no 
' clarke’s 'travels® 
literary strangers would pass the shores of Lesbos with indif¬ 
ference. Its land was peculiarly dignified by genius, and by 
wisdom. iEoiiao lyres were strung in every valley, and every 
a decree ratified- by the people of Pergamus, and inscribed in the temple of Bacchus,) ! 
are to be seen there. The Acropolis was adorned with a temple of the Corinthian 
order, whose pillars, of nearly four feet in diameter, are lying prostrate among other 
parts of it This temple, I conceive* w r as erected to Minerva : we know from Vitru¬ 
vius, that her temple was built “ m excelsissimo loco” (lib. i. c. 7.;) and the silver 
money of Pergamus bears her image constantly: games also were, as Polybius in¬ 
forms us, celebrated here in honour of her, by Attains, (lib. iv.) Below, to the 
south, is the town; and to the west of it was the stadium, and a theatre above it.— 
The relative situation of these two buildings at Tralles in Asia was the same, accord¬ 
ing to Vitruvius, (lib. v.) “ Trallibus portions ex utraque parte scents , supra stadium” 
Farther on to the w r est, are the remains of an amphitheatre, or naumachia; there is 
■water dividing the two semicircles ; so that if the building was used for the first, it 
must have flowed beneath, in a channel, whenever the sports were represented./ 
“ There is no part of the Turkish dominions where you may travel with greater 
safety, than in the district under the family of Kara Osman Oglou. The two capitals 
as they may be called, are Pergamus, and Magnesia. In corning from the former 
place to Smyrna, I passed through part of their territory. The country was, for 
Turkey, well cultivated; most of it laid down in cotton and corn land. They plough, 
as I was told, with a pair of oxen, more than an acre a day ; and the manure they use 
is burnt weed. The whole country was now (April) wearing a beautiful appearance; 
the anemone, ranunculus, and hyacinth, were seen in the fields, and by the road side. 
Having slept one night in the open air, by a fire which the driver of the caravan kin¬ 
dled with dried horse dung, I arrived the next day at the banks of the Hermus ; 
winding, and muddy; daily adding to the land, which it has already formed on the 
north side pf the Gulph of Smyrna. I crossed it at the ferry, and reached Menomen ; 
whence I sailed to Smyrna in an hour From Menomen, boats come daily to Smyr¬ 
na, in/.he season, laden with water melons (the cucurbita citrullvs ) called by the 
Greeks angouria . From the seed, a liquor is made, which is sold about the streets of 
Smyrna. 
“ The fields and gardens about Smyrna are planted with almond, olive, fig, and 
pomegranate trees. The little villageof Narli-keui takes its name from the abundance 
•of the pomegranate trees there. Some of the plants, birds, and insects found at 
Smyrna, are described by Hasselquist, The f rancoRn y (a kind of partridge, and called 
by Belon the arra/yu of the Greeks,) and beccafico, are found in abundance; the latter 
I have heard called by a name not unlike the ancient. “ EuKa\i'<5fV (says Athenseus) 
are taken in the jig season lib. ii- 69. Woodcocks, and a species of plover, are seen 
in December. Wild boars are frequently shot here in ihe mountains. I saw also a 
quantity of the Servos (the sea egg,) which is eaten by the Greeks in their fasts ; and 
called now by the same name. “ It defends itself by its prickly shell f Athenaeus, lib. 
iii. 41. The octopodian, as the modern Greeks call it, is also eaten by them in Lent; 
It is a cuttle-fish, with eight rays, or tentacula, as the name indicates The hills 
round Smyrna are of granite. At a village to the south of it, called Bujaw, is a very 
fine grove of cypress trees; this tree, so great, a favourite with the Turks in their 
burying grounds, is therq planted on account of its balsamic smell; its wood, as well 
as that of the ficus sicornorus , was always prized in the East for its durability. The 
Egyptians made their mummy chests of it; and the Athenians buried those who had 
fallen in war in coffins of this wood. Between Smyrna and Bournabat, a village seven 
miles to the north east of it, is a very large cemetery, with remains of antiquity in 
it, and Greek Inscriptions. The Turkish burying grounds are in general extensive, 
as they never put a body where one has been already deposited ; and are also offensive 
as they do not put them deep in the ground. In the mosque as Bournabat, I copied 
a Greek inscription, from a pillar sixteen feet in length .; it commemorates the river 
Meles : thelastpart of the inscription is a Senerian lambic. This river, before 
St come? to Smyrna, is crossed by two aqueducts, to the southeast of the city; one of 
which may be 300 feet from one hill to the opposite; and the other about 200 feet.— 
The Meles flows now through part of the town, turning a few' mills; and empties itself 
Sn the sea to the northeast. In going out of the Frank street, at the north end, and 
toward the careening ground, you walk over soil which has been gained from the sea. 
The arrow-headed grass pf Sweden, which Hasselquist found here, and which grows 
where the earth has remains of sea salt, proved to him that the earth had here been 
covered with the sea. This circumstance makes it difficult to arrange the present 
topography, in some respects, with the ancient. 
The remains of antiquity, which the acropolis of Smyrna presents, are few: the 
