42 
CLARKE^ TRAVELS. 
heard. The distant islands of the JSgfeaa appeared as if placed 
upon the surface of a vast mirror. In this manner we passed 
the Rhcetean promontory upon our left, and beheld, upon the 
sloping side of it, the tumulus, considered, and with reason, as 
will presently appear, the tomb of Ajax . Coming opposite a 
sandy bay, which Pliny, speaking of that tomb, precisely alludes 
to as the naval station of the Greeks,* we beheld, at a distance 
upon the Sigean promontory, those other tumuli , which have 
been called the tombs of Achilles and Palroclus. Upon a sand¬ 
bank, advanced into the Hellespont, and formed by the deposit 
of the principal river here disembogued, w hich I shall for the 
present designate by its modern appellation of Mender, appeared 
the tow n of Koum kalL 
Avery singular appearance takes place at the mouth of this 
river : as if it refused to mix with the broad and rapid current 
of the Hellespont, it exhibits an extensive circular line, 
bounding its pale and yellow water : this line is so strongly 
traced, and the contrast of colour between the salt and the 
fresh water so striking, that at first I believed the difference 
to originate in the shallowness of the current, at the river’s 
mouth, imperfectly concealing its sandy bottom; but, upon 
sounding, this w as not the case. An appearance so remarka¬ 
ble, characterizing these waters, would not escape an allu¬ 
sion at least, in the writings of a poet who was lavish in the 
epithets he bestowed upon the Scamander and the Hellespont 
It has been reserved for the learning and ingenuity of Mr. 
Walpole, to show that the whole controversy, as far as it has 
been effected by the expression E^c^ncvroc, is found¬ 
ed in misconstruction ; and that instead of 6 broad Hellespont ,* 
the true reading is { salt Hellespont df 
Coming opposite to the bay, which has been considered as 
the naval station used by the Greeks during the war of Troy, 
^ IIow exactly does this position of the Poitus Achxnoritm coincide with the remark 
made by Pliny in the following passage : ” Jjace ibi sepulto xxx stad. intervallo aSigeo, 
dipso instatione classis sua.” Piin. Hist. Eat. lib. v. p 278. L. Bat. 1635. 
t 11 It has been objected, that Homer would not have applied the epithet 7 r\arbs 
pj the Hellespont. Commentators have anticipated the objection, and urged, that 
although the Hellespont, near Sestus and Abydus, is-not 7 rAaTuj, but only a mile in 
breadth, yet that in its opening- toward the rSgean, at the embouchure of the Sea¬ 
man dor, it is broad. Xltpl vas ixpoois"vou HxctjudviSpcu, are the words of th e Venetian 
scholiast. See also the Lexicon of Apollonius; and Eustathius, p. 432. But the objec¬ 
tion, if it be one, should have been answered at once, by saying, that nkarbs *EAAricr 7 roy- 
rcs is the ‘ Salt Hellespont XlActTus, in this sense, is used three times by Aristotle, 
in Meteor, lib. iii. and Hesychius gives the same meaning. It may be observed. 
that Dam-in ajtd Stephanus have not mentioned it in their Dictionaries.” 
Walpole's MS, Journal 
