ASIA MINOR. 



95 



him early intelligence of any complaints against him ; and often, to 

 preserve his wealth from confiscation and his neck from the bow- 

 string, he is forced to send forty or fifty purses to some powerful 

 favourite at court. And so corrupt is the administration of the 

 Turkish exchequer, that instead of having an active and independent 

 inspector of the customs at the Dardanelles to counteract the rapa- 

 city and peculation of the governor, Hadim Oglou's son-in-law fills 

 that office ; and thus he is left without any real or effective control. 



On presenting to him our firman, and a recommendatory letter 

 which we had obtained from the Capudan Pasha, he not only gave 

 us a bouyurdee or passport addressed to all the Beys and Agas of his 

 province, but insisted on sending an officer of his guard to accompany 

 us throughout our tour in the Troad. We hired a boat to take us 

 to Cape Yenicher, for which we paid fifteen piastres ; the force of 

 the curi'ent aided by a fresh northern breeze, carried us to that pro- 

 montory in less than two hours; our boat glided so swiftly down the 

 Hellespont, that we readily believed the Reis or master, when he 

 assured us that the current which always sets from the Black sea 

 and sea of Marmora into the Archipelago, runs uniformly at the rate 

 of four miles an hour. This makes it impracticable for any ship to 

 advance against it if the wind be from the north, and renders the 

 communication between the Mediterranean and Constantinople by 

 sea very precarious during the whole summer, as the Etesian or 

 annual northern wind commences in May, and continues with little 

 intermission or change until September. The strait here is about a 

 mile and a half over. 



Both shores of the Hellespont at this spot are highly picturesque. 

 The outline of the hills is bold ; they are well wooded, and the 

 valleys which run far up into the country are as green as in England, 

 while, as a back ground to the landscape, the isles of Imbros and 

 Samothrace raise their snowy tops behind the Thracian Chersonesus. 

 The first village we passed on the Asiatic coast was Cous-Keui, inha- 

 bited solely by Turks; then Eet Guelmess, a Greek village, which 

 our guide at first called Ghioiu'-Keui, or village of infidels, a name 



