A f t e r palling the river and Sangiac caftle, we came to the
fea-fide, and about eleven to a coffee-hut, at which we alighted
and tarried twenty minutes. At one we opened the neck of the
peninfula. This is the fouthern boundary of the gulf. The
Clazomenians antiently inhabited on the north-fide, bordering
on the Erythreans, who were within it. The Teians were on
the fouth, with a port north of their city. Hitherto our courfe
weftward had been chiefly beneath the northern termination of
Mount Corax.
T he Ifthmus of the peninfula appears as a wide pleafant
valley, and the land being moftly level, we could difcern acrofs
it the blue tops of the ifland Samos. Its width ' was reckoned
fifty ftadia or fix miles and a quarter; and the periplus or circumnavigation
of the peninfula, a thoufand ftadia or one hundred
twenty five miles. The diftance of Smyrna from Ephefus in a
ftrait line was only three hundred and twenty ftadia or forty
miles ; but, if you coafted, near two thoufand two hundred ftadia
or two hundred and feventy five miles ; owing principally to
this- peninfula. Alexander the Great, to render the communication
eafier, ordered, that a navigable cut fhould be made
through the plain here, intending to join the two bays, and by
converting the whole Cherronefe into an ifland to furround the
city Erythrte and Mount Mimas with the fea. A dyke or canal
running up the valley is a monument of that attempt, which
failed, when the workmen came to the rock. We palled it over
a bar of fand at the mouth. The Inbat blowing frelh, and the
waves dalhing oyer, two of our horfes ftarted afide, floundered
deep, and wetted our baggage. A like accident in fording another
water afterwards occafioned fome delay.
* In Pliny feven miles and an half.
W e
87
W e continued our journey along the Ihore. The hills on our
left were covered with low fhrubs, and villages, fome of a clean
dry afpedt, and feveral not immediately difcernible, though near;
the mud-built cottages being exadtly of the fame colour with
the foil. As we approached Vourla, the little vallies were all
green with corn, or filled with vine-ftocks, about a foot and a
half high, in orderly arrangement. The people were at work,
many in a row, turning the earth, or encircling the naked trunks
with tar, to fecure the buds from grubs and worms. The fhoots,
which bear the fruit, are cut down again in winter. A mart
like Smyrna diffufes cultivation through all its vicinity.
V our la is diftinguifhed at a diftance by its numerous windmills.
On entering the town, we faw nobody, the houfes were
flint up, and a filence and folitude prevailed, which, before we
recollected what we had lately feen, fuggefted to us the terrible
idea, that the inhabitants had left it, to avoid the cruel diftemper,
from which we alfo were flying. It is a place o f confiderable extent,
the buildings difperfed on eminences; with a pleafant
plain .toward the fea. -The water and air are reputed good. The
Turks have feven mofques, and the Greeks two churches. At
one of thefe is a fmall bafs-releif, reprefenting a funereal fupper,
with a fliort:infcription. Another is fixed in the wall over a fountain.
We were recommended by letter to an Italian, a practitioner
in phyfic, who attended us about the town, and Ihowed us
every civility in his power. A curfory view of this place was
fufficient to convince us that it did not ftand on the fite of Cla-
zomene.
C H A P .