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- Rev. Francis V.J. Arundell (1780-1846) was chaplain to the Levant Company in Smyrna. This account gives a description of the ruins of several ancient cities in Asia Minor with some focus on Antioch of Pisidia. -
Tuesday October 23
(pg. 23) On rising, soon after six, the weather was unpromising but it brightened, and when we set off about nine o'clock, became fine. In half an hour we came to a fountain on the right : such a thing would not merit notice in European travelling, but here, in the land of heats and droughts, it is too important to be omitted. In five minutes more another lay near an ancient burial-ground with so many fragments of antiquity within it, that if Cassaba does not stand upon an ancient site, certainly some such must have been at no great distance ; for it is incredible, that all these fragments should have been brought from Sardis, as they are commonly said to have been.
We had scarcely quitted it, when a spectacle presented itself, perhaps not uncommon in older times, but certainly much more frequently to be seen since the destruction of the Janissaries, and the establishment of the Tacticoes, or regular troops.
A number of young lads, few above fifteen years of age, were tied together with strong ropes in a string, like a caravan of camels, guarded by some Turks, heavily armed with pistol, gun, and yatagan, on horseback. The boys did not seem to march reluctantly, rather in perfectly good-humour ; but it was distressing to see them followed by a poor woman, the mother evidently of one of them, in all the agony of despair. We are ready to call the Turks barbarians, as usual, but where is the difference between these Tactico recruits and the conscripts of civilized France, or the victims of a pressgang in enlightened and religious England?
Another burial-place lay in the road a little before ten, and about the same time we came to a well, and abreast of the village of Debrent, a most picturesque looking place, under the mountain on our right ; the population is estimated at two hundred Turkish houses. The peaks of Mount Tmolus began here to assume the fantastic shapes that continue most of the way to Sardis.
The road is over a fine plain, and at a quarter past ten we crossed a wide but dry water-course ; and about eleven o'clock were dismounted at the door of the Cafe of Vourkanle, called also sometimes, but incorrectly, Ourganle. Every Turkish name has its signification ; and Vourkanle, says Kyriacos, an excellent Turkish scholar, means " much blood shedding; " a very likely and appropriate name for a place in the plains of Sardis, where so much blood has been shed in every period of history. Perhaps this may have its origin in some battle of later Turkish times, but more probably the Turks have only preserved a tradition which existed ages before.
Three large tumuli, which lay on the right of the road, at half past eleven, were incontestable evidences that much blood had been shed, and the thousands that fell now mingle their dust in peace. In ten minutes more we crossed a green ridge, running down into the plain, and at one extremity of which I fancied, on a former journey, that I saw the remains of a square entrenched camp ; the ridge itself is probably the ancient Roman road.
We travelled on till we reached the cafe and village of Achmetlee at twenty minutes after twelve, crossing a stream close to it; and we saw nothing more remarkable than several caravans of camels, having a horse for their leader, instead of their usual conducteur, an ass! and this on the very plains where Cyrus owed his victory over Croesus, chiefly to the horror which horses of that day had for the gentlemen with the hunch-back.
Civilization is progressing even on the plains of Sardis, as proved by a large new khan of superior appearance which we reached at half past twelve. For the next hour we had little to rermark except the extensive plain on our left, and the ccmtinually changing forms of the peaks of Tmolus on the right; and about half past one we saw a village some way down in the plain on the left; Milcom called it Titan, but whether it be so or Hamicle, or either I would not venture to determine.
A much more interesting olgect was now. the Acropolis of Sardis rising before us, and presenting a striking resemblance to the mountain above the town of Zante, and the soft sandstone rock distorted and rent in the same extraordinary manner, and perhaps by the same agency, of earthquakes.
With our eyes, fixed on this crumbling monument of the grandeur and nothingness of man, and looking in vain for the city, whose mul-titudes lie under the countless sepulchral hillocks on the other side of the Hermus, we arrived at what was once the metropolis of Lydia.
If I should be asked what impresses the mind most strongly, on beholding Sardis, I should say, its indescribable solitude, like the darkness in Egypt, darkness that could be felt. So the deep solitude of the spot, once the "lady of kingdoms," produces a corresponding feeling of desolate abandonment in the mind, which can never be forgotten.
Connect this feeling with the message of the Apocalypse to the church of Sardis, "Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead ; I will come on thee as a thief; and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee;" and then look round and ask, where are the churches, where are the Christians of Sardis? The tumuli beyond the Hermus reply, "All dead!" suffering the infliction of the threatened judgment of God, for the abuse of their privileges. Let the unbeliever then be asked, Is there no truth in prophecy ? no reality in religion ?
We walked along the banks of the famed Pactolus, and thence to the two remaining pillars of the temple of Cybele, one of the oldest monuments at present existing in the world, and erected only three hundred years after the temple of Solomon. Mr, Dethier made a sketch of it, and we afterwards took a slight yiew of the theatre, stadium, and remains of the churches ; and the ruin called the Gerusia, but conjectured by Mr. M'Farlane to have been a church.
I examined it with much attention once more, though I had formerly made a plan of it, and would gladly have been convinced that it had been a church ; but there was so much evidence against it, and particularly in its position, which is north and souths instead of east and west, that I reluctantly was compelled to abandon the idea. It appeared much more dilapidated than when I first saw it, and so did the church which is above the mill. That on the plain was clearly a very early and magnificent building, and I regretted that I had no time to take the ground-plan and dimensions.
It is remarkable, that the Turks call the branch of the Pactolus which is on the east side— not that near the temple of Cybele — by a name signifying "the river of riches" preserving the tradition of the golden-streamed Pactolus, and coafirming the obBervations in my former journey.*
We mounted our horses again, at four o'clock, for Salickly, which by Milcom's calculation was three hours distant, and, as he wished us to believe, not reachable by daylight. Well aware that it could not be so far, we notwithstanding hastened on, and at too quick a pace to take much observation on the way, fearful of being benighted, or, what was as bad, arriving too late to find a lodging.
The road lay over the plain, and being uninteresting, we lost nothing ; but we were agreeably surprised to find ourselves at Salickly within half the calculated time, viz. at half past five o'clock, and we were not a minute too early : the bazaar-day being to-morrow, erery hole in the village was filled to overflowing ; and had it not been for a kind-hearted Jew we might have enjoyed the refreshing breezes of the street all night.
Travellers would do w^U to avoid arriving at any place on the eve of the bazaar or market day ; every other day in the week, probably half or more of the houses are shut up unoccupied, but the bazaar-day is the grand day of business and rendezvous for every man of business, for miles around the village, from the vender of Tchibouks to the mender of old shoes.
Our kind-hearted Jew, it is a pity we have forgotten to immortalize his name, was a possessor of an apartment about ten feet by eight, on the Kez au Chauss^e, which he had completely filled to the ceiling (if there had been one, as there was not) with every variety of vendible ware, calculating on a golden harvest.
It is impossible to enumerate his merchandize, the mixture was of so heterogeneous a nature ; but there were heaps of skins, drest and undrest, bags, bales and boxes, buffaloes' horns, salt fish, and other things not less savoury ; all were thrust out, and we had the exclusive occupation of the entire apartment. We were fearful that some of the Israelitish property, being of too minute a description to be well seen at such an hour, might have remained behind; but our fears were groundless, and our honesty uninipeached.
(pg. 32) In a village of fifty houses, (for that is the number of Turkish, and only one Greek,) overflowing with buyers and sellers, almost enough for five hundred, there was no fear of oversleeping ; and we were up by daylight, and making our purchases for the journey.
Kyriacos, who was at the head of the commissariat, bargained for a stock of fish from the Hermus, which had been submitted to the frying-pan long before the sun was up, figs and eggs, milk and yaourt \ while I added to our travelling case two articles which were subsequently found invaluable ; a tin sconce or lamp, and a tin cup or boiler ; both for a piastre, for bargains may be had at Salickly.
I should be ungrateful to Salickly, if I did not enumerate some of the rich variety of merchandize exposed — not in the shops, for there were none — but upon the ground^ in this day of the bazaar. There were the necessaries, and even luxuries of life. There were shoes and toe- turned slippers, black and red ; turban shawls and scull-caps ; horse and ass shoes, for camels wear none ; travelling benishes and tailors' needles ; blue beads for camel's necks ; toilet looking-glasses, and gum mastic ; large assortment of cordage and palank tackle ; and in earthenware, choice varieties of stamnas and dedjar^s and gaumaries*
Though there is biit one Greek house in Salicklj, yet there is a chapel, probably in the same bouse, which has a numerous congregation from the neighbourhood every Sunday.
Early as we had risen, it was half past eight before we were on our horses, for it was not an afiair of a moment to arrange saddles, and baggage-bags, palanks and paplomas. Our route lay over the plain, in a direction nearly east, and we were for some time amidst thickets of tamarisk and Turcoman's tents.
It is difficult to describe the appearance of the lower and nearest ridge of Mount Tmolus which, as before, lay on the right, ^but more distant ; and more difficult to account satisfactorily for this appearance. It looks like a continued line. of low sand-hills, or as if the whole of the soil had been washed down from the lofty mountain which rises immediately above, leaving the rocks bare, and that these lower hills were formed by this soil. * It is too extravagant to suppose, perhaps, that the whole of this plain was once the crater of an immense volcano, and the plain subsequently formed by alluvial deposit.
At half-past nine we came to the banks of a river, in other seasons passed by a wooden bridge which was near, but in this season of most extraordinary drought, there was very little water, and we forded it. This is the river which is passed so repeatedly between Debrent and Bulladan ; then flows at the distance of an hour and half before Allah-ssher, (Philadelphia) and pursues its course till it falls into the Hermus. As there is no other river deserving the name near Philadelphia, this must be the Cogamus.
On the left of our road lies a village called either Titan or Eycarn. It is true the names are not at all alike, but we were not quite satisfied with the correctness of Milcom s information, he having already (since yesterday morning) announced to us two Titans on the road, and we began to fancy ourselves on the site of the war so famed in ancient mythology.
At a quarter past ten we came to the village of Dourasolou. Whatever may be the etymology of this name, it is not a tempting residence ; cold and cheerless as Greenland in winter, and not very mildly treated by the sunbeams in summer, as we may infer from a number of pits in which the com. Sec. is kept during the summer months, covered deep with straw, and above with mounds of earth.
We now take a south-eastern course over an extensive open country, without a single tree, or vestige of human habitation, at least of modern times ; for at a quarter past eleven, some fragments of columns, &c. on the right, are evidences that living beings, (or, if it is a cemetery, dead ones,) have on other days occupied the spot. We cross a water^course very near this, and a road leading probably to Philadelphia.
In the large French map of Count Guillemi-not, the town of Dioshieron is placed nearly on this spot, but most erroneously, for that place lay on the south side of Mount Tmolus in the vale of the Cayster, as is clear from that river being named on the medals of Dioshieron. At the same time, it is probable the columns belonged to some Lydian temple, and we fancied we saw a spot near, which, a little elevated, had been the emplacement
The continued sameness of this most uninteresting country, as uninviting as the steppes of Russia, was at length relieved by the approach of one human being. He was a Turk, coming towards us with a steady, determined step. He was the bearer of dispatches, but he neither wore the silver greyhound, nor received the pay of a royal messenger. Milcom recognized in him an old acquaintance, a Smyrnipte, or half Smymiote and half Persian, as his life appeared pretty equally divided in journeying on foot between the two.
He was now returning from Erivan, whither he had been dispatched by a merchant of Smyrna, and the dispatches were certainly not conveyed with the velocity of steam ; yet three months is not a very long time for a Jbot courier to find his way to Erivan, to get his dispatches and return to Smyrna. Nor was his pay exorbitant, being six hundred piastres for the journey and return, something about seven pounds English][ currency at the present exchange.
At a quarter past twelve, Milcom, whose throat seemed to sympathize with the present drought, and as if indued with that instinct by which horses are said to know that they are approaching water, though even at a considerable distance, alighted at a little shed by the roadside, within which he found a large vase full of excellent water, replenished every day for the thirsty traveller, who would in vain seek it elsewhere.
Does not the beautiful definition of genuine charity instantly occur to the mind? " Whosoever shall give a cup of cold water only unto one of these little ones, in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no way lose his reward." And yet he that placed the vase of water in the shed, and brought it from a considerable distance and placed it there every day, was not a Christian — but, a poor, despised, Mahometan!
And what did this poor man propose to himself? It could neither be to receive money nor thanks, for having filled the vase perhaps before sunrise, he never returns to it till the following morning. Shall we deny him, though he be not a Christian, the justice of supposing that he had a benevolent heart, and what is better still, that he did it from love to God ? He places not the vase for the " disciple," only — it is not for those exclusively who hold common faith with himself, — but, like the heavenly virtue of benevolence, the refreshing draught is as free to the giaour as to the disciples of the prophet.
Surely such a people, whenever the period shall arrive that they receive the water of life from Him, who invites all to come and buy water without money and without price — the living water of everlasting life — will be much more likely to be an honour to Christianity, than multitudes who now bear the name. These little water repositories are to be met with in every direction. This is not a charity of modern date ; for Tavernier tells us, that in going from Afiumkarahissar towards Tocat : " II y a une chose a remarquer dans cette route, et en beaucoup d'autres, qui montre qu'il y a de la charite parmi les Turcs. Sur la plupart des grands chemins qui sont fort eIoignez des rivieres ils ont fait des cisternes, ou quand la pluie vient a manquer en de certaines annees, on apporte des villages voisins de Teau pour les passans, qui sans cela suffriroient beaucoup."
The hills on the right, sterile, reddish brown, and almost bare of vegetation, show that we are approaching the Katacecaumene. At one o'clock our course was east by north, and soon after we came to a fountain and almond-tree, near which Mr. Dethier narrowly escaped a broken limb, being thrown from his horse, or rather, as he was an excellent horseman, threw himself off with great adroitness, as the animal was falling upon its side on a craggy rock.
A deep torrent-bed lay close on the right of the road at a quarter past one, and continued to do so all the way to the cafe called Cokedere, where we alighted at ten minutes before two. I recognized the place as the memorable site of my adventure with Milcom in 1826, when, losing our way from Koola, we passed the night in this open, and at that time untenanted, shed, and had our slumbers broken in upon before sunrise by a pasha and his numerous suite going to Aleppo.
Whether the cafidji was the ancient proprietor of the mansion, and wished to be paid for our former accommodation, it is certain he was not contented with the present remuneration made him for the permission to seat ourselves on the ground outside the cafi6, and eat our own provisions, but he received nothing in addition but a pithy reprimand from Milcom, which detained us till half-past two.
Our road lay along the torrent-bed as before, till we gradually ascended and reached the summit of a hill at a quarter past three. Here we could not complain that the view which presents itself is, like the former part of the road, an uninteresting one ; on the contrary, it is one which, from its contrast to any thing we had hitherto seen, while it strongly excites, almost for the first moments appals the mind.
The prominent objects in an extensive view are four mountains, evidently all volcanic : three of them have craters, yet the principal indication of their having been volcanoes is from the form ; for the mountains themselves, or large hills rather, though of a brownish and dark colour, bore no other evidence as yet of what they once were.
In a short time, however, all doubt is removed ; for at four o'clock we rode through the midst of lava, that is to say, both our road and the ground on the right and left are completely covered with small volcanic stones. We passed over much of this, and then for a time found ourselves beyond its limits ; but, having subsequently ascended to a considerable elevation commanding an extensive view, we saw what may properly be designated as the great volcanic mountain of Koola.
The descent was long, and by a troublesome road. It was growing dark, but we were notwithstanding favoured with a fine view of the town of Koola, and the lava plains or ridges about it, long before we arrived there, which was at six o'clock. (pg.42)
Mapping by Gavin Blasdel, Version 1 (February 2017)