Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/156

128 this mosque was a Latin inscription containing a dedication to the Emperor Claudius, as a "Sodalis Augustalis." On the lintel of a window was the fragment of another Latin inscription, containing part of the name and titles of Nero."$58$ In front of the mosque was the capital of a large Doric column and a plain marble chair.

We rode on, the next morning, to a village called Koushibashi in the mountains, half an hour south of Chimenlai and about three hours east of Alexandria Troas. Near this are seven immense granite columns, lying just as they were left rough-hewn in the quarry, from which they have been cut as neatly as if their material was cheese or soap. They vary from 37 to 38 feet in length, and are about 5 feet 6 inches in their greatest diameter. They appear to be Roman, and to have been left rough-hewn to be conveyed to some distant temple, and then polished. This accounts for their not being all exactly the same length. The quarry from which they were taken lies to the north-east of the row. The marks of the chisel remain on the vertical face of the granite in parallel horizontal grooves.

On the road from this quarry to Alexandria Troas is another of these columns, abandoned on its way to the sea. There is something very grand in the aspect of these seven sleepers lying so silently on the granite bed out of which they were hewn.

To the south of Koushibashi, our road began to ascend through a rocky and barren district, till we reached Chigri, a most curious acropolis crowning a mountain, which, according to the Admiralty chart,