ASIA MINOR. 



Ill 



Hellespont : sometimes indeed our guides named it Scamandros, and 

 6 noTupog, " the river," but always meant by those appellations the 

 Mendere. It has a broad stream during its whole course ; in the 

 plain it flows over a bed generally of sand ; sometimes of pebbles ; 

 but towards its source, it is full of large masses of detached granite 

 rock, that have been rolled down by floods. 



About three miles and a half west of Bounarbashi, and two miles 

 and a half from the sea-shore, and about eight or nine miles south of 

 Sigasum, a lofty barrow of the usual conical form rises from the 

 plain ; it is now called the tomb of iEsyetes, and mentioned by 

 Homer as existing before the Trojan war, and as being the eminence 

 from which Polites the son of Priam reconnoitred the forces of the 

 Greeks. This circumstance throws much doubt on the origin of 

 these numerous barrows or tumuli scattered over the plain and its 

 shores. Were they raised to cover the remains of the heroes men- 

 tioned by Homer ; or were the details in the Iliad adapted to the 

 existing appearances of the country where the story is laid ? Conical 

 mounds of similar construction are to be found in all the plains of 

 the east, bearing the name of Tepe ; they are seen in Scythia, in 

 Thrace, Macedonia, and in Greece. Our guides from Yenicher 

 assured us that it is still the custom of the Turkish armies to raise 

 mounds of this kind on their march ; and that the standard of the 

 Vizier or General is displayed during the encampment upon them. 



Having already mentioned the situation of En Tepe, or the tumulus 

 of Ajax, with respect to the Hellespont, I will here observe, that one 

 of our guides informed us, that at Yenicher there is a tradition of the 

 sea having formerly washed the foot of En Tepe; and he added, 

 that even now the part of the plain between Coum Kale and En 

 Tepe (the naval station of the Greeks) is called in their old writings 

 and title deeds, Beyadeh Dere, " the valley of boats," and that a 

 village now more than a league from the shore is still called Cala- 

 fatlee, or the " Careening place." If this tradition of the littus 

 relictum be well founded, it renders much more probable many of 



