Besides the fine situation there is only one other thing to notice, viz. the Ionic temple. I spent my first day in examining it and making a drawing of it. Only three of the five columns still standing in Chandler's time remain erect; the other two were blown up three years ago by a Greek who thought he might find gold in them. The whole temple is buried many feet deep. As I wished very much to see the base of the column, I got a Cretan--whom I found here professedly buying tobacco, but I suspect a fugitive from his home for some murder--to dig for me. I had to give it up after we had got down ten feet without reaching it. One ought to be here for a month, and then, as the earth is very soft, one could do the thing thoroughly. Nobody would interfere. I spent the evening with the Turcomans in a tent, sitting cross-legged on a mat, smoking. They had a bold free manner and a savage air, but they were not uncivil to me. My janissary got into a dispute with one because he had taken his place. He ordered him out, and the man would not go. As he and all his companions were well armed, a fight would not have been pleasant, and when the dispute quieted down I was not sorry.
The ruins of the comparatively modern town, especially those of a large church, seem to consist entirely of fragments of ancient temples, some of the bits being very fine. The castle has no remains of earlier date than that of the Lower Empire. The more ancient fortress may have been swept away by the torrents, which tear the soil into such strange forms, and the whole site be changed. At any rate I could not find a scrap of ancient wall anywhere, and the later ones are rapidly being undermined, and totter on the edge of the precipice.
Next day we rode eastwards along the side of Bousdagh (Tmolus). In five hours we passed only two small villages and a number of Turcoman tents, but we met many caravans, the camels whimsically decked with feathers and shells, and the largest male with festoons of bells as well. I was told that the Turks were very fond of witnessing camel-fights, and that those which I saw most handsomely dressed out were the champions at that sport.
The houses hereabouts are all built of mud, and so full of mice that I could not sleep in the night and was in consequence late in starting. We continued along the great valley and came by midday to Allah Sheri (Philadelphia), the most forlorn city ever I saw. The squalid mud houses cover several small hills and contain a population of about a thousand families, mostly Turks. There are twenty-four churches, of which only five are in use, while the rest are kept sacred by occasional services. In the shape of antiquities there is nothing to be seen. The chief curiosity is the warm mineral spring, which smells like addled eggs and has a taste of ink. The people about use it a good deal for scorbutic complaints. Some travellers have spoken of having been shown a wall of bones here. I saw nothing of the sort.