Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/140

 118 HISTORY OF GREECE. rarely happens that modern travellers go ovei these regions in mid- winter; but we may see what travelling is at that season, by the dreadful description which Mr. Baillie Fraser gives of his journey from Tauris to Erzerum in the month of March (Travels in Koordhistan, Letter XV). Mr. Kinneir says (Travels, p. 353) " The winters are so severe that all communication between Baiburt and the circumja- cent villages is cut off for four months in the year, in consequence of the depth of the snow." Now if we measure on Kiepert's map the rectilinear distance> the air-line from Trebizond to the place where Koch represents tho Greeks to have crossed the Eastern Euphrates, we shall find it one hundred and seventy English miles. The number of days' journey- marches which Xenophon mentions are fifty-four ; even if we include the five days of march undertaken from Gymnias (Anab. iv. 7, 20), which, properly speaking, were directed against the enemies of the governor of Gymnias, more than for the promotion of their retreat. In each of those fifty-four days, therefore, they must have made 3.14 miles of rectilinear progress. This surely is not an unreasonably slow progress to suppose, under all the disadvantages of their situ- ation ; nor does it imply any very great actual departure from the straightest line practicable. Indeed Koch himself (in his Introduction, p. 4) suggests various embarrassments which must have occurred on the march, but which Xenophon has not distinctly stated. The river which Xenophon calls the Harpasus seems to be probably the Tchoruk-su, as colonel Chesney and Prof. Koch suppose. At least it is difficult to assign any other river with which the Harpasus can be identified. I cannot but think it probable that the city which Xenophon calls Gymnias (Diodorus, xiv. 29, calls it Gymnasia) was the same as that which is now called Gumisch-Khana (Hamilton), Gumush-Kaneh (Ains* worth), Gemisch-Khaneh (Kinneir). " Gumisch-Khanah (says Mr, Hamilton, Travels in Asia Minor, vol. i. ch. xi. p. 168 ; ch. xiv. p. 234) is celebrated as the site of the most ancient and considerable silver- mines in the Ottoman dominions." Both Mr. Kinneir and Mr. Hamil- ton passed through Gumisch-Khana on the road from Trebizond to Erzerum. Now here is not only great similarity of name, and likelihood of situ- ition, but the existence of the silver mines furnishes a plausible explanation of that which would otherwise be very strange ; the exist- ence of this " great, flourishing, inhabited, city," inland, in the midst of such barbarians, the Chalybes, the Skythini, the Makrones, etc. Mr. Kinneir reached Gumisch-Khana at the end of the third day after quitting Trebizond ; the two last days having been very long and fatiguing. Mr. Hamilton, who also passed through Gumisch-Khana, reached it at the end of two long days. Both these travellers repre-