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stone bridges; some with two, some with three arches. By the stream, not far from the great church, part of a wall is yet standing of about ninety paces

On the other side of Selinus is a very handsome and large church, formerly called Sancta Sophia, into which you ascend by several stone stairs; now polluted by the Turks, and made a mosch. We observed a passage under ground from the castle to the Selinus, by which they supplied themselves with water. Along the side of a hill, from the south-west, are the remainders of an aqueduct. On a hill, to the west of the city, we met with several' vast ruins, with six great arches over a water, which seems to have been formerly a common sewer; and south of this another range of six arches more, with two large rooms. The former of these ruins the Turks call Kizserai, or the Women's Seraglio; telling us that anciently they were kept there, accommodating, according to their rude conception of things, who have not the least knowJedge of antiquity, the customs of former ages to the practice of their emperor at Constantinople, and fancying them to have been the very same.

More southward is another great ruined building, with arches, situated pleasantly upon a hill; from whence we had a good prospect of the city and the neighbouring plain; hard by which is a theatre that opens to the south; the marks of the steps still remaining. In the declivity of which, almost at the bottom, is a marble stone, about seven spans in length, and two in breadth, with this inscription, HPAAHE. On the opposite side a marble statue, about two or three feet in the rubbish, which we caused to be removed by a poor Christian; this being the only way to preserve it; the Turks being such professed enemies to all human figures, whether painted or in mosaic, or wrought in brass or mable, that it would quickly be defaced and broken if it appeared above ground. As we walked in the streets, we observed several vaults almost every where.

The state of the Christians here is very sad and deplorable, there being not above fifteen families of them: their chief employinent is gardening, by which they make a shift to get a little money to pay their herache, and satisfy the demands of their cruel and greedy oppressors, and maintain a sad miserable life. They have one church, dedicated to St. Theodore, the bishop of Smyrna,

Smyrna, under whose jurisdiction they are, taking care to send a priest to officiate among them.

Having satisfied ourselves with the view of Pergamus, on Thursday, the 6th, about sun-rise, we set forward in our journey toward Thyatira, our way lying almost due cast, repassing the Cetius and Caicus; which last we forded at about two miles distant from the city.

On the seventh, from Bak-hair, after four hours, we came to a village, called Mader-kuy, seated on a little hill, under which runs a little river, which loseth its waters in the Hermus. In the plain before it we saw several pillars (about forty or fifty), some fixt in the ground, and others lying upon the grass; no other ruins being near. From this village to Thyatira in one hour.

THYATIRA.

Thyatira (called by the Turks Akhifar, or the white castle), a city of Lydia, is distant from Pergamus about forty-eight miles, almost south-east; situated in a spacious plain, about two miles and an half in compass. Very few of the ancient buildings remain here; one we saw, which seems to have been a market-place, having six pillars sunk very low in the ground, about four spans only left above. We could not find any ruins of churches; and enquiring of the Turks about it, they told us there were several great buildings of stone under ground; which we were very apt to believe, from what we had observed in other places, where digging somewhat deep, they inet with strong foundations, that, without all question, have formerly supported great buildings; but the descriptions of the ancients, and the several inscriptions that we found there, put it out of doubt, that this is the true Thyatira: though the Greeks, who are prodigiously ignorant of their own antiquities, take Tyreh, a town twenty-five miles to the south-east of Ephesus, to be the place, being deceived by the nearness of the sound the one has with the other: upon the same weak pretence, as they have mistaken hitherto Laotik, a town not far from Ancyra, (Angury, the Turks call it) in Galatia, for Laodicea; when we have most authentick proofs, that it is placed near to the river Lycus, and not far from Hyerapolis. Several inscriptions were found, which mentioned the name of the city-Thyatira.

I find, by several inscriptions, that the inhabitants of

this city, as well as those of Ephesus, were, in the times of heathenism, great votaries and worshippers of the goddess Diana. In the corner of a street, near a fountain, upon a broken stone put into a wall, is the following inscription :

APTÉMIAI:.:. OPEIT.

To Diana, goddess of the mountains: and in the buryingplace of the Turks (who always bury their dead out of town, and near the high-way, except their emperors and their relations, or some great men, as Bassas or others, who have merited well by their services of the empire, who have the privilege to be buried in cities, as Constantinople, Adrianople, or Prusia, near the moschs, or chanes, in their own ground, which they had purchased) to the north-west of the city, where there are a great many stately pillars, which were designed to another use, is a very fair stone, erected to the honour of one of her priestesses, Ulpia Marcella, by the ́senate and people.

This city has a very great convenience of water, which streams in every street, flowing from a neighbouring hill to the eastward of it, about a mile off; there being above three thousand five hundred pipes, if the Turks may be credited, to convey it to every part of it. It is populous, inhabited most by Turks, who have eight moschs here; few Christians residing among them; those Armenians we found there being strangers, who came there to sell shashes, handkerchiefs, &c. which they bring out of Persia. They are maintained chiefly by the trade of cotton-wool, which they send to Smyrna, for which commodity Thyatira is very considerable. On the 8th we left Thyatira.

In our way we repassed the Hermus, over a large stone bridge, that seems to have been built of late years; and after two hours and a half, passing through a village, called Jarosh-kuy, that lies about two miles on this side, we arrived at Sardes, having been eleven hours on horseback our way all along from Thyatira lying almost due south.

SARDES,

Sardes (retaining somewhat of its name still, though nothing of its ancient glory, being called by the Turks Sart) is situated at the foot of the famous mountain Tmolus; on the north side of it, having a spacious and

delightful

delightful plain before it, watered with several streams that flow from the neighbouring hill to the south-east, and with the Pactolus, arising from the same, on the east, and encreasing with its waters the stream of Hermus, into which it runs; is now a very pitiful and beggarly village, the houses few and mean; but, for the accommodation of travellers, it being the road for the caravans that come out of Persia to Smyrna with silk, there is a large chane built in it, as is usual in most towns that are near such public roads, or have any thing of trade where we took up our quarters; the Turks refusing to admit us into their houses and lodge us, hearing from our Janizaries that we were Franks. The inhabitants are, for the most part, shepherds, who look to those numerous flocks and herds which feed in the plains.

To the southward of the town, at the bottom of a little hill, the castle lying eastward of them, are very considerable ruins still remaining, which quickly put us in mind of what Sardes was, before earthquakes and war had caused those horrid desolations here; there being six pillars standing, of about seven yards in compass, and about ten in height; besides several vast stones, of which the other pillars that are thrown down were made, one placed upon the ther, and so exactly closed in those that stand, as if they were one entire piece, now lying by in a confused heap; the first row of pillars supporting huge massy stones that lie upon themn.

From hence we went up to the castle, which lies eastward; the ascent very steep, in some places almost perpendicular; so that we were forced to take a great compass about to gain the top of the hill whereon it stands; easy enough to be undermined, having no rock to support it; but what might be as well impregnable for its strength, as inaccessible for its height, in former ages. Within the castle we found this inscription upon the chapiter of a pillar:

ΦΙΛΗ ΤΙΜΩΛΙΣ ΕΤΕΙΜΗ
ΣΕΝ EK ΤΩΝ IAION TIBE
ΟΝ ΚΑΙΣ

By which it appears, that it was erected in honour of Tiberius the emperor, whom Sardes ought to acknowledge as a second founder; he having taken care to repair the breaches caused by an earthquake, and having given it the form of a city again, as Strabo has recorded. Easterly

Easterly of the castle lie the ruins of a great church; and north of them other vast ruins, the walls still remaining of a very considerable length, with several divisions and apartments; all which take up a great compass of ground. Whether it was the chief seat of the governor, or the public court of justice, or the place where the citizens used to converse, at this distance of time, and in so great a confusion wherein it is involved, is difficult to conjecture: but whatever it was when it stood, it must needs have been very stately and glorious, We met with other ruins all along this tract, which made us quickly conclude, that the greatest part of the city lay that way.

The Turks have a mosch, which was formerly a Christian church, at the entrance of which are several curious pillars of polished marble. Some few Christians there are who live among them, working in gardens, and doing such like drudgery; but who have neither church nor priest to assist them, and administer the holy sacraments to them into such a sad and miserable condition is this once glorious city and church of Sardes, the metropolis of Lydia, now reduced.

On the 10th we set out from Sardes, and arrived at Philadelphia.

(To be concluded in our next.)

ON THE INEXPLICABLE MYSTERY OF THE

TRINITY.

From a very interesting and entertaining work, just published, entitled "Memoirs of a Traveller now in Retirement, written by himself," vol. v.

F there be any one mystery, to endeavour to com

be

tainly that of the Trinity; but this is not a reason for doubting of the mystery. We believe in so many things that we cannot comprehend, because they are above our capacity, that being once persuaded of the Christian Religion, by incontestible evidence, the mysteries it presents for the exercise of faith ought not to shake that Vol. XI. Churchm. Mag. for Aug. 1806. S. faith.

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