The pyramids of the Egyptian monarchs are insignificant compared with the glory of that tomb of turf, which Homer sung and Alexander made the circuit of.

I experienced on this occasion a remarkable effect of the power of the feelings and the influence of the soul over the body; I had gone upon deck with the fever; but my head-ach suddenly left me; I recovered my strength, and what is still more extraordinary, all the energies of my mind. Twenty-four hours afterwards, it is true, the fever had returned.

I had no reason to reproach myself; I did intend, in my progress through Anatolia, to visit the plain of Troy, and the reader has seen how I was obliged to relinquish that design: I then proposed to land there as I passed, and the captain of the ship obstinately refused to set me on shore, though he had engaged to do so by our contract. These crosses at first occasioned me a good deal of vexation, but at present I make myself easy on the subject. I have been wofully disappointed in Greece, and the same fortune perhaps awaited me at Troy. I have at least retained all my illusions respecting the Simois, and moreover had the good fortune to salute the sacred soil, to behold the waves that bathe it, and the sun by which it is illuminated.

I am astonished that travellers who treat of the plain of Troy should almost always overlook the circumstances of the Eneid. Troy is nevertheless the glory of Virgil, as well as that of Homer. It is a rare destiny for a country to have inspired the finest strains of the two greatest poets in the world. While the coast of Ilion receded from my view, I strove to recollect the verses which so admirably describe the Grecian fleet, leaving Tenedos, and advancing per silentia lunæ, to these solitary shores, which were successively presented to my view. Horrid shrieks soon succeeded the silence of night, and the flames of Priam's palace reddened that sea which our vessel was peaceably ploughing.

The Muse of Euripides also seizing this mournful subject, prolonged the scenes of sorrow on these tragic shores.

Chorus. Hecuba, seest thou Andromache advancing seated in a foreign car! Her son, the son of Hector, the young Astyanax follows the maternal bosom. Hecuba. O unfortunate woman, whither wilt thou be carried, surrounded with Hector's arms and the spoils of Phrigia.

Andromache. O grief.

Hecuba. My children!

Andromache. Wretched woman!

Hecuba. And my children.

Andromache. Assist me my husband!

Hecuba. Ah! come thou scourge of Greece! Thou first of my children! Restore to Priam in the shades, her who on earth was so tenderly attached to him.

Chorus. What else is left us but our sorrows, and the tears which we shed upon these ruins. Woes have succeeded woes.-Troy is bowed down by the yoke of slavery.

Hecuba. Alas! the palace where I became a mother is fallen!

Chorus. O my children, your country is transformed into a desert!*

While I was engaged with the sorrows of Hecuba, the descendants of the Greeks on board our ship, still seemed to rejoice over the death of Priam. Two sailors struck up a dance on deck, accompanied by a lyre and tambourine; they performed a kind of pantomime. Sometimes they raised their hands towards heaven; at others they would drop one arm by their side, extending the other like an orator making a speech, and afterwards laying it on the heart, the brow, and the eyes. All these actions were intermingled with attitudes more or less ludicrous, without any decisive character, and very much resembling the contortions of the savages. On the subject of the dances of the modern Greeks, the reader may consult the letters of M. Guys and Madame Chenier. This pantomime was followed by a rondo, in which the performers, passing and repassing at different points, strongly reminded me of the subjects of those basso relievos which represent antique dances. Fortunately the shadow of the sails prevented my having a distinct view of the faces and dress of the actors, so that my imagination was at liberty to transform our dirty sailors into shepherds of Sicily or Arcadia.

The wind continuing favourable we quickly cleared the channel which separates the island of Tenedos from the continent, and we coasted along Anatolia to Cape Baba, formerly Lectum Promontorium. We then stood to the west, that we might be able at night-fall to double the point of the island of Lesbos, Lesbos was the birth-place of Sappho and Alcæus, and here the head of Orpheus was cast on the shore, still repeating the name of his Eurydice:

Ah! miseram Eurydicen, animâ fugiente, vocabat,

* The Troades.

On the morning of the 22d, the north wind sprung up with extraordinary violence. We ought to have put into Chio, to take some more pilgrims on board; but through the captain's timidity and bad management, we were obliged to run for the port of Tchesmé, and there come to an anchor at the foot of a very dangerous rock near the wreck of a large Egyptian vessel.

This Asiatic port seems to have something fatal attached to it. Here the Turkish fleet was burned in 1770, by count Orlow, and here the Romans destroyed the gallies of Antiochus, 191 years before the Christian æra; if, however, the Cyssus of the ancients be the Tchesmé of the moderns, M. de Choiseul has given a plan and a view of this port. The reader will probably recollect that I was off Tchesmé in my voyage to Smyrna, on the 1st of September, twenty-one days before my second passage through the Archipelago.

We waited on the 22d and 23d for the pilgrims from the island of Chio. John went on shore, and procured me an abundant supply of pomegranates from Tchesmé. But I have just mentioned John's name, and this reminds me that I have yet said nothing to the reader concerning this new interpreter, the successor of the good-hearted Joseph. He was the most mysterious creature I ever met with: two small eyes sunk deep in their sockets, and hidden in a manner by a very prominent nose, two red mustaches, a continual habit of smiling, and a certain suppleness in his deportment, will give at once an idea of his person. When he had occasion to speak to me, he would advance sidelong, and after making a long circuit, come almost creeping, and wisper in my ear the most trifling thing in the world. As soon as I perceived him, I used to cry, "Walk upright, and speak loud!"-a piece of advice that many others besides poor John stand in need of. He was acquainted with the principal papas; he related to me very extraordinary things; he brought me compliments from the pilgrims who lived in the hold, and whom I had never seen. At mealtimes John never had any appetite, so far was he above all vulgar wants; but no sooner had Julian done dinner, than John would slip down into the boat where my provisions were kept, and under the pretext of putting things to rights in the hampers, he would swallow large slices of ham, devour a fowl, empty a bottle of wine, and that with such despatch that the motion of his lips

was not to be perceived. He would then return with a look of dejection, and ask me if I wanted him for any thing. I exhorted him to keep up his spirits, and to take a little nourishment, other wise he ran the risk of making himself ill. The Greek thought me his dupe, and this gave him so much pleasure, that I never undeceived him. Notwithstanding these small faults, John was in the bottom a very honest man, and deserved the confidence reposed in him by his masters. It may not be amiss to observe that I have delineated this portrait and some others merely to gratify those readers who are curious to know something about the persons to whom they are introduced. For my part, had I a talent for drawing caricatures of this kind, I would assiduously strive to smother it; whatever exhibits human nature in a ludricrous light, seems to me undeserving of esteem. Of course, I mean not to include in this condemnation genuine wit, delicate raillery, the grand irony of the oratorical style, and the higher department of comedy.

In the night between the 22d and 23d, the ship brought home her anchor, and we expected every moment to run foul of the wreck of the Alexandrian vessel, near, which we lay. The pilgrims from Chio, sixteen in number, arrived on the 23d at noon. At ten P. M. the night being very fine, we got under weigh with a moderate breeze at east, which shifted to the north before daybreak on the 24th.

We passed between Nicaria and Samos, celebrated for its fertility, its tyrants, and, above all, for giving birth to Pythagoras. The beautiful episode in Telemachus has effaced all that the poets have told us concerning Samos. We entered the channel formed by the Sporades, Patmos, Leria, Cos, &c. and the coast of Asia. There flowed the winding Meander, there stood Ephe sus, Miletus, Halicarnassus, and Cnidus. I greeted, for the last time, the native land of Homer, Heredotus, Hyppocrates, Thales, and Aspasia; but I could perceive neither the temple of Ephesus, nor the sepulchre of Mausolus, nor the Venus of Cnidus; and but for the works of Pococke, Wood, Spon, and Choiseul, I should not have recognised the promontory of Mycale, by its modern and inglorious name.

On the 25th at six in A. M. we came to an anchor in the harbour of Rhodes, to take on board a pilot for the coast of Syria.

Hh

I landed, and went to the house of the French consul, M. Magal lon. Still the same reception, the same hospitality, the same politeness! M. Magallon was ill; he nevertheless introduced me to the Turkish governor, a very good-natured man, who made me a present of a black kid, and gave me permission to go whereever I pleased. I showed him a firman, which he laid upon his head, declaring that he carried all the friends of the Grand Signor in that manner. I was impatient for the termination of this interview, that I might at least get a sight of that celebrated Rhodes, where I had but a moment to spend.

Here commenced for me an antiquity that formed the link between the Grecian antiquity which I had just quitted, and the Hebrew antiquity which I was about to explore. The monu. ments of the Knights of Rhodes roused my curiosity, which wassomewhat fatigued by the ruins of Sparta and Athens. Some wise laws respecting commerce,* a few verses by Pindar on the consort of the Sun and the daughter of Venus,† some comic poets, and painters, and monuments more distinguished for magnitude than beauty; such I believe is all that can remind the traveller of ancient Rhodes. The Rhodians were brave; it is a singular circumstance, that they acquired celebrity in arms for having gloriously sustained a siege, like the knights their successors. Rhodes, honoured with the presence of Cicero and Pompey, was contaminated by the residence of Tiberius. During the reign of Honorius, the Persians made themselves masters of Rhodes. It was afterwards taken by the generals of the caliphs, in the year 647 of our æra, and retaken by Anastasius, emperor of the East. The Venetians gained possession of the island in 1203, but it was wrested from them by John Ducas.-The Turks conquered it from the Greeks. In 1304, 1308, or 1419, it was seized by the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, by whom it was retained about two centuries, and surrendered to Solyman II, on the 25th of December, 1522. On the subject of Rhodes, the reader may consult Coronelli, Dapper, Savary, and Choiseul.

Rhodes exhibited to me, at every step, traces of our manners,

* See Leunclavius's Treatise on the Maritime Law of the Greeks and RoThe excellent ordinance of Louis XIV, on the subject of the marine. retains several clauses of the Rhodian laws.

mans.

†The nymph Rhodes.