120 



ASIA MINOR. 



forests had taken fire, and we were struck with the singular appear- 

 ance of thousands of huge pines burnt as black as charcoal, standing 

 erect, without a branch, the white sides of the snowy hills above, 

 making a strong contrast with them. The pitch furnaces and a few 

 huts to shelter the workmen, who at the season for extracting the 

 pitch came not only from the Troad, but from the island of * Salamis, 

 were the only vestiges of building we met with in this sequestered 

 region of the mountain. 



At three quarters after nine o'clock, or three hours from Evjilah, 

 we came to the foot of a magnificent cascade of the Mendere ; the 

 fall appeared to be about fifty feet perpendicular. It then dashes 

 impetuously from rock to rock, until it reaches the plain, which is 

 about four or five hundred feet below this cascade. We climbed with 

 difficulty over crags and broken ground to the orifice in the rock, 

 whence it issues. There we found a spacious cavern, extending far 

 into the mountain ; within it the waters of the Mendere roll from a 

 distance, and bring a considerable stream, making a loud and deep 

 noise, and bursting forth with violence into the open air. If this be 

 the source of the Scamander, we are not surprised that in the days of 

 mythology a river issuing so nobly from so mysterious a source should 

 have been deified and adored under the names of the divine Xanthus 

 or Scamander. 



On our first entrance into this spacious cavern, all was dark and 

 awful; and the noise of the waters coming from a distance, and dash- 

 ing against their rocky channel, stunned our ears. The guide, how- 

 ever, soon struck a light, and with his blazing torches of pine- wood, 

 Jali* as he called them, disclosed to our view the foaming waters 

 coming from two deeply-worn channels, which entered into the 

 bowels of the mountain, beyond the reach of his torches' light. He 

 then bared his legs, and descended into one of these channels, desir- 

 ing us to follow him up its windings, which he said might be done to 



* See also Hobhouse's Travels, p. 384. 



