ASIA MINOR, 



101 



Proceeding towards En Tepe at the Rhoetean promontory we crossed 

 a river near the fort of Coum Kale, which our Turkish guide called 

 Mendere Sou, and the Greeks Scamander. The wooden bridge over 

 it was a hundred paces long ; and the river itself, in comparison of 

 the other streams that fall into the Hellespont, may be called 

 broad and rapid. And here I cannot help remarking, that the 

 Hellespont itself having the appearance of a large river, carrying its 

 waters into the iEgasan sea, well merits the epithet of -TiXaTuq given 

 to it by Homer ; for though considered as a sea, it is indeed narrow ; 

 yet as a tributary stream of the ^g£ean, it may be called the broad 

 Hellespont.* The tomb of Patroclus, near that of Achilles, and 

 close to the road, has never been opened. It is supposed to be a 

 cenotaph raised to his memory, as his ashes were inclosed in the 

 same urn which held those of Achilles, and deposited in the san^e 

 tumulus. 



About tour miles and a half from Yenicher or Sigeum, we arrived 

 at a lofty barrow, called En Tepe, the supposed tumulus of Ajax. 

 Before we reached it, we had crossed Camara Sou, and a salt-marsh. 

 Our guides told us that some years ago the Turks had dug into the 

 tomb, and taken out a great quantity of stones, with which they 

 had made the present causeway through some oozy ground and salt 

 marshes near it ; one of these ponds is called Tous-Lazma, and the 

 other En Tepe Lazma : to which they told us the sea sometimes 

 reaches. This may help to confirm the opinion of those who believe 

 that the waves of the Hellespont may have washed the base of this 

 tumulus, subsequently to the Trojan war. To us, I confess, the 

 ground appeared to rise gently and gradually to the base of En Tepe, 

 so that the foundation of building in it, is probably near a hundred 

 feet above the level of the adjoining plain, and the edge of the 

 present shore of the Hellespont. The tumulus is raised to about 

 twenty feet above that height, so that there is some difficultv in 



* Herodotus calls it a river, lib. vii. c. 35. 



