Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/330

280 , October 10, 1854.

in a previous letter that after my visit to Calymnos last year, I applied to Lord Stratford for a firman to enable me to make excavations there. His Excellency having obtained this firman, and very kindly provided me with funds sufficient for carrying on a small excavation, I am now about to take advantage of his assistance, which I should have done sooner had it not been for the necessity of going to England last winter.

I arrived here yesterday on my way to Rhodes, where I have to exhibit the firman to the Pasha. To-day I went to see the new road which extends from the Caravan Bridge nearly to Bournabat. This road, which was made last year by subscription, in order to give employment to the poor in a period of great distress, is a good wide macadamized highway, with a footpath on each side; but the people of the country make little use of it, as they have no wheeled carriages. The mules and pack-horses have worn away a serpentine track through the bed of the road. The smart equestrians of Smyrna usurp the footpath, but nobody uses the road in the sense in which we use roads in Europe, and it will, consequently, be soon worn in patches, and the track in the centre will be broken into holes and puddles as the winter advances. Wherever I have seen