In my last communication, I was able to speak of a lesser number of the blocks of stone obstructing the works upon the great platform; to-day, however, I have again unfortunately to report a considerable increase of them.
At a distance of scarcely 328 yards from my house, on the south side, and at the part of the plateau of Ilium in a direct perpendicular line below the ruined city wall, which seems to have been built by Lysimachus, I have now discovered the stone quarry, whence all those colossal masses of shelly limestone (Muschelkalk) were obtained, which the Trojans and their successors, down to a time after the Christian era, employed in building their houses and walls, and which have given my workmen and me such inexpressible anxiety, trouble, and labour. The entrance to the quarry, which is called by the native Greeks and Turks “lagum” ("mine” or “tunnel,” from the Arabic word لغم, which has passed over into Turkish), is filled with rubbish, but, as I am assured by all the people about here, it was still open only 20 years ago, and, as my excavations have proved, it was very large. The town, as seems to be indicated by a continuous elevation extending below the quarry, had a double surrounding wall at this point, and this was in fact necessary, for otherwise the enemy would have been able, with no further difficulty, to force his way into the quarry below the town-wall, as the entrance to the quarry was outside of the wall.
Unfortunately, without possessing the slightest knowledge of medicine, I have become celebrated here as a physician, owing to the great quantity of quinine and tincture of arnica which I brought with me and distributed liberally, and by means of which, in October and November of last year, I cured all fever patients and wounds. In consequence of this, my valuable time is now claimed in a troublesome manner by sick people, who frequently come from a distance of many miles, in order to be healed of their complaints by my medicine and advice. In all the villages of this district, the priest is the parish doctor, and as he himself possesses no medicines, and is ignorant of their properties, and has besides an innate dislike to cold water and all species of washing, he never uses any other means than bleeding, which, of course, often kills the poor creatures. Wrinkles on either side of the lips of children from 10 to 12 years of age show that the priest has repeatedly bled them. Now I hate the custom of bleeding, and am enthusiastically in favour of the cold-water cure; hence I never bleed anyone, and I prescribe sea-bathing for almost all diseases; this can be had here by everyone, except myself, who have no time for it. My ordering these baths has given rise to such confidence, nay enthusiasm, that even women, who fancied that it would be their death to touch their bodies with cold water, now go joyfully into the water and take their dip. Among others, a fortnight ago, a girl of seventeen from Neo-Chori was brought to me; her body was covered with ulcers, especially her face, and one terrible ulcer on the left eye had made it quite useless. She could scarcely speak, walk or stand, and, as her mother said, she had no appetite; her chest had fallen in, and she coughed. I saw immediately that excessive bleeding and the consequent want of blood had given rise to all her ailments, and therefore I did not ask whether she had been bled, but how many times. The answer was, the girl had taken cold, and the parish priest had bled her seven times in one month. I gave her a dose of castor oil, and ordered her a sea bath every day, and that, when she had recovered sufficient strength, her father should put her through some simple passive gymnastic exercises—which I carefully described—in order to expand her chest. I was quite touched when early this morning the same girl appeared on the platform, threw herself on the ground, kissed my dirty shoes, and told me, with tears of joy that even the first sea bath had given her an appetite, that all the sores had begun to heal directly, and had now disappeared, but that the left eye was still blind, otherwise she was perfectly well, for even the cough had left her. I, of course, cannot cure the eye; it seems to me to be covered with a skin which an oculist might easily remove. The girl had come on foot from Neo-Chori, a distance of three hours, to thank me, and I can assure my readers that this is the first case, in the Plain of Troy, in which I have received thanks for medicines or medical advice; but I am not even quite sure whether it was a feeling of pure gratitude that induced the girl to come to me, or whether it was in the hope that by some other means I might restore sight to the blind eye.
The heat has increased considerably during the last few days; the thermometer stands the whole day at 25° Réaumur (88¼° Fahrenheit) in the shade.
PLATE VI.
