanas on the banks of the Bosphorus. I picked up on the coast of Marmora three 

 sorts of sponges ; the common officinal one, the oculata, and another, which, from its dense 

 texture, I shall call compacta. Our Greek sailors gave them the general name aT:ovyydc,i. 

 From tlie quantity I observed of the conmion sponge, I conceived a fishery might be esta- 

 blished here with advantage. I saw only a few shells ; but picked up a stone cast on the 

 shore, perforated by Pholades, and two or three sorts of Serpulas encrusted the rocks. 

 Some Manks Puffins flew by the side of our vessel, which our sailors called xa^a; ; I have 

 no doubt the Cephus of the ancient Greeks, though Linnaus makes it a species of Larus 

 or gull." From Dr. Sibthorp's Journals. 



