142 
clarke’s travels. 
to obtain wood and water for the fleet; but their crews being 
attacked by the natives of the coast, who are a very savage 
race of mountaineers, it was usual to send to Cyprus for those 
articles. 
When daylight appeared, we observed a larger island than 
any of those we had before noticed^ lying farther in the bay, 
toward the east, and entirely covered with buildings, like the 
small island in the Ldgo Maggiorc of the Milanese territory in 
Italy, called Isold beUa. These buildings proved afterward to 
be really the work of Italians; for upon hoisting out our boat 
and visiting the place, we found there the ruius of a Genoese 
town, of considerable size, to which the inhabitants of the town 
of Macri were accustomed to resort, during summer, to avoid 
bad air. Some of the houses, porticoes, baths and chapels, are 
yet almost entire ; and the whole had a picturesque appearance, 
highly striking, in the approach to it from the water. After 
passing this island we rowed toward the town of Macri, situated 
in the midst of the ruins of Telmessus; the name of which city 
appears in the inscription we found there, proving the accuracy 
of B ? Anville in the position assigned to it by him. Here the 
bay winds round a promontory, and inclines toward the south; 
presenting a beautiful harbour sheltered on every side by a 
mountainous coast. We landed upon the modern pier, and 
having paid our respects to the agha in the usual form, by 
taking a cup of his coffee, proceeded to the ruins. They lie 
toward the east and west of the present town; or, in truth, all 
around it: whensoever the modern town was built, it arose from 
the ruins of the ancient city. The first and principal ruin appears 
from the sea, before landing, to the west of the town. It is that 
of an immense theatre, whose enormous portals are yet standing. 
It seems one of the grandest and most perfect specimens the 
ancients have left of this kind of building. The situation se¬ 
lected for it, according to the common custom observed through¬ 
out Greece, is the side of a mountain sloping to the sea. Thus, 
by the plans of Grecian architects, the great operations of na¬ 
ture were rendered subservient to works of art; for the moun¬ 
tains whereon they built their theatres possessed naturally a 
theatrical form; and towering behind them, like a continuation 
of the immense curvature containing seats for the spectators, 
give a prodigious dignity to those edifices. Not only the moun¬ 
tains, but the sea itself, and all the vast perspective presented 
before the spectators who were assembled in those buildings, 
must have been considered, by thefc architects, as forming parts 
