AMASIA TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 
349 
guided by a young Turk. We passed by the ruins of a fort built upon 
a projecting part of the range, and came to three excavated chambers. 
The first has a triangular ornamented front. The others have platforms 
before them, and a vestibule cut into the rock behind. We then pro¬ 
ceeded on towards the left, and arrived at the two largest excavations. 
A path of about three feet in breadth, cut deep within the front of the 
mass into the appearance of a covered gallery, and guarded by a para¬ 
pet wall of solid rock, leads along the side of the mountain. One of 
these monuments is a mass of hard granite twelve paces square, severed 
completely from the mountain by an interval (about four feet broad) 
all around and above it, and. excavated into a chamber. The other 
contiguous and last monument has no passage behind or around. 
These chambers are said to have been the retreats of St. Chrysos¬ 
tom ;* but I could discover no inscription upon them, which might 
throw any light upon the subject. In the castle above indeed, my 
young conductor told me there were not only inscriptions but sculp¬ 
tures; but my time would not permit me to ascend, and I had now 
only a momentary leisure to enjoy the beauty of the view; where was 
the town arranged all about me, the river winding at my feet and 
struggling under numerous water wheels, and the whole scenery en¬ 
riched by the last rays of the setting sun. The minarets of many 
mosques, (of which one near the river is a very fine building,) break the 
sameness of the flat-tiled roofs. 
The inhabitants of Amasia are distinguished for their urbanity and at¬ 
tention to strangers; and their women particularly are celebrated as 
the fairest and most engaging of Asia Minor. Of this I had but a 
single and chance opportunity to form a judgment: in riding through 
the streets, I saw an unveiled female who was joking at the door of 
her house with a black slave girl, and who was more beautiful than any 
whom I had long seen; nor as I passed did she shrink from my ob- 
* St. John Chrysostom —possibly in his last exile and wanderings, A. D. 404-7. See 
Milner’s u History of the Church of Christ.” Vol. II. p. 291-3. 
