Feb. 1.—Our journey of this day is from Kónia to Tshumra, reckoned a six hours' stage. We have remarked that since leaving Ak-shehr the post-horses are of an inferior kind. They are larger and not well formed, often broken-knee'd, and frequently falling, which seldom happened in the first part of our journey. Those supplied from Kónia for this day's journey are very indifferent, and we did not get them till ten o'clock, nor till after we had paid some high fees to the post-master and Tatár-aga. The plain of Kónia is considered the largest in Asia Minor; our road pursues a perfect level for upwards of twenty miles, and is in excellent order for travelling. In such roads the journey, even with loaded horses, may be performed in two-thirds of the computed time. A rough kind of two-wheeled carriage, drawn by oxen or buffaloes, is used in this plain. It runs upon trucks, ingeniously formed of six pieces of solid wood, three in the centre, and three on the outside, the outer joints falling opposite to the centre of the inner pieces; the whole is kept together by an iron felloe, and by fastenings connecting the outer pieces with the inner.

It remains to submit to the reader some observations in justification of the ancient names in the western and northern parts of the map which accompanies the present volume. It will not be necessary to enter into this part of the subject so fully as into those which have already been under consideration. The western provinces, in consequence of their celebrity and greater advantages of climate, soil, and situation, have been more fully described, both by ancient and modern writers; so that, in conducting the reader to the results recorded on the map, a general reference on the one hand to the travellers whose routes are there marked, and on the other to the ancient historians, geographers, and itineraries, will be sufficient. In those instances only, it may be necessary to be more particular, where the ancient positions are determined by less obvious authorities or by unpublished documents, or where the question is rendered doubtful by deficient or conflicting evidence. As to the north-eastern part of the peninsula, we must be contented with a brief notice of its geography, for a reason the reverse of that which induces me to abridge the geographical notice of the provinces bordering on the Ægæan sea.

On the 19th of January 1800, I quitted Constantinople, on my way to Egypt, in company with the late Brigadier General Koehler, the late Sir Richard Fletcher, the late Archdeacon Carlyle, Arabic professor at Cambridge, and Mr. Pink, of the corps of Royal Military Surveyors, and Draftsmen. We were well armed, and dressed as Tatár Couriers; and the whole party, including servants, baggage, Turkish attendants, and postillions, formed a caravan of thirty five horses. At this time, there were two roads across Asia Minor, used by messengers and other persons, travelling post between the Grand Vizier's army, and the capital; the one meeting the south coast at Adália, the other at Kelénderi. We deferred deciding as to which we should follow, until we should arrive at the point of separation.

We left Iskiodár (in Greek, Σϰοντάϱιον, Skutári) at 11 a.m., and travelled for four hours along the borders of the sea of Marmora, through one of the most delightful tracts in the neighbourhood of Constantinople ; its beauty heightened by the mildness of the weather and the clearness of the atmosphere. On our right was the tranquil expanse of the sea of Marmora, as far as the high woody coast on the south side of Nicomedia, surmounted by the majestic summits of the Bitbynian Olympus. In the midst of this magnificent basin were seen immediately before us the Princes Islands, with their picturesque villages and convents, amidst pine groves and vineyards.

I shall now submit to the reader some observations on the ancient geography of the route of General Koehler and his party from Adália to Shughut.

This road traverses a part of Asia Minor upon which ancient history throws little light. The text of Strabo is almost contradictory in regard to some of the principal places which lay near the road; and the itineraries supply no routes in this direction, though there are five in the Peutinger Table which intersect it.

The march of Alexander from Pamphylia to Gordium in Phrygia, as related by Arrian ; and the description by Livy of the progress of the Consul Cneius Manlius in his Expedition from Cibyra into Pamphylia and from thence by Sagalassus to Synnada and into Galatia, are the only historical documents. As the passage of Livy is very detailed and was borrowed from Polybius, its information deserves more confidence than is usually due to that of a Latin author in regard to Grecian geography; and it may hereafter be extremely useful, when the ancient ruins, with which Pisidia and the adjacent districts are known to abound, shall have been more explored. In the present state of our knowledge of the country, it supplies not much positive information.

To the traveller who delights in tracing vestiges of Grecian art and civilization amidst modern barbarism and desolation, and who may thus at once illustrate history and collect valuable materials for the geographer and the artist—there is no country that now affords so fertile a field of discovery as Asia Minor. Unfortunately, there is no province of the Ottoman empire more difficult to explore in detail. In European Turkey, the effects of the Mahometan system are somewhat tempered by its proximity to civilised Europe, by its conscious weakness, and by the great excess of the Christian population over the Turkish : but the Turk of Asia Minor, although he may be convinced of the danger which threatens the whole Ottoman empire, from the change that has taken place in the relative power of the Musulman and Christian world, since his ancestors conquered the favoured regions of which their successors have so long been permitted to remain in the undisturbed abuse—derives, nevertheless, a strong feeling of confidence and security, from his being further removed from the Christian nations which he dreads; and sensible that European Turkey must be the first to fall before the conqueror, he feels no restraint in the indulgence of his hatred to the Christian name, beyond that which may arise from the dictates of his religion, or from the native hospitality of the people of the East.

Before we pursue our route beyond the capital of the Greek province Lycaonia and of the Turkish kingdom Karamán, it may be right to offer a few remarks upon the general geography of this part of the peninsula, and upon the situation of some of the opulent and celebrated cities which anciently adorned it.

From the sources of the Sangarius and Halys on the north and east, to the great summits of Mount Taurus on the south-west and south, there is an extent of country nearly 250 miles long and 150 broad, in which the waters have no communication with the sea. Its southern part consists of fertile valleys or of extensive plains intersected by a few ranges of hills, and it is bounded to the southward by the great ridges of Mount Taurus, from whence are poured forth numerous streams, which, after fertilizing the valleys, collect their superabundant waters in a chain of lakes, extending from the neighbourhood of Synnada in Phrygia through the whole of Lycaonia to the extremity of the Tyanitis in Cappadocia. In the rainy season these lakes overflow the lower part of the plains, and would often form one entire inundation 200 miles in length, were it not for some ridges which traverse the plains and separate them into several basins. By the structure of the hills, and the consequent course of the waters, these basins form themselves into three principal recipients, having no communication with one another, unless it be in very extraordinary seasons.

Although the Karamania of Captain Beaufort has anticipated all that is most interesting in regard to the southern coast, the publication which has recently been mad of his minute and accurate delineation of this coast, induces me to enter into an examination of its ancient geography at greater length than was consistent with the plan of the Karamania: for poor and deserted as this country now is, the numerous remains of antiquity which it possesses, attest that it was formerly one of the most populous and flourishing regions of the ancient world. It is remarkable that in Strabo, and in the anonymous Periplus, entitled the Stadiasmus of the Sea (σταὸιασμὸϛ τῆϛ ϧαλάσσηϛ), a fragment of which is preserved in the Madrid library, we have a more ample description of this coast than of any other that has been distinguished by Grecian civilization: and thus at the same time that history has preserved an abundance of information concerning its ancient places, the survey of Capt. Beaufort furnishes us with a most correct representation of its real topography.

The most convenient mode of putting the reader in possession of the ancient authorities on the sea coast of Lycia, Pamphylia, and Cilicia, in order that he may compare them with the actual delineation, will be to give a translation of its description by Strabo, subjoining in the notes the collateral information of other ancient authors, together with a few remarks suggested by a comparison of them.