‘This, which I must consider as a very important monument, appears to have on the north-east side a portion of its inscription in the early Greek language; the letters are comparatively ill cut, and extremely difficult at such an elevation to decipher; seizing favourable opportunities for the light, I have done my best to copy it faithfully, and glean from it that the subject is funereal, and that it relates to a king of Lycia; the mode of inscription makes the monument itself speak, being written in the first person. Very near to this stands the monument, similar in form, which I described in my last Journal as being near the theatre, and upon which remained the singular bas-reliefs of which I gave sketches. |Journal of an Excursion in Asia Minor, &c. (2nd Edit.), Appendix.| On closer examination I find these to be far more interesting and ancient than I had before deemed them. They are in very low-relief, resembling in that respect the Persepolitan or Egyptian bas-reliefs.
‘I have received,’ continues Sir Charles Fellows, ‘from Mr. Benjamin Gibson of Rome a letter in reference to these bas-reliefs: his interpretation of this mysterious subject appears far the best that I have yet heard; and from finding the district to have been in all probability the burial-place of the kings, it becomes the more interesting. Mr. Gibson writes—“The winged figures on the corners of the tomb you have discovered in Lycia, represented flying away with children, may with every probability be well supposed to have a reference to the story of the Harpies flying away with the daughters of King Pandarus. This fable we find related by Homer in the Odyssey, lib. xx, where they are stated to be left orphans, and the gods as endowing them with various gifts. Juno gives them prudence, Minerva instructs them in the art of the loom, Diana confers on them tallness of person, and lastly Venus flies up to Jupiter to provide becoming husbands for them; in the mean time, the orphans being thus left unprotected, the Harpies come and ‘snatch the unguarded charge away.’ Strabo tells us that Pandarus was King of Lycia, and was worshipped particularly at Pinara. This tomb becomes thus very interesting; which, if it be not the tomb of Pandarus, shows that the story was prevalent in Lycia, and that the great author of the Iliad derived it from that source. With this clue, we have no difficulty in recognising Juno on the peculiar chair assigned to that goddess, and on the same side is Venus and her attendants; upon another is probably represented Diana, recognised by the hound. The seated gods are less easily distinguished. |Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, pp. 336–340.| In the Harpies, at the four corners of the tomb, we have the illustration of those beings as described by the classic writers.”’
Many subsequent discoveries; (the details here necessarily passed over).
Every lateral excursion made by Sir C. Fellows, and by his companions in travel, added to his collection rich works of sculpture, and not a few of them added many varied and most interesting minor antiquities. But I must needs resist all temptation to enlarge on that head, though the temptation is great. The twentieth and subsequent chapters of the book itself (I refer to the collective but abridged ‘Travels and Researches in Asia Minor’ of 1852) will abundantly repay the reader who is disposed to turn to them—whether it be for a renewed or for a new reading.
The difficulties of transport. Jan., 1842.
When the task of removal had to be undertaken, difficulties of transport were found, under certain then existing circumstances, to be graver obstacles than had been Turkish prejudice or Turkish apathy at an earlier stage of the business. The maritime part of the duty had been entrusted to Captain Graves, of H.M. Ship Beacon. The captain left his ship at Smyrna; sailed with Fellows for the Xanthus, in a steam-packet; but omitted to provide himself with the needful flat-bottomed boats. |1841, February.| When they reached the site of the marbles which were to be carried away, Captain Graves said he would not have any of the stores taken down the river; that stores must be obtained from Malta; and that he would take all hands away from the diggings at the beginning of March. |Ibid., pp. 440, seqq.| The reader may imagine the reflections of the eager discoverer at this sudden check,—coming, as it did, at the very beginning of the burst.
He took a solitary walk of many hours, he tells us, before he could resolve upon his course of action. He saw before him, to use his own words, ‘a mine of treasure.’ He had willing hands to work it; ample firmans to stave off opposition; nothing deficient save boats and tackle. A year might possibly pass in awaiting them from Malta; and, meanwhile, the ignorance of the peasantry, the indiscreet curiosity of travellers, or the sudden growth of political complications, might destroy the enterprise irrecoverably.
He resolved, in his perplexity, to construct by his own exertions tackle that would suffice for the removal to the coast; got native help in addition to the willing efforts—however unscientific—of the honest sailors of the Beacon; succeeded in getting a portion of the precious objects of his quest to the waterside, before the arrival of the ship; and got them also strongly cased up. Then he sailed with Graves for Malta. The worthy captain resigned the honourable task—to him so unwelcome—into the hands of Admiral Sir Edward Owen. A new expedition started from Malta at the end of April, and brought away seventy-eight cases of sculpture in June; leaving the splendid but too heavy ‘winged-chariot-tomb’—so called by its discoverer in one place, and elsewhere called ‘horse-tomb,’ but since ascertained to be the tomb of a Lycian satrap named Paiafa; |Arrival in England of the first series of Xanthian Marbles. Dec., 1841.| it is adorned with figures of Glaucus, or perhaps of Sarpedon, in a four-horse chariot—until next year. The seventy-eight cases were brought to England by the Queen’s ship Cambridge in the following December.
On the fourteenth of May, 1842, the Trustees of the British Museum thus recorded their sense of Mr. Fellows’ public services:—‘The Trustees desire to express their sense of Mr. Fellows’ public spirit, in voluntarily undertaking to lend to so distant an expedition the assistance of his local knowledge and personal co-operation. They have viewed with great satisfaction the decision and energy evinced by Mr. Fellows in proceeding from Smyrna to Constantinople, and obtaining the necessary authority for the removal of the marbles; as well as his judicious directions at Xanthus, by which the most desirable of the valuable monuments of antiquity formerly brought to light by him, together with several others, of scarcely less interest, |Minutes of the Trustees of the British Museum; 14 May, 1842. (Appendix to Fellows).| now for the first time discovered and excavated, have been placed in safety, and—as the Trustees have every reason to hope—secured for the National Museum.’
This hope was more than realised. It shows the energy of Fellows, that the expedition to Lycia of 1841 was his third expedition. In 1846 he made a fourth. It was rich in discovery; but I fear somewhat exhausting to the strength of the explorer. He lived a good many years, it is true, after his return to England; but how easily he yielded when a sudden attack of illness came, I shall have the pain of showing presently.