154 DISTRICT OF TROAS, 
ciTAP. were landed in Egypt, and while that event 
V -,-, , 1 was actually taking place, we left Bonarhashj, 
determined, if possible, to trace the Mender to 
its source in Mount Ida, about forty miles up 
the country. Distances in Turkey being every- 
where estimated according to the number of 
hours in which caravans of camels, preceded by 
an ass, are occupied in performing them, the 
Reader is requested to consider every such hour 
as equivalent to three of our English miles. After 
riding, according to this estimate, an hour and a 
half towards the south-east, we descended to the 
village of uiraplar. We afterwards proceeded 
through a valley, where we observed, in several 
liasnmc places, the appearance of regular basaltic pillars. 
i ins. Y|jgj^(.g^ entering a defile of the mountains, very 
like some of the passes in the Tirol, we were 
much struck with the grandeur of the scenery. 
Shepherds were playing their reed pipes among 
the rocks, while herds of goats and sheep were 
browsing on the herbage near the bed of the 
torrent. We passed a place called Sarmo saktchy 
cupre, an old coemetery, on the left-hand side of 
the road. In this, by way of grave-stone, was 
placed a natural basaltic pillar, upright in the 
soil, among fragments of others. The pillar 
was hexagonal; about seven feet in height, 
and ten inches diameter ; of hard black basalt, 
without any horizontal fissures, like those seen 
in the pillars of the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, 
