Around the Pyramids; Being a Tour in the Holy Land, And, Incidentally, Through Several European Countries, and Portions of Africa, During the Years 18

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1865 Excerpt: ... to the shore as was safe for him to do, and sailed between it and the island of Tenedos. He very kindly placed the chart of the coast before me, and imparted to me all the information he possessed in relation to that classic region. There stood, not nine miles distant, Mount Ida, in bold relief hefore us, and at its base old Troy once reclined. In examining the coast, as we sailed along, for a beach upon which the Greek navy may have been drawn, I could discover nothing but high banks, which also formed the characteristic of the shores for some distance beyond Tenedos. Our attention was attracted first t, the main land, and its extensive plains, then to Tenedos, which once asserted the claim to the honor of having given birth Agamemnon. There is nothing to be seen upon this island but a poor wretched town of five thousand inhabitants. The country presented a barren appearance, and there was not a single tree or shrub to be seen upon it. But its present condition is a matter of little consequence, for it will ever be distinguished as the island behind which the Greeks concealed their forces at the time of the Trojan war, until the wooden horse had obtained entrance into the city, as we learn in the Odyssey, and from Virgil. It was no great distance from this island, as we advanced along our journey, that I observed a beach sufficiently capacious to have accommodated the Grecian fleet, and it may have been here that the boats were drawn up. The country between the sea-shore and Mount Ida, and between it and the Dardanelles, is an extensive plain. It was here that the Greek and Trojan armies marched and countermarched, and here, and under the walls of Troy, and on the sea-coast, they engaged in their sanguinary conflict, so eloquently deocribed by the great lyr..