By six this morning I landed safe at Montagnia, a small Turkish town, which seems to have been the Apaméa of the antients; Cius, or Prusa ad Arganthonium, being now a little village, that lies farther towards the utmost corner of the bay. Here I hire a guide and horse to carry my self, servants, and baggage to Prusia, antiently Prusa ad Olympum, where by God’s blessing I arrive safely about midday; and taking up my lodgings in the great silk kane, I there determine to repose till to morrow morning.
Prusia is a large and fair city, situate at the foot of Olympus Mysenus, a mountain of exceeding hight, and covered with perpetual snow; which from its bowels furnishes the adjacent city with many large and plentiful fountains, and by the same means gives nourishment to the beautiful and flourishing trees, which intermix themselves with the houses of the place. These are chiefly mulberries, which maintain the industrious worm, that produces the white and lovely silk of Prusia; which I here saw spun from caldrons of hot water, the several cods yeilding at once three threads upon a wheel, turned by the person who tends the caldron. Besides the several cold streams issuing from Olympus, there flows from the same origin a plentiful sulphureous chanel, which is collected into four hot natural baths much frequented, and with marvelous success, as is here generally beleived. The several fabrics of the baths are very stately, of which I shall describe that, which is called the new one, for a specimen of the rest. It consists first of a large oblong room paved with marble, enclosed all round with free stone, and covered at the top with three noble cupolas leaded on the outside. Round the inward walls of the room are sophás, about a yard high, and two broad, sufficient for the undressing of three hundred men. In the middle is a round stone cistern, overflowing with cold water, which continually washes the pavement, and serves for other uses of the bagnio. From this room you enter into a second moderately warm, having on the sides oblong troughs of hot water, and in the middle a fountain of cold; the walls, roof, and pavement being all of white polished marble. From hence you are led by the attendants of the bagnio into a third apartment of an orbicular figure, paved, roofed, and walled with richer marble, that is, of more curious veins and various colours. The pavement hereof is sunk into a round cistern about six yards diameter, which is constantly full of hot water to the depth of about six feet, and surrounded with a stone bench for the ease of those, who care not to swim, or walk about the cistern. As the water constantly runs from thence by passages at the bottom of the cistern, so is it continually supplied by three large chanels, which from as many sides of the room yeild a plentiful stream of water, almost scalding at the first touch.
Besides these baths there is not much remarkable in Prusia, except what may be collected from the history of the place; as that it has the ruins of a castle, built by one of the Comneni, as appears from the following inscription:
It was made the first capital of the Turkish empire by Osmán, or Ottoman, the founder of that monarchy. And it has the monument not only of the said Ottoman, but likewise of his immediate successors, Orchán, Solymán, Amurát, Bagazet, and Mahomet the first.
This morning about eleven a clock I set forward on my journey, in company of a caraván bound to several parts on the road to Smyrna. With these I now travel three hours, and then conáck with them upon a convenient plat of grass, on the plains of Prusia. In the midway we cross the river Hippius runing thro these plains into the Sinus Cianus.
We travel this day to the left of the Palus Artynia, which being fed from mount Olympus, extends itself the length of many miles, and shews several little islands, in which are one or two compact Greek towns. At length the lake vents itself by the chanel of the river Rhyndacus, at which we arrive about six a clock this evening, and passing it at a long wooden bridge, near the ruins of another built of stone, we take up our conáck on the opposite bank, in a village now called Ulubat, but antiently Apollonia ad Rhyndacum.
We ride eight hours, and then bait on the banks of a little river, which runs towards those called the Adrastian plains. Three hours farther, at the village of Susegierlíck we cross the fair large and sandy chanel of the Aesépus, and proceeding still two hours more we at length conáck upon the hills.
We this day pass a street called the Irongate, and in seven hours arrive at the fair capacious kane of Mandahóra, where are seven rude porphyry pillars thought to be of Trojan original. Here we repose till towards evening, and then once more crossing the Aesépus, which rising in Ida continues its course under the houses of this village, we proceed about an hour, and then lodge in a grassy plat about an hour to the left of Balihísar.
Rising now a little after midnight we proceed seven hours, and then resting in the woods till three in the afternoon, we pass by the usual conáck of Kurugelchíck, and one hour and an half from thence at length lodge in a pleasant green spot of ground on the mountain Temnus.
By four a clock we proceed, and having passed the Temnus, by seven a clock we cross the chanel of the Caicus, which here is but small, not being far distant from its fountain head. But an hour farther at Gelemba we again observe it now much enlarged, and runing by the kane and houses of that place, from whence it bends its course on the left hand to Pergamus. At this kane we repose half an hour, and afterwards in the plains two or three hours more; but about midday we again remount, and in four hours cross the Hyllus, at a strait betwixt two hills; in an hour after which, in the midst of a fruitful and delicious plain, we arrive at Thyatira.
I repose this day at Thyatira, which by the Turks is now called Akhísar. My design in staying here was to observe the scattered remains of architecture, which are to be seen in many places, together with some inscriptions. The most remarkable of these is one published, but erroneously, by Sir George Wheler[90]; which I copied from a stone coffin, on which it is cut.
About five in the evening I begin to move, having now left the caraván, and purposing to travel all night towards Magnesia. Before it is dark I again ford the Hyllus, and after that proceed over those fair plains, in which Scipio Asiaticus first won the empire of Asia for the Romans by the defeat of king Antiochus[95], as we find it described by Livy.
By nine a clock this morning I reach Magnesia, where I repose myself the remaining part of the day with the following night. And then mounting by five the next morning, after a refreshment of about three hours I arrive at Smyrna safe, and in good health, by three a clock in the afternoon.
Μόνῳ τῷ Θεῷ τῷ ὁδηγοῦντι δόξα.