Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M--y W---y M---e : written during her travels in Europe, Asia and Africa ... Which contain ... accounts of the policy and manners of the Turks / [Mary Wortley Montagu].

Mary Wortley Montagu

Date:: 1790

Credit: Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M--y W---y M---e : written during her travels in Europe, Asia and Africa ... Which contain ... accounts of the policy and manners of the Turks / [Mary Wortley Montagu]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$in breadth, and three in tiycknefs. That on the right ii a very fine white marble, the lidc of it beauiitully carved In bas-relief; It reprefents a woman, who f«ems to be dc- flgncd for fome deity, fitting on a ciiair with a tootilool, and before her another woman, weeping, and prefenting to her a voung child that the has in her arms, followed by a procefllon of women with children in the fame manner. This is certainly part of a very ancient tomb ; but I dare not pretend to give the true explanation of it. On the ftone, on the left fide, is a very fair infeription ; but i the Creek is too ancient fur Mr W y’s interpreta- tion. I am verv forry not to have the original in my pof- fellion, which might have been purchafed of the poor in- habitants for a 'mall fum of money T But our captain af- fured -u , that without having machines made on puipjofe, ’twas impolTible to bear it to the fea-fide; and, when it was there, his long-boat woUld not be large enough to liold it. THE mins of this great city are now inhabited by poor Greek peafants, who wear the Sciote habit, the women belnv in fhort jietticoats, fafiened by flraps round their finuhlers, and large fmock lleeves of white linen, witli neat fhoes and llocklngs, and on their heads a large piece of miiflin, which falls In large foldj-oii their fiiouklers.— One of my countrpnen, Mr S^ds^-Cwhofe book I doubt not you have read, as one of/’^jbeft of its kind) fpeak- ing of thefe ruins, fiipoofes 1 to hav^e been the foun- dation of a citybegunby Co»*\'h:ine, before his building B^■zaulium 5 but I fee no g«'. \eafon for that imagina- tion, and am apt to believe t*m much more ancient. We faw very plainly from this promontory, the river Simois rolling from mount Ida, and running through a very 'pneiou; vallei. It i; now a confiderable river, and is callcvl Simores t it is jofned in the vale by the Scama.n- der. whicli appeared a fnu'd fiream half choaked with nniJ, but i.s ]ic’-haps large in the winter. This vva.s Xan- thus amnngd the gid-', as Homer tells '-s ; and'ti.s by j that heavenly name, the nymph Oeuonc invokes It, in her$