246 FROM THE HELLESPONT 
^y^^- The next morning we came to anchor in the 
*■ — . — ^ harbour of the Isle of Cos, now called Stanchio, 
some eagles : a few pines are seen on the sides of the mountains : lower 
down is the arbutus, in great abundance, with its scarlet fruit, called 
now, as antiently, fiufjiaizuy.ii (see Hesych.); and by the torrents, oc- 
casionally crossing the road, is the plane and the oleander. The fields 
are laid down in cotton plantations, Indian corn, and wheat: among 
these are olive-trees, with vines growing around them. The present 
inhabitants of Ephesus are a few fishermen, who live in huts on the 
banks of the Caister, over which they ferried me. This river winds 
through a muddy plain, iii some measure formed by it, and through 
lofty reeds, with a slow yellow stream, without anj' of the swans which 
the Antients describe : i't empties itself into the sea, at the distance 
of an hour from the morass, near the supposed site of the famous 
Temple of Diana. The subterranean vaults and passages, close to the 
east of this marsh, (into which I descended by a rope, and found only 
bats above, and water below,) are imagined, by some, to be the remains 
and substruction of this temple. The Church of St. John, built at 
Ephesus by Justinian, and which Procopius says was very magnificent, 
may have been raised from the materials presented b}' the Temple of 
Diana ; and this will in some measure account for the little that can 
be seen or known of the latter. Near these remains, to the south- 
west of the stadium, is an arch : on the top of this, climbing by the 
■wall, as no ladder was to be found, I copied a Greek inscription, in 
perfect preservation. The Agha of the place rode about with me the 
first time I was at Ephesus ; and imagined that every inscription 
I copied, pointed out the situation or sum of a hidden treasure. The 
bushes in the plain, among which are the Agnus castus, and Cen- 
faurea hencdicfa, conceal many remains of antiquity. The Ephesians 
were supplied with their marble from the hill (Prion) whereon part of 
their city was built ; and porphyry and granite, of which, gigantic 
specimens are lying in the plain, were brought up to the town by 
means of the river, and by the canal, into the actual morass which 
once formed the port. 
" As you advance southward from Ephesus and Scala Nuova 
(antiently Neapolis), the high mountain, Mycale, covered with 
arbutus, wild-olive, and ilex (from which the peasants make charcoal), 
presents itself; and soon after a lofty white summit is seen to the 
south; this is the top of Mount Titanus, 'called now, from its form, 
Bisher- 
