REMARKS EXTRACTED FROM DR. SIBTHORP'S JOURNALS. 281 



the vegetation, might perhaps have induced them to try the experi- 

 ment I never saw a greater diversity of melons than in the villa of 

 the Mousselim ; they were suspended in lines along the roof of the 

 chamber where we slept. 



Sept. 22. — In the morning we walked up the mountain of St. 

 Elias, the highest in the island ; from the summit we commanded an 

 extensive view of the countrv. Between the hills there was a lari^e 

 proportion of flat ground fit for cultivation, but the isle of Lemnos 

 was visibly on the decline ; its towns had decreased in number, and 

 those remaining were daily going to a state of decay. Of the seventy- 

 five towns which it contained in the time of Belon, scarcely half the 

 number can be found. The residence of the Turks, the exaction of 

 the new charatch, without any additional advantages from manufac- 

 tures or commerce, are the evident causes of this decay. We tra- 

 versed the plain of Livado-chorio, and slept at the house of the 

 Soubashi of Baros, the miserable remains of a decayed village con- 

 sisting of about fifteen houses ; the inhabitants supported themselves 

 from the flocks of goats and sheep, which scarcely enabled them to 

 pay the charatch. The latter are a small hornless breed, frequently 

 black, and produce a very coarse wool ; a sheep was not estimated at 

 more than sixty paras or two piastres ; the horse which I rode was 

 valued at eighteen piastres. 



Sept. 23. — We set out at eight o'clock, and in half an hour arrived 

 at the place where the Lemnian earth was dug from a small pit on a 

 rising ground about a mile from the village. The whole had been 

 filled up, but we observed some of the earth, which was a pale- 

 coloured clay ; before it receives the seal, the sand by means of water 

 is filtered from it ; it is then formed into figures and some pieces of 

 cylindrical form. We had here an instance how superstition and 

 ceremony had ennobled a thing of little or no value ; it could have 

 no real medicinal virtue ; and in fevers, where the stomach is 

 weakened, it could add only an additional burden to the peccant 

 matter that oppressed it. We came back to Baros, more disappointed 



than satisfied at what we had seen. We returned by the same 



o o 



