The ship was two more days off the great plain of Tarsous, moving slowly in a thick haze, and on the 16th arrived off Cape Karadash.
The captain proposed to me that I should go with Mr. Wingham to reconnoitre a great lake one could see from the ship. About one mile N.W. of the cape we turned up a deep channel like a river mouth, except that the current set inwards instead of outwards, and after about three-quarters of a mile entered an apparently boundless lake. It was very shallow, and before long we were aground, after which the men waded and towed the boat. In this fashion we went several miles till we had got a fair general notion of the size of the sheet of water. A deceptive atmospheric effect, due to the great evaporation, would hide the shore when very low, so that it presented the appearance of a sheet of water. Owing to this I had a bitter disappointment. Ahead of us we descried four beautiful deer, which, as we approached, fled to what appeared to me to be the isthmus of a peninsula. I cried to one of the boatmen, who had a musket, to run to the isthmus to cut them off, while I and two others made for the other side, hoping to get a shot at them. As we got nearer, the fancied water vanished, and the deer, a herd of ten beauties, ran up into the plain. They were spotted like fallow deer, but with short horns turning back like those of a goat. Coming back, we saw immense flocks, of perhaps ten thousand at once, of white stately birds about as big as swans [Flamingoes.--ED.], the tail beautiful with red feathers. They stood in ranks like soldiers, and now and again flapped their wings all at once and shrieked. There were numbers of large fish about, and the water was so shallow that their backs stood out of it. All the same, when we tried to catch them they were too quick for us. The only thing we did secure was a big turtle.
At Cape Mallo we went ashore and walked over the ruins.
Thence we moved down the coast, anchored eight miles west of Ayas Castle, and rowed on to it. There are the remains of the ancient town of Ægæ to be seen, and a modern Turkish castle. When we entered the mouth of the port we noticed that some Turks standing on a tower which commanded it shouted and gesticulated to us in a threatening manner. They were all armed. I, however, set it down to fear on their part, and recommended our going on. Unhappily, we did so; and I can never sufficiently regret the part I had in bringing on the catastrophe which will always make Ayas a painful recollection. Nothing further occurred that evening; we walked about, and when it grew dark went aboard again.