without having a thought of Homer in his mind. We readily believe it. Homer fays, that the warm fource of the Scamander is as hot as fire, and that it is enveloped in fmoke. Mr Chevalier boldly afferts (p. 127.), that the thing is not as Homer infinuates; and that the fountain only fmokes in winter. But if even this had been true, how did it happen that Mr Gell was not warned, by the fmoke, of the heat of the water, when he approached it in the month of December? After all, it must be confefled, that the travellers have clearly made it out, that their defcription of the fources of the Scamander is perfectly right, provided Homer's is perfectly wrong. Even if, inftead of forty-two fprings of the fame temperature, and that neither cold nor hot, Mr Gell had been fortunate enough to discover a hot and a cold fountain running into each other, it would not have been a little rafh in him to conclude that he had found the fources of the Scamander; as this is, in fact, by no means a fingular occurrence in this quarter of the world. At Troas Alexandria, there are natural hot baths in the vicinity of cold fprings; and it is a curious circumftance, that very near the principal fource of Mr Gell's Simois, there are two fprings, one hot, and one cold, which both fall into that river, and are much celebrated for their medicinal virtues. Thefe confiderations, we acknowledge, leave us little room to doubt, that the whole of M. Chevalier's fpeculation is no more than the gay dream of a claffical enthufiaft, and that he and his followers have been just as fuccefsful in afcertaining the fite of ancient Ilium, as any of the meritorious inquirers who have amufed themselves in determining the true longitude and latitude of the garden of Eden. Suppofing, however, for a moment, that the plain of Bournabachi was that of ancient Troy, and that the ftreams that divide it were the Simois and Scamander of Homer, it appears to us, we acknowledge, that our recent travellers have diftributed these names very injudiciously, and given the title of the Simois to the only one of the streams that answers at all to the defcription of the Scamander. The fource of this river is faid by Homer, and, after him, by all the ancients who have mentioned it, to have been in Mount Ida; and in the twelfth book, indeed, both the Scamander and the Simois, are exprefsly defcribed as flowing from the Idæan mountains. Όσσοι ἀπὸ Ιδαίων ορέων άλαδε προρίωση, &c. II. XII. 19. Now, we muft proteft against the eminence on which Bourna bachi ftands, being confidered as forming any part of Mount Ida. Gargarus is at the diftance of forty miles, from which the Idæan ridge extends in a fouth westerly direction to the promontory of Lectum, Lectum, and north towards the Propontis. Bournabachi is in itself totally unconnected with any part of this chain of mountains; and the rifing ground on the coaft, in the whole extent from Lampfacus to Lectum, might, with equal propriety, be called part of Ida. But Mr Gell's Scamander, we have feen, does not flow from any eminence at all; its fource is below the town, and is as completely in the plain as any part of its courfe: the flow and fluggifh ftream is continued through flat and marshy ground, until it is changed by the ditch or canal of Gazi Haffan. The fource of the Mendice Sou, again, the Simois of our modern traveller, is in Mount Gargarus, the chief of the Idæan range of hills: It has never been vifited by any traveller who has published upon Troy; but it prefents one of the grandeft and most picturefque fcenes with which this part of Afia Minor abounds. The water rifes in a vast cavern of white marble, and gufhes out by two apertures in the rock, forming, in its fall, a magnificent cafcade; and the furrounding precipices being covered with pine, oak, and plane trees, render the whole fcene eminently beautiful and impofing. The fource, in the month of July, was one of the moft copious we ever remember to have feen. The river, after leaving the mountains, having entered the plain of Bairamitch, flows with a rapid current through its whole extent, and, paffing Bournabachi a little to the north, empties itself into the fea at the village of Koum Kalè. Its breadth, in what is called the Plain of Troy, is very confiderable, being in fome parts three hundred feet; and in the first part of its courfe, it equals in the purity, and always far exceeds in the abundance of its waters, the little ftream of the plain. That this description is more in harmony with the general impreffions concerning the Scamander, which are received by thofe who read the Iliad, than the account of the rivulet of Bournabachi, feems to be a position that does not require any farther confir mation. It would be tedious to enlarge upon the feftimonies of the ancients, however clear and explicit, as to the larger river being the Scamander; but we proceed to confider the opinion of Herodotus, and we are the more tempted to do this, as it seems to us that a difficult paffage in this admirable hiftorian may be thereby explained. In the 7th book of his hiftory, Xerxes is faid to have gone from Antandros to Abydos, and, in performing this journey, Mount Ida was on his left hand.—τὴν ιδὴν δὲ λαβὼν ἐς ἀρισερὴν χέρα. Now, on looking at all the maps of this diftrict, it will be feen that, following the direct line between thefe two places, he would would have left Gargarus on his right hand: this contradiction is owing to the inaccuracy of all the charts refpecting the gulph of Adramyttium, the most eastern part of which bears N. E. from the top of Gargarus, and confequently, on departing from Antandros, which was fituated at the extremity of the gulph, Gargarus would be on his left hand. But to proceed-Xerxes, after paffing Gargarus, arrived at the banks of the Scamander, and the army, after drinking of its waters, continued their road to Troy. Now, if Troy were on the fite of Bournabachi, the road of Xerxes must have been through the plain of Bairamitch, and along the banks of Mr Gell's Simois, for the distance of near thirty miles. Mr Morritt is aware of this difficulty, and pretends that the army of Xerxes paffed on without drinking of his Simois, as it was only a muddy and troubled torrent: but, however it might have appeared to Mr Morritt, we certainly found its water moft admirable, and infinitely more clear and refreshing than that of his Scamander. The Turks alfo, in the neighbourhood, attributed to it the peculiar virtue of not injuring those perfons who drank of it, when heated by exercise; nor can we think that Xerxes and his army found it lefs agreeable: we fpeak not of the river after it has entered the rich plain of Bournabachi, but of that part of it which Xerxes must have paffed in journeying from Gargarus to the fuppofed fituation of Troy. From this statement it appears evident to us, that this river was, in the opinion of Herodotus, the Scamander of Homer. But, in addition, he proceeds to fay that Xerxes from this river paffed to Troy ; 'ἐπὶ τᾶτον δὴ τὸν ποταμὸν ὡς ἀπίκετο Ξέρξης, ἐς τὸ Πριάμε Πέργαμον ἀνάβη, ἵμερον ἔχων θεήσασθαι. Polym. μy Now, had he gone with his army to drink where Meflrs Chevalier, Morritt, and Gell direct him, viz. to the fources of the rivulet of Bournabachi, he must abfolutely have paffed through part of the town in order to arrive at them, inftead of meeting with the water in his way to the city: moreover, there is no intimation of his drinking at the fources of the ftream; on the contrary, he arrives at once on the banks of the river,-which would be impoffible, according to Mr Gell's defcription of the Scamander. Before we difmifs this part of the question, we must take notice of another peculiarity in the arguments of thefe gentlemen. It being evident that the Scamander was more honoured by the Trojans than the Simois, they are reduced to fome difficulty, in order to explain why the little rivulet of Bournabachi should be held in higher estimation than the larger river of the hills: for this purpofe, the waters of the latter are first said to be impure, which we cannot admit to be the cafe; and then its ftream is defcribed as inconftant, fometimes rolling along with great impetuofity, but, for the greatest part of the year, leaving its channel entirely dry. If this statement were true, nothing conclufive could be gathered from it; for we find that the veneration of the antients was not regulated by fuch circumftances. Thus at Athens, the Iliffus, excepting a very few weeks in the year, is perfectly dry; while, on the other hand, the Cephifus not only affords a plentiful stream of water the whole year, but, by its channel being carried in various directions amongst the olive trees, confers the most effential benefit on the inhabitants. Notwithstanding this, we fcarcely ever find the Cephifus celebrated by any of the poets. It was on the banks of the Iliffus that Orythia was playing when carried off by Boreas; it was the Iliffus which gave a name to the Mufes, and on its banks they had their altars; it was with the waters of the Iliffus that the initiated into the leffer myfteries were purified. The real ftate of the fact, however, renders all this difquifition unneceffary: for although the Mendere Sou, like all ftreams which run in part through a mountainous diftrict, is liable to be greatly increased by the occafional fwelling of thofe torrents which run into it, and therefore its ftream may properly be called inconftant; yet we deny that at any time the of year it is without a confiderable body of water. The univerfal affertion of the neighbouring Turks, and the large fish caught in it, fufficiently prove this; and when we faw it in the month of July, when its waters might fairly be confidered at the loweft, the current was at least two hundred feet in breadth, near the place where it falls into the fea. III. Mr Bryant has referred to two paffages in Homer, from which it clearly appears, that Troy must have been built in the plain, and at a confiderable distance from the mountains of Ida. ἐπεὶ εὔπω Ἴλιος ἱρὴ Εν πεδίῳ πεπόλισο. &c. II. Y. 216. Οἶσθα γὰρ ὡς κατὰ ἄςυ ἔλμεθα, τηλόθι δ ̓ ὕλη Some perfons, however, ftill maintain, that the fituation of Bournabachi correfponds with the account of Troy as given by the poet. Bournabachi, they fay, stands upon a small eminence rifing from the plain, and is feparated by a confiderable interval from the Idaan mountains. This is their language, when they are reminded that Troy was built in a plain; but when it is ftated, that the fources of the Scamander must be fought for among the fummits of Ida, then they tell us that the hill of Bournabachi belongs to the great chain of the Idæan mountains, and then we hear of its steep afcents and craggy precipices. There is an unlucky paffage in Homer, which is totally unintelligible, telligible, if the hill of Bournabachi be the fite of the ancient Troy. We fhall request of our readers to turn to the twenty-first book of the Iliad, and to read from verfe 487 to verfe 571. They will then fee, that it was at the beech-tree, which was very near the walls, that Agenor, inftigated by Apollo, deliberated with himself whether or not he should encounter Achilles. Let them particularly mark the words of Agenor at verfe 555. Now we afk, how Agenor was to get from the pofition where he stood, to the fteeps and thickets of Ida, by the Ileian plain? The scholiaft fays that this was the place, iv ♬ "I^8 Tapos is..* If, then, the maps of the travellers be accurate, and if they have put Troy and the tomb of Ilus in their proper places, this paffage in Agenor's speech is, as we have faid, unintelligible. Every step that Agenor took across the plain must have carried him further from the mountain, and nearer to the shore. Mr Gell, after the example of Morritt and Chevalier, frequently fpeaks of the hill of wild fig-trees. We do not recollect that Homer has made mention of fuch a hill. In the fixth book, Andromache fays to Hector, Poft the army nigh the wild fig-tree, where the city is chiefly acceffible, and the wall may be most eafly fcaled. In the twenty-fecond book, Achilles and Hector ran near the watch-tower, and the wild fig-tree that is much expofed to the winds. Even the words quoted from Strabo by Mr Dalzel, do not authorife the travellers to speak of a hill of wild fig-trees. It is, however, convenient for them to do fo, as the hill of Bournabachi is furrounded by other hills. But we muft beg leave to remind our readers, that this fame wild fig-tree is defcribed by Homer as being in the middle of the plain; and fince the wild fig-tree was very near the city, the city could not have been far from the middle of the plain. Οἱ δὲ παρ ̓ Ἴλου σῆμα παλαιοῦ Δαρδανίδαο, Mr Bryant's tranflation of this paffage ought to be thus amended. Mr We are informed by Euftathius, that fome were accustomed to write onion for io. The travellers, we fuppofe, are agreed with us, in thinking the latter the right reading, as they have taken no notice of the former. |