A RIDE TO MAGNESIA. 107 



tion toAvards it, but a still better disposition towards 

 the getting beyond it if we could, that we might see 

 something of the real state of the people. We soon 

 voted Smyrna a bore, as was likely with those who 

 in coming thither had been bent on using it only as a 

 stepping-stone to get farther. But this was more 

 easily said than done with us, who were travellers 

 not for our own fancy's sake, but in the service of 

 her most gracious Majesty. Had we been simply un- 

 fettered, our will was good to have started directly 

 coastward, and to have explored those vast tracts of 

 Asia Minor, of so much of which nothing is known. 

 The country between the coast and the western bor- 

 der of Persia, explored in a direct line, not going 

 towards Erzeroum, and a divergence southward to- 

 wards and about Caramania, would be a fine field for 

 travel. We could well afford to receive some addi- 

 tion to our knowledge of the central parts of Asia 

 Minor, and I should like right well to be one of two 

 bound to the borders of Lake Van, to pay a visit to 

 the Armenian patriarch. But such an expedition 

 would take a deal of time and of money. Now we 

 had but the short interval of time at our disposal, 

 during which it was judged that Britannic interests 

 might suffer our absence without detriment. Happily 

 for us, we knew that foreign infection was but skin- 

 deep in this country ; so that, although the curious 

 recesses were beyond our reach, we might, by a com- 

 paratively short expedition, arrive at the texture and 



