574 



THE TROAD. 



In November it was, when I visited it, a very considerable river. You 

 have, with Sir W. Gell, borne testimony, which I can confirm, to the 

 strength of its stream and the depth of its fords ; but in spite of all 

 this, I must continue to give credit, not to Chevalier, indeed, but to 

 Chandler, who expressly states (Travels in Asia, chap, xiii.) that 

 " he passed the stream where the bed of the river was wide, and the 

 bank steep, several times without being wet shod ;" though when I was 

 there, if he had attempted to pass on foot at the same place he would 

 probably have been drowned. With respect to the Scamander of 

 Homer, we are not singular in conceiving it to have had its rise from 

 the two fountains near the city, for though, as you judiciously observe, 

 the 7rviyu) Ekcx^ocv^ov do not necessarily imply in all cases the sources of 

 the river, yet it is by so much the most usual acceptation that Strabo 

 himself understood Homer in that sense ; for, he says, that Homer's 

 description affords room for discussion, " because no warm springs 

 are now found in the place (that is, at New Ilium), and the source 

 {jryyvi) of the Scamander is not there but in the mountain, and is only 

 one source, not tzvo ;" though at the same time he admits, that, by sup- 

 posing the cold water he found there (probably the Califat Osmak) to 

 have flowed in a subterraneous passage from the Scamander, and 

 to* rise here; or, perhaps, on account of the vicinity to the Sca- 

 mander, it might be called Ztcotpuvfyou n^yy] ; and that the hot 

 spring had probably failed. Strabo, lib. xiii. p. 602. The first, there- 

 fore, was the usual and obvious sense of Homer's expression, and the 

 only objection that has been made against it, is the passage in the 

 twelfth book, II. M. v. 20. where the Scamander is mentioned as one 

 of the rivers that flow from Ida to the sea. The Simois is also men- 

 tioned in the very next line, so that, if this passage be genuine, we 

 must look for both these rivers in the mountains; and the Califat 

 Osmak, as well as the river of Bounarbachi, would lose all claim to 

 either designation. It is, however, more than suspected, I should be 

 inclined to say that it is nearly certain, that the whole of this passage 

 in the twelfth book is spurious. In Heyne's notes on the place, he 

 mentions many grounds to support this opinion, some of which are 

 very strong. The reason assigned for the Grecians building the wall 



