VI 
182 DISTRICT OF TROAS. 
CHAP, of waters silenced every other sound. Huge 
craggy rocks rose perpendicularly, to an im- 
mense height ; whose sides and fissures, to the 
very clouds, concealing their tops, w^ere covered 
with pines ; growing in every possible direction, 
among a variety of evergreen shrubs, wild sage, 
hanging ivy, moss, and creepiilg herbage. 
Enormous plane-trees waved their vast branches 
above the torrent. As we approached its deep 
gulph, we beheld several cascades, all of foam, 
pouring impetuously from chasm.s in the naked 
face of a perpendicular rock. It is said the 
same magnificent cataract continues during all 
seasons of the year, wholly unaffected by the 
casualties of rain or of melting snow. That a 
river so ennobled by antient history should at 
the same time prove equally eminent in circum- 
stances of natural dignity, is a circumstance 
worthy of being related. Its origin is not like 
the source of ordinary streams, obscure and 
uncertain ; of doubtful locality and indeter- 
minate character; ascertained with difficulty, 
amongst various petty subdivisions, in swampy 
places, or amidst insignificant rivulets, falling 
from different parts of the same mountain, and 
equally tributary : it bursts at once from the 
dark womb of its parent, in all the greatness of 
the divine origin assigned to it by Homer \ The 
(I) Iliad O. 1. . 
