Yesterday, at a depth of 13 meters (43½ feet), between the stones of the oldest city, I again came upon two toads, which hopped off as soon as they found themselves free.
In my last report I did not state the exact number of springs in front of Ilium. I have now visited all the springs myself, and measured their distance from my excavations, and I can give the following account of them. The first spring, which is situated directly below the ruins of the ancient town-wall, is exactly 365 meters (399 yards) from my excavations; its water has a temperature of 16° Celsius (60.8° Fahrenheit). It is enclosed to a height of 6½ feet by a wall of large stones joined with cement, 9¼ feet in breadth, and in front of it there are two stone troughs for watering cattle. The second spring, which is likewise still below the ruins of the ancient town-wall, is exactly 725 meters (793 yards) distant from my excavations. It has a similar enclosure of large stones, 7 feet high and 5 feet broad, and has the same temperature. But it is out of repair, and the water no longer runs through the stone pipe in the enclosure, but along the ground before it reaches the pipe. The double spring spoken of in my last report is exactly 945 meters (1033 yards) from my excavations. It consists of two distinct springs, which run out through two stone pipes lying beside each other in the enclosure composed of large stones joined with earth, which rises to a height of 7 feet and is 23 feet broad; its temperature is 17° Celsius (62.6° Fahrenheit). In front of these two springs there are six stone troughs, which are placed in such a manner that the superfluous water always runs from the first trough through all the others. It is extremely probable that these are the two springs mentioned by Homer, beside which Hector was killed.[196] When the poet describes the one as boiling hot, the other as cold as ice, this is probably to be understood in a metaphorical sense; for the water of both these springs runs into the neighbouring Simoïs, and thence into the Kalifatli-Asmak, whose enormous bed was at one time occupied by the Scamander; the latter, however, as is well known, comes from Mount Ida from a hot and a cold spring.
I remarked in my last memoir that the Doumbrek-Su (Simoïs) still flows past the north of Ilium into the former channel of the Scamander, and I afterwards said that one of its arms flowed into the sea near Cape Rhœteum. This remark requires some explanation. The sources of the Simoïs lie at a distance of eight hours from Hissarlik; and, as far down as the neighbouring village of Chalil-Koï, though its water is drawn off into four different channels for turning mills, its great bed has always an abundance of water even during the hottest summer weather. At Chalil-Koï, however, it divides itself into two arms; one of which, after it has turned a mill, flows into the Plain in a north-westerly direction, forms an immense marsh, and parts into two branches, one of which again falls into the other arm, which flows in a westerly direction from Chalil-Koï, and then empties itself directly into the Kalifatli-Asmak, the ancient bed of the Scamander. The other arm of the Simoïs, which flowed in a north-westerly direction from Chalil-Koï, after it has received a tributary from the Kalifatli-Asmak by means of an artificial canal, turns direct north, and, under the name of In-tépé-Asmak, falls into the Hellespont through an enormously broad bed, which certainly was at one time occupied by the Kalifatli-Asmak, and in remote antiquity by the Scamander, and is close to the sepulchral mound of Ajax, which is called In-tépé. I must draw attention to the fact that the name of Ajax (Αἴας, gen. Αἴαντος) can even be recognised in the Turkish name (In-tépé: Tépé signifies “hill.”)
In returning to the article by M. Nikolaïdes, I can now also refute his assertion that near Ilium, where I am digging, there is no hill which can be regarded as the one described by Homer as the tomb of Batiea or the Amazon Myrina.[197]
Strabo (XIII. i. p. 109) quotes the lines already cited from the Iliad[198] (II. 790-794) as an argument against the identity of Ilium with the Ilium of Priam, and adds: “If Troy had stood on the site of the Ilium of that day, Polites would have been better able to watch the movements of the Greeks in the ships from the summit of the Pergamus than from the tumulus of Æsyetes, which lies on the road to Alexandria Troas, 5 stadia (half a geographical mile) from Ilium.”
Strabo is perfectly right in saying that the Greek camp must have been more readily seen from the summit of the Pergamus than from a sepulchral mound on the road to Alexandria Troas, 5 stadia from Ilium; for Alexandria Troas lies to the south-west of Ilium, and the road to it, which is distinctly marked by the ford of the Scamander at its entrance into the valley, goes direct south as far as Bunarbashi, whereas the Hellespont and the Greek camp were north of Ilium. But to the south of Ilium, exactly in the direction where the road to Alexandria Troas must have been, I see before me a tumulus 33 feet high and 131 yards in circumference, and, according to an exact measurement which I have made, 1017 yards from the southern city wall. This, therefore, must necessarily be the sepulchral mound of which Strabo writes; but he has evidently been deceived in regard to its identity with the tumulus of Æsyetes by Demetrius of Scepsis, who wished to prove the situation of this mound to be in a straight line between the Greek camp and the village of the Ilians (Ἰλιέων κώμη), and the latter to be the site of Troy. The tumulus of Æsyetes was probably situated in the present village of Kum-Koï, not far from the confluence of the Scamander and the Simoïs, for the remains of an heroic tumulus several feet in height are still to be seen there.
The mound now before me is in front of Troy, but somewhat to the side of the Plain, and this position corresponds perfectly with the statements which Homer gives us of the position of the monument of Batiea or the Amazon Myrina: “προπάροιθε πόλιος” and “ἐν πεδίῳ ἀπάνευθε.” This tumulus is now called Pacha-Tépé.
We may form an idea of what a large population Ilium possessed at the time of Lysimachus, among other signs, from the enormous dimensions of the theatre which he built; it is beside the Pergamus where I am digging, and its stage is 197 feet in breadth.
The heat during the day, which is 32° Celsius (89.6° Fahrenheit), is not felt at all, owing to the constant wind, and the nights are cool and refreshing.
Our greatest plague here, after the incessant and intolerable hurricane, is from the immense numbers of insects and vermin of all kinds; we especially dread the scorpions and the so-called Σαραντοπόδια (literally “with forty feet”—a kind of centipede), which frequently fall down from the ceiling of the rooms upon or beside us, and whose bite is said to be fatal.