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of a dark difmal hue, with precipices and vaft hollows, from
which perhaps Hone has been cut. A few huts, inhabited by
Turkilh families, are of the fame colour, and fcarcely diftin-
guifhable. Beyond thefe, fronting the lake, you find on the left
hand a theatre hewn in the mountain, with fome mofly remnants
of the wall of the profcenium; but the marble feats are
removed. Between the huts and the lake are feveral terraces with
fteps cut as at Priene. One, by which our tent flood, was a quadrangular
area edged with marble fragments; and, we conjectured,
it had been the Agora. By another were ftones ornamented
with ihields of a circular form. But the principal and
moft confpicuous ruin is the fmall temple of Bacchus, which is
feated on an abrupt rock, with the front only, which is toward
the eaft, acceffible. The roof is deftroyed. The cell is well-
built, of fmooth ftone with a brown cruft on it. The portico
was in Antis. We meafured fome fragments of it, and regretted
that any of the members were miffing. It has been ufed as a
church, and the entrance walled up with patch-work. The
marbles, which lie fcattered about, the broken columns, and
mutilated ftatues all witnefs a remote antiquity. We met with
fome infcriptdons, but not legible. The city-wall was conftruft-
ed, like that at Ephefus, with fquare towers, and is ftill Handing,
except toward the waiter. It runs up the mountain-flope fo
far as to be in fome places hardly diifcernible.
W ith o u t the city are the coemeteries of its early inhabitants;
graves cut in the rock, 'of all fines foited to the human
ftature at different ages; with innumerable flat ftones, which
ferved as lids. Some are yet covered, and many open, and, ’by
the lake, filled with water. The lids are over-grown with a
fhort, dry, brown mofs, their very afpedt evincing old age. We
were fhown one irtfoription, clofe by a fmall hut in a narrow pafs
of the mountain weftward, on marble, in large charafters. It
records a fon of Seleucus, who died young, and the affliction of
bis parents j concluding with a tender expoftulation with them
oil the inefficacy and impropriety o f their immoderate forrow.
Nearer
Nearer the city, among fome trees, is a well with the bafe of a
column perforated on the mouth.
A couple of Turks, who undertook to fhow us fomething
extraordinary, conducted me, with one of my companions, up
into the mountain on the eaft-fide o f Myus, on which are many
traces of ant-ient walls and towers. We climbed feveral rocks
in the way ; -our guides with bare feet, carrying their papouches
or flippers in their hands. We -came in about an hour to a large
rock, which was fcooped out, and had the infide painted with
the hiftory of Cbrift in compartments, and with heads of bifhops
and faints. It is in one of the moft wild and retired recedes
imaginable. Before the pifture of the crucifixion was a heap of
ftones piled as an altar, and fcraps of charcoal, which had been
ufed in burning incenfe; with writing on the wall.
G o i n g back, I tarried with one of the Turks, while a fhowec
fell, in -a Angle rock, hollowed out ; with the door-way above
the level of the ground. It Hands diftinft and tall. On the dome
within, Cferift was pourtrayed, and -on the round beneath, the
Panagia or Virgin, with faints. The figures are large, and at full
length; the defign and colouring fuch as may be viewed with
pleafure. On the plafter are infcriptions painted, and faint from
age. One, which I carefully copied, informs us, the oratory had
been beautified for the fake of the prayers and falvation of a certain
fob-deacon and his parents. Here feemed to have been a
quarry. The brown rocks had graves on their tops, and the ibft
frefh turf between them was enamelled with flowers.
I t may be inferred from the remnants of the monafteriss and
churches, which are numerous, that Myus was re-peopled,
when monkery fpreading from Egypt, toward the end of the
fourth century, overran rhe Greek and Latin empires. The lake
abounding in large and fine fiffi, .afforded an article of diet not
unimportant under a ritual, which enjoined frequent abitinence
irom flelh. It probably contributed to render this place, what