About five this evening I took leave of Mr. Goodfellow, and embarked upon a boat manned with seven hands, which I had hired for ten dollars to transport my self, my horse, and two servants from Galata to Montagnia, being the space of two leagues. When having a fair wind, which by degrees increased, and exposed me to the fatigue of a nauseous sea sickness, after midnight I entered the two capes, which form the Sinus Cianus. In this bay is that famous fountain mentioned by Virgil:
Hylan nautae quo fonte relictum
Clamassent; cum littus, Hyla, Hyla, omne sonaret[89].
June xviii.
By six this morning I landed safe at Montagnia, a small Turkish town, which seems to have been the Apaméa of the antients; Cius, or Prusa ad Arganthonium, being now a little village, that lies farther towards the utmost corner of the bay. Here I hire a guide and horse to carry my self, servants, and baggage to Prusia, antiently Prusa ad Olympum, where by God’s blessing I arrive safely about midday; and taking up my lodgings in the great silk kane, I there determine to repose till to morrow morning.
Prusia is a large and fair city, situate at the foot of Olympus Mysenus, a mountain of exceeding hight, and covered with perpetual snow; which from its bowels furnishes the adjacent city with many large and plentiful fountains, and by the same means gives nourishment to the beautiful and flourishing trees, which intermix themselves with the houses of the place. These are chiefly mulberries, which maintain the industrious worm, that produces the white and lovely silk of Prusia; which I here saw spun from caldrons of hot water, the several cods yeilding at once three threads upon a wheel, turned by the person who tends the caldron. Besides the several cold streams issuing from Olympus, there flows from the same origin a plentiful sulphureous chanel, which is collected into four hot natural baths much frequented, and with marvelous success, as is here generally beleived. The several fabrics of the baths are very stately, of which I shall describe that, which is called the new one, for a specimen of the rest. It consists first of a large oblong room paved with marble, enclosed all round with free stone, and covered at the top with three noble cupolas leaded on the outside. Round the inward walls of the room are sophás, about a yard high, and two broad, sufficient for the undressing of three hundred men. In the middle is a round stone cistern, overflowing with cold water, which continually washes the pavement, and serves for other uses of the bagnio. From this room you enter into a second moderately warm, having on the sides oblong troughs of hot water, and in the middle a fountain of cold; the walls, roof, and pavement being all of white polished marble. From hence you are led by the attendants of the bagnio into a third apartment of an orbicular figure, paved, roofed, and walled with richer marble, that is, of more curious veins and various colours. The pavement hereof is sunk into a round cistern about six yards diameter, which is constantly full of hot water to the depth of about six feet, and surrounded with a stone bench for the ease of those, who care not to swim, or walk about the cistern. As the water constantly runs from thence by passages at the bottom of the cistern, so is it continually supplied by three large chanels, which from as many sides of the room yeild a plentiful stream of water, almost scalding at the first touch.
Besides these baths there is not much remarkable in Prusia, except what may be collected from the history of the place; as that it has the ruins of a castle, built by one of the Comneni, as appears from the following inscription:
ΑΝΗΓΕΡΘΗ ΟΥΤΟϹ Ο ΠΥΡΓΟϹ
ΠΑΡΑ ΤΟΥ ΕΥϹΕΒΕϹΤΑΤΟΥ ΗΜΩΝ ΒΑϹΙΛΕΩϹ