The Plain of Troy is traversed from the south-east to the north-west by the Scamander, which is distant from Hissarlik 35 minutes’ walk, and the bed of which I can recognise from here by the uninterrupted row of trees growing upon its banks. Between the Scamander and Hissarlik, at a distance of only 15 minutes from the latter, the Plain is again intersected by the river Kalifatli-Asmak, which rises in the marshes of Batak (Thymbria), and is filled with running water only in late autumn, winter, and spring; but during the hot summer months, till the end of October, it consists of an uninterrupted series of deep pools. This stream, even during the continual heavy winter rains, and in comparison with its splendid and immensely broad channel, has but a very scanty supply of water—in fact, never so much as to cover even the tenth part of the breadth of its bed. I therefore believe that its huge bed must at one time have been the bed of the Scamander; I believe this all the more, as the Simoïs still flows into the Kalifatli-Asmak at a quarter of an hour’s distance north of Ilium, where I am digging.[90] By identifying the channel of this river, which may be traced to the Hellespont near Cape Rhœteum, with the most ancient bed of the Scamander, we may settle the otherwise insurmountable difficulties of the Homeric topography of the Plain of Troy; for, had the Scamander occupied its present bed at the time of the Trojan war, it would have flowed through the Greek camp, and Homer would have had abundant opportunity of speaking of this important circumstance. But as he never mentions a river in the camp, there can, of course, have been none there. Moreover, the Simoïs is now half-an-hour’s distance from the Scamander; whereas Homer frequently mentions the confluence of these two streams before Ilium, and most of the battles took place in the fields between Troy, the Scamander, and the Simoïs. At its confluence with the Kalifatli-Asmak, whose enormous bed must, at one time, have belonged to the Scamander, the Simoïs has an especially large and deep bed, which is doubtless still the same that this stream occupied at the time of the Trojan war.
The Kalifatli-Asmak, after its confluence with the Scamander near the village of Kum-köi, turns to the north-west, and flows into the sea by three arms, not very far from the present bed of the Scamander; below the village, however, it has quite a narrow bed, which is obviously of recent formation. Its old channel, on the other hand, which was the ancient bed of the Scamander and is of an immense breadth, proceeds direct northwards from Kum-köi: it is now occupied by the water of the small rivulet called In-tépé-Asmak, which I shall afterwards describe minutely, and empties itself, as before said, into the Hellespont close to Cape Rhœteum.
The Scamander did not take possession of its present bed suddenly, but very gradually, probably in the course of many centuries; for between its present channel and its ancient one there are three enormous river-beds, likewise leading to the Hellespont, which possess no water and must necessarily have been successively formed by the Scamander, as there is no other river here that could have formed them.
To the north-north-east, I overlook another plain, called Chalil-Owasi, half an hour in breadth and 1½ hour in length, which is traversed by the Simoïs and extends to the hill upon which are the mighty ruins of the ancient city of Ophrynium. The coins which have been found there leave no doubt about this. There, close to the Simoïs, was Hector’s (so-called) tomb, and a grove sacred to his memory.[91]
