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their summits with fine pasturage. The intervening valleys were luxuriant with young grain. At ten o'clock we entered a grove of magnificent plane-trees, under whose shade were the graves of the Greeks and Armenians, and at whose northern edge was the pretty town of Berimitch, on the slope of a hill that commanded a view of the extensive plain; on the other side of which, at the foot of the mountains, were several towns with minarets.

From Berimitch our course lay northwest three hours and a half to Ennæ, a little town of mud huts, situated at the junction of a small stream with the Scamander, and inhabited by Turks and Greeks. Immediately below Ennæ the Scamander enters the inferior chain of Ida, flowing for eight or ten miles through a wild, narrow pass, bordered by stately trees and a thick growth of underbrush, and overhung on both sides by lofty and rugged cliffs, in which eagles had their eyries. It strongly reminded me of the Jordan, which it resembled in width, apparent depth, and colour and rapidity of the water, as also in the thickets of trees and undergrowth which lined its banks. I supposed it to be from ninety to one hundred and twenty feet wide; and the driftwood lodged in the trees indicated that it sometimes rose more than fifteen feet.

Nearly two hours from Ennæ the stream makes an acute bend to the right, and passes through a deep chasm to the Plain of Troy. We proceeded directly forward up a little valley, in which is a miserable hamlet of half a dozen huts, and in half an hour gained the summit of the inferior chain of Ida, from whence the plains of Troy suddenly opened out before us to the Hellespont. We reined up our horses, and in silence gazed intently on the desolate yet beautiful expanse.

174 SITE OF ANCIENT TROY.-TOMB OF HECTOR.

Twenty minutes below us was the site of Ilium, now occupied by the miserable little hamlet of Bounarbachi; and the tombs of Ajax, Patroclus, and Achilles sat gracefully on the desolate shore of the sea, perhaps seven miles distant. I felt the power of the great deeds performed on that deserted plain, and the wonderful privilege of genius and poetry to consecrate them to immortality for the instruction of mankind. We alighted in the court of the only house in the hamlet, belonging to a Turkish merchant, who transacts his business at the Dardanelles, six hours distant, but resides here for pasturing his numerous flocks, which are gathered at night into a pound adjoining his house, and in the daytime feed upon the plain.

We hastened to a gentle height close at hand, on the northeast, on which stood the remains of a small Turkish fortress, in the midst of an unshaded cemetery, ornamented with fragments of small granite columns, so simple in their structure, and so gnawed by the tooth of time, that we were fain to believe that Priam, Paris, Hector, and Æneas had looked upon them. And this was all that remained of Troy! From books of travels we had been led to believe there was not a single well-attested vestige of the renowned city remaining. But all spoke of the tomb of Hector on the heights above the hamlet. Looking to the east, we descried, about a mile distant, an irregular heap of stones, very much like a Scotch cairn, or one of the large Indian cemeteries sometimes seen in our Western States. Hastening to it, I found on its summit one wild cherry-tree, and several vigorous oak shrubs growing around its base. All that history and tradition have said is in favour of its being the resting-place of the great Trojan hero. Near sunset I sat down upon it to survey the scene. Silence

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and desolation reigned almost unrelieved. Seven miles distant, on the coast, were seen two or three inconsiderable villages; to the south, the hills were destitute of towns and tillage; to the north, beyond the Scamander, the high grounds were a little enlivened by grainfields, and scattered groups of huts. The Hellespont seemed dreary; for not a sail appeared upon its surface, nor was a town visible upon its islands. The Plain of Troy itself was untilled and uninhabited, except by a few degraded Turks that dwelt in the little hamlet of Bounarbachi, and hovered about the graves of their fathers. But if the present was a melancholy scene, the reminiscences of the past were bright and beautiful. Through a gap in the inferior chain of Ida, a small portion of the dark, wooded height of the superior range was visible, from which the gods might have looked upon the hosts contending in the plain at my feet; but the snowy Gargarus was not visible. Close on the right the Scamander washed the base of the hill, crowned with the tomb on which I sat, and then burst forth into the plain. Near, on the left hand, on a spur of the mountain, some travellers find traces of the Pergamus, or tower of Troy. To the northwest, a slender thread of bright waters marked the sinuous course of the Simois until it falls into the Scamander, which showed a larger and brighter path winding through the plain, and disappearing in the marshy grounds near the town of Koum Kalé, on the coast. The shore of the sea seemed to be raised like a dyke, and upon it were several sepulchral barrows similar to those at Sardis. They sat beautifully upon the water-line, and looked like watch-towers upon the horizon. Three of them particularly attract attention, and have long served for landmarks to ships at sea. The most easterly one, near the

mouth of the Scamander, is assigned to Ajax; the middle one to Patroclus, the friend of Achilles; and the western to the Grecian hero himself. Beyond them, and a little to the south of the tomb of Achilles, rose the isle of Tenedos, still bearing its ancient name, and behind which the sun gradually disappeared as I sat contemplating the beautiful yet melancholy scene.

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CHAPTER XXII.

THE PLAIN OF TROY.

View of the Plain of Troy from the Tomb of Hector.-Its Dimensions.→→ Topography.-Site of the Camp of the Greeks.-Question in regard to it.-Arguments.--Early Recollections.-Contrasts.-Site of the City.The Simoïs.-The Scamander.-Question as to the Identity of these Riv ers. As to the Site of Troy.

THE Plain of Troy, as seen from the tomb of Hector, is à crescent, the arc of which is formed by the inferior range of Ida, and the chord by the line of the coast. Its greatest diameter from the tomb, where the Scamander issues from the mountains to the sea, is not more than seven miles; and its length along the coast, from the headlands a little to the east of the Scamander, to the heights impending over Alexandria Troas on the coast to the west, is perhaps eighteen or twenty miles. From the mountain range that bounds the plain many spurs descend, forming gentle ridges, projecting to unequal distances into the plain. Nearer the sea it is level, and to the east, near the mouth of the Scamander, the coast is low and sandy. Near the centre of the chord, immediately in front of the site of Troy, it is high and steep for five or six miles, when it suddenly becomes low and sandy again, where a branch of the Simoïs, if not the whole stream, once emptied into the sea by means of an artificial canal, traces of which still remain.

From the nature of the coast, we must choose between the lower portion north of the bluffs, near the mouth of the Scamander, or that south of them, near the ancient mouth of the Simois, as the place of the Grecian camp, as these are the only portions of the coast