110 



ASIA MINOR. 



The whole of the ground near this fountain abounds with springs ; 

 and wherever there is a cleft or crevice in the rocky surface, clear 

 water gushes out profusely. The stream formed by these fountains 

 now goes to a Tchiflick or farm, built by the famous Hassan Pasha ; 

 here it turns some corn-mills, and then falls into the Archipelago, 

 south of Yenicher or Sigeum, at about one-third of the distance of 

 that promontory from Alexandria Troas. Our guides however from 

 Yenicher assured us, that formerly it flowed in a different bed, and 

 fell into the Mendere Sou ; and that still, during the winter floods 

 and equinoctial rains, it overflows its modern channel, and runs in 

 its ancient bed to the Mendere : and that the precise spot of this 

 junction of the Kirk-joss, or Bounarbashi Sou, and the Mendere is 

 at a place called Coum Dere, and is marked by the piers of a 

 ruined stone bridge, about three miles and a half S. E. of Cape 

 Yenicher, at about eight miles from its source in a direct line, and 

 about three miles from Coum Kale. 



The breadth of the bed of this stream where it joins the Mendere 

 is about seven or eight yards ; and the breadth of the Mendere there 

 about sixty yards. On visiting this spot, we found that our guides 

 had given us a very faithful account, and that a late flood had brought 

 some of the waters of the Kirk-joss into its old channel, and over- 

 flowed the neighbouring part of the plain. We could not find any 

 conical barrow near this junction where the tomb of Ilus is supposed 

 to have stood. The snowy tops of Ida or Gargarus were pointed 

 out to us from this spot by our guides, and called by them Kaz-Dag; 

 indeed that lofty pike may be seen from the whole extent of the 

 plain, except near Bounarbashi ; a range of hills there screens it 

 from the spectator, as well as at the Pergamus. 



The waters of the Kirk-joss at their source are very much esteemed 

 by the natives, and our guides told us, that there is a tradition of 

 the water having been conveyed in former times by aqueducts to 

 ancient Troya ; by which they always mean Alexandria Troas. The 

 Mendere Sou is called by this name, from its source in Mount 

 Gargarus or Kaz-Dag, to the place where it is discharged into the 



