[74] Highlands of Turkey, Vol. I, p. 22 (by H. F. Tozer, London, 1869). (2) Odyssey, Vi, 51 et seq.
[75] So impressed was Kinglake, after visiting the Trojan plain, with the accuracy of the poet’s description of the most salient features of the landscape that he declared: “Now I know that Homer had passed along here.” Eothen, Chap. IV.
[76] “He who would understand the poet must visit the poet’s country.” Regarding Homer’s birthplace an anonymous poet long ago wrote:
Smyrna, Rhodos, Colophon, Salamis, Chios, Argos, Athenæ,
Orbis de patria oertat, Homere, tua.
But in whichever of these place the immortal bard was born, if in any of them, it is quite evident to even the casual visitor to Troy that the poet was thoroughly familiar with its environment which he describes with such marvelous precision.
[77] Iliad, XI, 89, 90.
[78] Thus the distinguished geographer, Elisée Reclus, in speaking of the Mysian Olympus, says positively: “West of the Galatian Olympus, this is the first that has received the name of Olympus, and amongst the fifteen or twenty other peaks so named, this has been chosen by popular tradition as the chief abode of the gods.” The Earth and Its Inhabitants. Asia, Vol. IV, p. 261 (New York, 1885). “This,” declares another writer, “is ‘the Olympus crowned with snow’ up ‘whose lofty crags the everliving gods mounted, Jove first in ascension.’” The Sultan and his subjects, Vol. II, p. 226 (by R. Davey, New York, 1897). Cf. also Constantinople, Vol. I, p. 30 (by R. W. Walsh, London, 1836). Lady Mary Wortley Montague calls the Mysian Olympus:
The Parliament seat of heavenly powers.
[79] Ibid., XIV, 251–257.