TO THE PLAIN OF TROY. 93 
notice the remarkable appearance presented by 
this Tumulus, so peculiarly placed as a post of 
observation commanding all approach to the 
harbour and the river ^ We afterwards ob- 
served that it afforded a survey of all the 
(3) " The difficulty of disposing exactly the Grecian camp is very 
great. This is owing to the changes on the coast, and the accretion of 
soil mentioned by Strabo, which, however, the stream of the Hellespont 
will prevent being augmented. If, as Herodotus asserts, the country 
about Troy was once a bay of the sea, (lib. ii. c. ]0.) the difficulties of 
determining the precise extent and form of coast are considerable. In 
examining the country at the embouchure of the Meander, where the soil 
has increased to the distance of six miles since the days of Strabo, I was 
struck with the difficulty of determining the direction of the coast as it 
was to be seen in the days of Darius, and Alexander ; in the time of 
Strabo, and Pliny; and the Emperor Manuel, who encamped there in 
866. Yet this difficulty does not lead me to doubt the events that took 
place there and at Miletus, any more than I should doubt the encamp- 
ment of the Greeks at Troy, because I could not arrange it in agreement 
with the present face of the coast. 
" The situation of the Grecian camp by a marsh, has been objected 
to. But what is the fact? Homer says, the illness and disease, which 
destroyed the Greeks, were inflicted by Apollo (the Sun). They were, 
without doubt, the same with the putrid exhalations which now arise from 
marshes on each side of the river ; and which bring with them fevers to 
the present inhabitants of the coast, when the N. N. E, wind blows in 
Summer, and the South in the beginning of autumn. 
" It is to be regretted, tliat the Empress Eudocia is so concise in what 
she says about Troy, and the plain which she visited in the eleventh 
century. She says, ' the foundation stones of the city are not leftj' but, 
as she adds, in an expression from the Gospels, h iupxxvTa fii/^aprvptixtv, 
she was able probably to give some particulars which would have been 
now interesting. See Villoison Anec. Grecc. torn. I." 
Wulpole's MFl. Jou7-nal. 
