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COAST OF ASIA MINOR, NEAR ANAMOUR.

The coast of Asia Minor presents a great variety of magnificent scenery: the headlands are often so shelterless and iron-bound, that the wanderer would gladly, in a gale of wind, exchange their lofty and romantic masses for a low, sandy, and monotonous beach. In an open boat, attacked by the fever, and driving before a wild in-shore wind, the artist was passing beneath the fierce cliffs of Cape Anamour, each sight and sound in unison with the helplessness of disease, and the agitation of the thoughts. A tremendous cavern opened its dark abyss close at hand, and the roar of the waves came with a hollow and sepulchral voice from within: the sea-birds swept shrieking around the boat and the cave, and a vessel came drifting headland before the blast. Yet enthusiasm triumphed over the scene and the fever, and the artist, in the midst of the storm, sketched eagerly the gloomy and startling scene around him. Not very far from this spot, and at the base of a rocky promontory, was a most romantic cove, for which the boats made, and succeeded in entering. Anamour was near at hand, the ruins of its castle, theatre, acqueduct, &c.: how gladly would even the ruins of Balbec have been given in that moment for a clean cottage, a comfortable chamber, and kind attendance. The situation of the ruins of Anamour, the ancient Anamurium, is quite as fantastic and bold as that of the town of Alaya. The lofty cape has been fortified by a castle and outworks on the summit, (500 feet above the sea,) from whence a flanked wall, with towers, descends to the shore; a second wall, six feet thick, runs nearly parallel to this: it appears of later construction. Two aqueducts, on different levels, that wind along the hill for several miles, supplied this fortress with water; and when carried across the ravines, they are supported on arches. "In the interval between the two walls," says Captain Beaufort in his excellent description, "there are some large buildings and two theatres; the most perfect of these is a hundred feet long by seventy wide, inclosed by plain walls, and containing six semicircular rows of seats; it appears to have been roofed, and was probably an Odeum, or music theatre; the other is about 200 feet in diameter, and partly cut out of the slope of the hill. It has been mentioned, that the columns of the mausoleum of Trajanopolis, (thirty miles distant,) and the seats of the theatre, had been carried away: so have those also of these theatres; and it is remarkable, that in the whole extent of this place, there is scarcely to be found a vestige of a column, or a loose block of marble of more than ordinary size. Yet there are no buildings in the neighbourhood, for which they could have been purloined; and the only alternative is, that every thing worth the removal has been transported to the island of Cyprus, which is at no great distance, and where arts and commerce flourished long after this coast had become the prey of a succession of ruffian conquerors. We then hastened to examine a wide field of ruins outside of the walls, which at first sight had appeared like the remains of a large city. It was indeed a city, but a city of tombs, a true Necropolis. The contrast between the slight and perishable materials with which the habitations of the living were constructed, and

the care and skill bestowed by the ancients, to render durable the abodes of the dead, is more than ordinarily impressed upon the mind at this place: for though all the tombs have been long since opened and ransacked, the walls are still sound; whereas, of their dwellings not one continues in existence. These tombs are small buildings, detached from each other, and mostly of the same size, though varying in their proportions the roofs are arched, and the exterior of the walls is dashed with a composition of plaster, and small particles of burnt red brick. Each tomb consists of two chambers; the inner one is subdivided into cells or receptacles for the bodies; and the outer apartment is provided with small recesses and shelves, as if for the purpose of depositing the funeral offerings, or the urns that contained the ashes. These antechambers may have been likewise intended for the ceremonies and lamentations of the mourners; they are stuccoed, and neatly finished with that kind of border which is commonly called a la Grecque. This is the third distinct kind of sepulchre that we observed on these coasts: first, at Makry, Myra, and other places, the excavated catacomb, with the entrance carefully closed by a slab of rock; the front of the catacomb is frequently ornamented with a pediment and columns, all worked out of the solid rock. Secondly, as at Patara, Phaselis, &c. the sarcophagus was more or less decorated, but always consisting of a single block of stone, hollowed like a chest, and covered with another immense stone in the shape of a low roof or pediment. And, thirdly, the house-built sepulchres of this place, covered in by an arch, and separated into chambers for the dead and for the mourners. The two former species generally bear inscriptions; whereas these silent tombs display no record of the names and qualities of their occupiers.

Anamour is now altogether deserted, peopled only by tombs: even the shepherd does not build his hut, nor the fisherman spread his nets, among these sepulchral memorials of a great population. The coast, to the extent of thirty miles on each side of Anamour, is bold, sometimes magnificent, yet it is an unlovely and desolate coast and country, interrupted at long intervals by narrow and dreary valleys, which conduct the mountain torrents to the sea here and there a solitary hut, inhabited by savage-looking people: yet beyond Selinty on one side, and to a great distance on the other, there is hardly an isle, a hill, or peninsula, that has not its ruins, the vestiges of former life, activity, and dominion: strong and massive walls, inclosing a homeless area, on whose rank soil wanton the wild flowers and aromatic herbs, rich pasture for the solitary flocks or the vestiges of a theatre, that once rang with the sounds of music and the shouts of the multitude, still resist the sweep of the winds that fall with great fury on these heights. These massive sepulchres, from which the ashes are long since gone, are all that remain of the eminent cities of Myra, Anemurium, and Phaselis: they will endure to the end of time; and at Anamour, if ranged with greater regularity, they would resemble the street of tombs in Pompeii; they are little melancholy edifices, without beauty or impressiveness, save as valuable memorials of the resolve of the past generations of Anamour, to sleep within "walls of brass, and gates of iron" unmolested till the day of doom. At present they look like the Stonehenge of a foreign land; diminutive, yet very numerous, covering great part of the declivity

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