an English consul, being generally more carefully selected, and always better paid, is a totally different personage. Our surprise, then, may be well imagined when, in the person of the English consul, we were made acquainted with a ragged, dirty old man, with a long grizzly beard, and looking not unlike an old-clothesman. He was habited in the Greek costume; his feet disdained the vulgar encumbrances of shoes or stockings, and he carried with a very consular air a dozen fowls in one hand and a basket of eggs in the other. His name was Il Signor C, of Venetian descent, and he had been born and brought up on the island he spoke Greek, Turkish, and a most appalling jargon which passed for Italian; it need scarcely be added, that of English he was most profoundly ignorant. I inquired of him what were the usual occupations of the inhabitants. "Making wine," was the reply. "But that only occupies two months; what do you do during the remaining ten months of the year?"-" Aspettano, signor! they wait, sir !"

The island of Tenedos is, indeed, as much celebrated for its excellent wine, as for the general indolence of its inhabitants. It is said to contain a population of 3000, including a garrison of 200 soldiers. Originally peopled from Greece, and celebrated in poetic history as the island behind which the Greeks concealed themselves, in order to throw the Trojans off their guard, it has been alternately occupied by Persians, Greeks, and Venetians, until it fell into the possession of the Turks. As it would in the hands. of an enemy be a formidable station to harass the navigation of the Dardanelles, the Turkish government have spared no expense to render the fortifications as complete as possible.

Our new acquaintances from Tenedos returned our visit the next morning. After spending some time in examining the ship, they retired to the cabin, where they commenced smoking their pipes. Cider was set before them with the

proper explanation that it was not wine, whereupon they drank freely. A few bottles of champagne were waggishly introduced, as another variety of cider; and although they had previously lauded the cider, as pek aee, or very good, they unanimously pronounced the champagne to be much superior. We were afterward informed that our common ship's whiskey (not being under the ban of their holy law) would have been quite as acceptable. We had an opportunity of witnessing the fondness of the Turks for medicines, and the consideration with which they view a Frank physician. Our surgeon was wearied with details of their various ailments, and their repeated and urgent requests for doses of physic. Tired with weighing out powders, he at length prepared a most villanous, but harmless, compound, which he gravely distributed among them for their imaginary complaints. If they once taste it, they will long remember the marvellous medicine of the American haykim.*

In other respects, our Turkish visiters were extremely courteous and easy in their manners. Some of the more elderly of the party certainly exhibited what we are accustomed to consider as Turkish gravity, but the middle-aged and the young were as gay, and perhaps more lively than the same number of our own countrymen would have been under similar circumstances. They took leave of us with many expressions of good-will, and often repeated invitations to come once more on shore and pay them another visit.

* Doctor.

H

CHAPTER VI.

Troad-Poems attributed to Homer-Obscurity of the Subject-Visit on Shore-Disappointment-Lower Dardanelles.

We were under way at daylight next morning, and consumed an entire day in beating up against a head wind, and the strong current which always issues from the Dardanelles and sweeps along the coast of Troy. What volumes have been written on the subject of Troy, and the question not only of its precise locality, but even of its existence, is still undecided. The Trojan war lasted but ten years, and the war about Troy has lasted as many centuries; nor is it likely soon to be terminated as long as the loose rhapsodies of poets are construed as literally as the pages of a modern guide-book. The poems attributed to Homer are thought to have been composed about 400 years after the destruction of Troy, and it is known that they could not have been written until three hundred years later still, for the obvious reason that there were no suitable writing materials until that period. And yet all the grave and learned dissertations about Troy are based upon such loose documents. Alexander, who always carried with him a copy of the Iliad, and felt or feigned the warmest admiration for the Homeric heroes, visited this plain twenty-one hundred years ago, and offered garlands and sacrifices before what was pointed out to him as the tomb of Achilles. From thence he is said to have "ascended to the storm-exposed city of Priam," but Strabo has shown that Alexander was

* Wolf, Prolegomena to Homer.

The weight of evidence with respect to the site of Troy appears to be

deceived in believing the Ilium of his day to have been the ancient city of Priam, and that his theatrical enthusiasm was expended upon a spurious object. It is well known that Alexander founded the city of Alexandria Troas (now known as Eski Stambool) on the seacoast, but historians are not agreed whether he meant to designate the precise site of ancient Troy, or merely to commemorate his important visit.

In perusing the accounts of travellers who have visited this celebrated spot, it is curious to notice how completely the imagination has run away with the judgment, and how authoritatively they pronounce upon a subject which Strabo, writing 1800 years ago, was unable to elucidate. What was then considered by the best historians as enveloped in Egyptian darkness, is to these travellers as clear as noonday; although no tourist (Hobhouse alone excepted) has undertaken to correct the random guesses of his predecessors, without falling into the oddest blunders imaginable. One of the most amusing of this class is the English traveller Clarke, who scales the summit of a mound, calls it the tomb of Hector, and after sacrificing to his manes with a bottle of London porter, commences with abusing all his predecessors, and then obligingly informs us which is the Scamander and which the Simois, where good King Priam kept house, and where the Grecian fleet was moored. All this pompous guess-work, for it does not merit the name. even of hypothesis, is amusingly varied by a volley of abuse upon all who presume to doubt. Thus he speaks of the ingenious Bryant, as "Jacob Bryant and his pettifogging skeptics," and those who venture to hesitate are charged with "the most contemptible blasphemy upon the most sacred records of history !"*

in favour of Boornabashi, a little village near the hot springs, and between the Simois and the sources of the Scamander, about seven miles from the seashore in a direct line.

* Sic in Clarke's Life and Remains.

For such, however, as may happen to have this book with them on the spot, and have a taste for these investigations, we annex a small plan of the Troad, with the various views entertained respecting its topography by dif ferent travellers.

1. Trapeza of Olivier.

2. Temple of Apollo Thymbrias.

3. A modern cemetery.

4. Tomb of Ajax, according to Olivier.

5. Rhetean promontory.

6. Harbour of the Grecian fleet.

7. Mouth of the Simois.

8. Koomkalay, or sandy fort.

9. Sigean promontory, now Cape Janissary. 10. Tomb of Achilles, according to Olivier.

11. Tomb of Patroclus, according to the same author. 12. Mender Soo, or River Scamander.

13. River Thymbrius; modern Thimbrek. Simois of Hobhouse.