LETTERS FROM PROFESSOR CARLYLE. 



153 



therefore with the greatest pleasure embraced the offer General 

 Koeler was so good as to make me of accompanying him across Asia 

 Minor to the coast of Syria. 



Your Lordship will see from the date of this letter that we have 

 completed our tour so far, and, I trust, a few days will now conduct 

 me to the end of my journey. Our expedition has indeed been a 

 most interesting one, as great part of it was through a country for 

 many ages entirely unexplored by Europeans, and now only opened 

 on account of the rebellions which prevail in most of the provinces 

 through which the common route ran. The part I allude to in par- 

 ticular is from the ancient Iconium to the sea-port where we took 

 shipping for Cyprus, through the countries of Lycaonia, Isauria, and 

 Cilicia. I need scarce inform your Lordship, that we have experi- 

 enced considerable difficulties in travelling ; but I assure you when 

 there were the greatest I did not for a moment regret my undertak- 

 ing. In many places, especially in the neighbourhood of the ancient 

 Laodicea Combusta, Olba, and Celenderis, we absolutely trod upon 

 Grecian sculptures, columns, altars, and inscriptions, for miles. In 

 different parts of our journey we found quantities of the most beauti- 

 ful marble sarcophagi lying scattered on the ground. We found also 

 the remains of several temples, with a sufficient number of their pil- 

 lars cemaining to ascertain the spot and dimensions of the buildings. 

 At Celenderis a mausoleum of beautiful Corinthian architecture is 

 still standing almost entire, surrounded by catacombs, Mosaic pave- 

 ments, and sarcophagi. An aqueduct, not ill preserved, runs along 

 the hill behind it, and the whole appears nearly in the situation it was 

 fifteen or sixteen centuries ago. In Phrygia, too, we saw some monu- 

 ments which appeared to me even more curious than these Grecian 

 remains. They consist of excavations out of the rock, which form 

 the most elegant mausolea one can conceive. A little romantic val- 

 ley (exactly such an one as Johnson has imagined in his Rasselas) has 

 one of its sides almost entirely covered with these sculptured and 

 excavated rocks. Some of these monuments are very large and mag- 

 nificent, and very much resemble the representations we have of the 



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