Well, now I had come; there to the
south was Tenedos, and here at my side was Imbros, all right, and
according to the map, but aloft over Imbros, aloft in a far-away
heaven, was Samothrace, the watch-tower of Neptune!
So Homer had appointed it, and so it was; the map was correct
enough, but could not, like Homer, convey THE WHOLE TRUTH. Thus
vain and false are the mere human surmises and doubts which clash
with Homeric writ!
Nobody whose mind had not been reduced to the most deplorable
logical condition could look upon this beautiful congruity betwixt
the Iliad and the material world and yet bear to suppose that the
poet may have learned the features of the coast from mere hearsay;
now then, I believed; now I knew that Homer had PASSED ALONG HERE,
that this vision of Samothrace over-towering the nearer island was
common to him and to me.
After a journey of some few days by the route of Adramiti and
Pergamo we reached Smyrna. The letters which Methley here received
obliged him to return to England.
CHAPTER V--INFIDEL SMYRNA
Smyrna, or Giaour Izmir, "Infidel Smyrna," as the Mussulmans call
it, is the main point of commercial contact betwixt Europe and
Asia.
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