I walked up to see the few remains of the city of Magnesia. Like all Greek cities, it stood above the plain. There is a theatre just discernible, a stadium below it, and a few remnants of a gymnasium. One night in Guzul Hissar was enough for me, and next day I started for Scala Nuova; and leaving the valley of the Meander on the left, kept by the mountain to the right, and came late to Aisaluck, the ancient Ephesus. Here I dismissed my janissary and horses, and, relieved of my expensive suite, spent a blissful, tranquil day alone. The castle is a vile Turkish fort. The great mosque, in which are some grand columns of granite, is fine, and, like the others—for there are many in the place—thoroughly well executed in the true Oriental taste. The degraded modern Turk is incapable of producing anything half so good.
The remains of Ephesus are very trifling, and what there are, are in a very poor style. I did not, any more than other travellers, find out the Temple of Diana,[39] though of course I have my own opinion as to the site. Aisaluck is now an almost deserted town. It has only about fifteen inhabited houses, and the mosques and forts are in ruinous condition, but their number and splendour show that it must once have been an important Turkish city. I called on the aga, and by way of a present gave him a little gunpowder, with which he was delighted. My lodging was in a miserable little cafané, anything but a palace of luxury. The fleas within, added to the jackals howling without, prevented my getting any rest. But it was not much worse than my other lodgings on this tour. Luxuries have been few. All I can say is I have learnt not to miss them. In my Turkish dress I pass without observation or inconvenience. In the evening, after eating my meal, I smoke my pipe with the other Turks, go to sleep and get up early.
I rode from Aisaluck to Scala Nuova, which is only four hours off, and from thence I took a passage for Samos on a Maltese brig of twelve hands and six guns and set sail the following morning (March 25th); but when we had made half the passage, which is by rights only about two hours, we met a furious wind which obliged us to put back. I went ashore again, and as the wind rose to the force of a hurricane I watched out of my window no less than eighteen boats and vessels of various sizes blown ashore and wrecked under my very eyes. It was a scene of incredible destruction. The shore was strewn with wreckage and cargoes which had been thrown overboard—oranges, corn, barrels of all sorts of goods—while the sailors, ruined, although thankful to have escaped with their lives, sat round fires in some sheds by the port, the pictures of dejection.
The wind detained me till the 28th, when I crossed over in a boat to Bathi in Samos. Here I had to wait first for horses, and then on account of the bad weather. I had to stay indoors, and indoors in a Greek house means anything but privacy. No matter where you sit, you hear everything that goes on in it. Application of any kind is out of the question. In this case, the consular court being at the other end of the house, I had to hear the cases proceeding in it. One in especial went on in detached chapters all the time I was there. A Zantiote had deserted his wife and children eighteen years ago in Mykoni. He had since lived and been married in Cyprus, while the deserted wife went to Smyrna and maintained herself and the children by hard work. She had done what she could to find her husband, in vain, till just as I arrived she discovered him in Samos. She haled him before the consul and demanded that he, being rich, should support her. Not till the whole assembly had joined the bench in calling him every name they could invent would he consent, but finally he signed an agreement to live with his wife in Samos and support the daughter. But this was but the beginning. Every day we had visits from both parties to complain that the conditions were not adhered to: he to say that the agreement to live with them did not involve supporting them; they to say they must be supported, and meanwhile, as they were half starved, to take an opportunity of satisfying their appetites at the consulate.
I made acquaintance of a pleasant Russian, Monsieur Marschall, and with him crossed the island to see the antiquities—first of the ancient city and then of the Temple of Juno, lying three-quarters of an hour to the eastward of it. There is only one column of it remaining, but that one very finely cut and of beautiful marble. A few years ago, I understand, there were still many standing; but some were blown up for the sake of the metal rivets, and others knocked over by the Turkish men of war, who, as they were very white, used them as a target for gunnery practice. We returned to the village of Samos for the night, and lodged with the bishop, who was more hospitable than Greeks generally are. He was a man of some ingenuity and amusing, but very ignorant and superstitious.
We went by Bathi to Geronta and across the Bogas to Changlu on the mainland—rode to Kelibesh over the top of range of hills commanding the valley of the Meander—and the lake of Myus—and on to Sansun Kalesi (Priene), which I was very glad to see. It is an exceedingly fine site. Unfortunately it rained and blew so violently that I could not do much; but if one could stay and dig in the temple, I dare say one might find a treasure of statues, for it remains exactly as it fell.
Two days after, we set out, riding along the foot of Mount Titanus, in frequent danger of being bogged in the low new-made ground of the Meander, which near the sea is covered with sedge and rushes inhabited by numberless waterfowl. The scenery was often very fine. We reached the corn warehouses at Canna after midday, and found there my Sardinian corn-merchant friend from Guzul Hissar. He was trying to make up a cargo, and at the moment was full of the wrongs suffered by merchants in this country. A caravan of fifteen camels he was expecting had been stopped by an aga, the corn they carried unloaded and left by the road, while the camels were sent away to carry cotton into the interior.
Here we hired a boat; but, hearing firing in the Bogas, which we could only attribute to a pirate, we were not without some qualms at starting. With this in our heads, when we saw a large caique making directly towards us, we were naturally enough alarmed and made for the mouth of the Meander, and there remained till the bark came up and proved itself to be only a fishing caique. Setting forward again with a very strong wind, we reached the port of Geronta after dark. The boatman mistook the entrance and very nearly ran us on to a rock some distance from the shore, upon which he got into a fright and lost all presence of mind. The wind, as I said, being very high, the position was so serious that Marschall and I took the management of the bark, and giving the man a cuff sent him forward to look out for the port. In this fashion we found it and got in. Even then we were not well off, for the place was perfectly solitary, and we had no mind to remain all night in the boat. It grew extremely dark, and it was an hour and a half before we could find the village. On the way to it, we passed the massive remains of the Temple of Apollo Didymæus, and as they loomed through the darkness they looked very grand—grander than I thought them next morning by daylight. The village of Geronta is only about thirty years old and is inhabited entirely by Albanian and Greek immigrants who seem fairly prosperous. The pasha, Elis Oglu, like his neighbour Karasman Oglu, is a great patron of Greeks. We set sail at night, but had to put back, after a hard night, to a port close to Geronta and wait there three days till the weather improved.
When at last we got away, in five hours we were off Cape Ciron, which ends in a lofty hill by which is Knidos. At my request the captain went into the port, and very glad I was to see the place; the situation is so curious: but I found no inscription or antiquities of any kind. I slept in the boat, and we started at midnight. The wind was furious; and as the bark laboured and strained in the waves, Dimitri groaned with fear. It was indeed far from pleasant; but as the day came on the wind went down, till we were absolutely becalmed off the little island of Symi, and did not get into Rhodes till afternoon.
I was preparing to go to visit the consul, and had walked a few yards in that direction when I saw another boat come into port, and in it, to my surprise, who but Mr. North. He was as astonished as myself, and as pleased. We went together to the consul's. There we had long conversation on the subject of the island, its inhabitants, products, &c.