68 LEBANON AND THE LEVANT. 



for good wine or pretty faces. Many of these classical 

 places have nothing left but their associations. The west 

 end of the island and the Bay of Baffa (the ancient Paphos) 

 are well seen from the sea. On Wednesday morning we 

 had two hours in which to run over Rhodes, a most interest- 

 ing old town, full of monuments of the Knights Templars. 

 Sailing on all day under the lee of the Isles of Greece, we 

 found ourselves at sunrise on Thursday steaming up the 

 Gulf of Smyrna ; the shores looked fresh and beautiful, but 

 the water was sadly discoloured by the recent floods of the 

 Hermus. 



Smyrna, like Alexandria, brings into vivid contrast the 

 East and West ; Paris fashions and bearded camels come 

 into constant collision in its narrow streets. At the theatre 

 a French company was performing ' La Belle Helene.' 

 Homer's ghost can scarcely view with pleasure his heroine 

 in the hands of Offenbach. Our stay at Smyrna — where, 

 owing to the kindness of friends, we enjoyed most agree- 

 able society, and the comforts of an English home — was a 

 very pleasant interlude between the mild roughing of 

 Syria, and the real hardships of travel in the Caucasian 

 provinces of Russia. 



Ionia, into the interior of which we made two short 

 excursions, is as far superior to Syi'ia in scenery as Kent is 

 to the Pays-de-Calais. Our first exj)edition was to Aidin, 

 a large and flourishing town, charmingly situated under the 

 hills on the north side of the valley of the Mseander, over 

 which there is a lovely view from the neighbouring heights. 



IN'ext day we returned by rail to Balachik, and rode 

 thence to the site of Magnesia ad Mseandrum : the broken 

 columns of a temple are the principal remains, and there 

 was nothing to compare with what we had recently seen in 

 Bashan ; but the ride was delightful, amongst tall olives 

 and fig gardens. Our classical recollections were aroused 



