Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/154

126 The country between the Dardanelles and Troy is covered with brushwood, without a village, and scarcely any cultivated land. Nothing breaks the monotony of the horizon but the vast tumuli which appear at intervals against the sky, marking the grave of some Homeric hero. In travelling through this country, we saw but few human beings. Instead of the paved roads of Mytilene thronged with fat and greasy citizens riding home on their mules, and with all manner of traffic between the populous villages, the roads in the plain of Troy have long strings of camels on their way to some far country, and an occasional horseman armed to the teeth. These are all the traces of humanity visible, except the Sclavonian herdsman, who, with pistols in his belt and accompanied by dogs more savage than hunself, tends his vast flocks of sheep and goats; for now, as in the time of Horace,—

We made an expedition to the site of Troy, near which we passed the night in a cluflik, or farmhouse, of the Calverts. Thence, we rode to Bounarbashi, and examined the rocky hill encircled by the Mendere, which Chevalier claims as the site of Troy. If this hill has ever been an acropolis, we might expect to find those fragments of very early pottery which, as was first remarked by the late Mr. Burgon, are so abundant on the Homeric sites of Mycenæ and Tiryus.$56$ Of such pottery I saw not a vestige in the soil, nor could I