Page:Busbecq, Travels into Turkey (1744).pdf/69

 *tiquity; but I paid him back in his own Coin, by telling; him, That I would have given him a hundred Guilders for them; so that my Revenge was suited to his Injury; for I sent him away as sorrowful, as he did me for losing the Coins.

for Plants, I saw very few in my Journey in those Parts, which were unknown to us in Europe. They were almost all of the same Kind; only they were more or less flourishing, according to the Richness or Poverty of the Soil. The Amomum, which, Dioscorides says, grows near Pontus, I very diligently sought for, but in vain; so that I knew not whether that Plant did not fail in that Country, or else was transplanted into another.

Town of Ancyra, was our 9th Stage from Constantinople. It is a Town of Galatia, sometimes the Seat of the Gauls, called by Pliny, Tectosagum; nor was it unknown to Strabo: Though perhaps the present Town is but part of the old Town, called in the Canons, Anguira. Here we saw a stately Superscription, and a Sampler of those Tables, wherein the Atchievments of Augustus were summarily comprehended. I caused as much of it, as we could read, to be transcribed. It is cut in the Marble Walls of that Structure, which heretofore was the Town-hall; but is now demolished, so that one part of it is visible to those that enter on the right Hand, and the other to those that enter upon the left. The top Chapiters are almost entire; the Middle is full of Clefts, and the lowermost Part of it is so battered with Clubs and Hatchets, that it cannot be read; which Loss cannot be sufficiently lamented by all Lovers of Learning; and so much the more, because the Commons of Asia, dedicated this City to Augustus. Here also, we were Eye-witnesses of the dying of that Cloth, I spake of before, made of Goats-wool, and how