Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/88

60 offerings, which to accept is often painful to the guest, but to refuse is a certain affront to the host.

Continuing along the shore in a N.W. direction, at the distance of two hours from Mytilene is Thermæ, a place so called from the hot mineral baths which still exist there. Here is a small harbour marked in the Admiralty Chart as Ancient Mole. The village of Thermae is at the distance of about half an hour inland. It is marked in the Chart by its Turkish name Sarelek, "yellow." This name is given from the colour of the water in the hot springs, which are feiTuginous. The baths are small vaulted buildings of a recent period. In the walls are a number of interesting inscriptions originally copied by Pococke, from which we learn that there was at Thermæ a Panegyris Thermiaea, and that Artemis was worshipped here under the title of Artemis Thermia Euakoos, "the Propitious."$27$ The connection between the worship of Artemis and these ferruginous baths is very obvious, as the use of such tonic waters would be prescribed in connection with the bracing exercise of the chase. The senate and people mentioned in these inscriptions are, it is to be presumed, those of the town of Thermae. In the fields all round the baths, marbles used in buildings are found in the soil, but I could not hear of the discovery of any sculpture or architectural ornaments.

Pococke saw here great ruins of buildings, particularly of a colonnade leading to the baths from the south, the pedestals of which remained in his time. Along the shore a little to the east of Thermæ are the