ASIA MINOR. 



93 



it is a place of some trade, the Jews have a quarter allotted them, 

 containing about three hundred houses and a synagogue. 



Provisions of every kind are very plentiful in this neighbourhood ; 

 but we observed that within the town the price of every article of 

 food was double of what we had paid in our journey. This arose 

 from the exactions of the governor, who exercises a monopoly on the 

 corn and meal sold here. 



In Turkey most things are sold by weight, such as oil, wine, fruit, 

 and corn. The oke is about 211b. avoirdupoise, or 400 drachms ; the 

 cantar is 40 okes, nearly a hundred weight English ; and the kilo of 

 grain is reckoned equivalent to an English bushel. The coins are 

 paras and piastres ; a para is about the value of an English halfpenny ; 

 40 paras make a piastre, which varies according to the exchange from 

 Is. 6d. to Is. 8d. sterling. Having premised this, I may now be un- 

 derstood when I mention the price of provisions. 



Wheat was at 100 paras per kilo at Gallipoli, a town nearly oppo- 

 site to us; at the Dardanelles it was five piastres, almost eight shillings 

 a bushel. Mutton had been also raised from 10 to 18 paras an oke, 

 or from near 2d. per pound to 3 id. ; good red wine was six paras an 

 oke, not 2id. a quart. 



We did not here discover any traces of the ancient town of Darda- 

 nus, nor any antiquities, but what had been brought from the Troad 

 by Jews in the hope of selling them to English travellers. Among 

 these was a female statue from Chiblak, a few hours distant up the 

 country. This I procured for Lord Elgin, in whose collection it 

 now is. 



