[153] {179} The wrangling about this epithet, "the broad Hellespont" or the "boundless Hellespont," whether it means one or the other, or what it means at all, has been beyond all possibility of detail. I have even heard it disputed on the spot; and not foreseeing a speedy conclusion to the controversy, amused myself with swimming across it in the mean time; and probably may again, before the point is settled. Indeed, the question as to the truth of "the tale of Troy divine" still continues, much of it resting upon the talismanic word "ἄπειρος:" probably Homer had the same notion of distance that a coquette has of time; and when he talks of boundless, means half a mile; as the latter, by a like figure, when she says eternal attachment, simply specifies three weeks.
[For a defence of the Homeric ἀπείρων, and for a résumé of the "wrangling" of the topographers, Jean Baptiste Le Chevalier (1752-1836) and Jacob Bryant (1715-1804), etc., see Travels in Albania, 1858, ii. 179-185.]
[154] {180} Before his Persian invasion, and crowned the altar with laurel, etc. He was afterwards imitated by Caracalla in his race. It is believed that the last also poisoned a friend, named Festus, for the sake of new Patroclan games. I have seen the sheep feeding on the tombs of Æyietes and Antilochus: the first is in the centre of the plain.
[Alexander placed a garland on the tomb of Achilles, and "went through the ceremony of anointing himself with oil, and running naked up to it."—Plut. Vitæ, "Alexander M.," cap. xv. line 25, Lipsiæ, 1814, vi. 187. For the tombs of Æsyetes, etc., see Travels in Albania, ii. 149-151.]
[155] [Compare—
"Or narrow if needs must be,
Outside are the storms and the strangers."
Never the Time, etc., lines 19, 20, by Robert Browning.]
[156] {181} When rubbed, the amber is susceptible of a perfume, which is slight, but not disagreeable. [Letter to Murray, December 6, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 300.]
[157] ["Coeterum castitatis hieroglyphicum gemma est."—Hoffmann, Lexic. Univ., art. "Smaragdus." Compare, too, Lalla Rookh ("Chandos Classics," p. 406), "The emerald's virgin blaze.">[
[158] The belief in amulets engraved on gems, or enclosed in gold boxes, containing scraps from the Koran, worn round the neck, wrist, or arm, is still universal in the East. The Koorsee (throne) verse in the second cap. of the Koran describes the attributes of the Most High, and is engraved in this manner, and worn by the pious, as the most esteemed and sublime of all sentences.