A little to the south of Lampsacus was ABYDUS, at the narrowest part of the Hellespont, and opposite the town of Sestus.[4] It was a little above Abydus that Xerxes constructed his famous bridge, B.C. 480; but, except for the gallant resistance it made to Philip, son of Demetrius, king of Macedon, Abydus has no place in history. In legendary lore, however, it was the scene of the famous swimming of Leander to visit his lady-love, the Priestess of the Temple at Sestus, on the opposite or European shore, a natatory feat, however, far surpassed in recent days. Lord Byron’s lines on the subject are well known:— He could, perhaps, have pass’d the Hellespont, As once (a feat on which ourselves we prided) Leander, Mr. Ekenhead, and I did. Don Juan, Cant. ii. 105. Footnote 4: The average breadth of the Hellespont was about three miles—rather narrow for Homer’s πλατὑς, “the broad.” He, probably, however, looked on it rather as a mighty river; to which, indeed, his epithets of ἀγάῤῥοος and ἀπείρων (“strong-flowing,” and “boundless”) well enough apply. Herodotus calls it δολερὁς and ἀλμυρὁς ποταμός, “a treacherous and unsavoury river” (vii. 35). Leander’s labour, however, was greater than that of the poet or his companion, in that he swam _against_ the stream to reach Sestus, the current being often so powerful that a well-manned boat cannot be pulled straight across it. A little further down the coast, and facing nearly due south, is ASSUS, a site which has been visited by many travellers, as Walpole, Choiseul- Gouffier, Raoul-Rochette, Fellows, and Pullan. The most ancient monuments of Greek art in the Louvre at Paris were removed thence. The position of the chief buildings is very grand; indeed, in Strabo’s time, Assus was considered as a fortress almost inaccessible.[5] Its ruins are still remarkably perfect, one gate at least, of triangular construction, resembling those at Mycenæ and Arpinum. There are, also, vestiges of a hexastyle Doric temple, showing some analogy with those at Pæstum. Seventeen large fragments from the metopes and two façades of the Temple were ultimately removed to France by Capt. Chaigneau, together with a Doric capital. They were found scattered over the slope of the hill, and must have been removed at some time or the other, probably for building purposes; indeed, fragments of similar pieces were also noticed in some of the neighbouring houses. In character of workmanship, the sculptures resemble the Æginetan marbles now at the British Museum. But their execution is not so effective, the material of which they are made being the coarse red stone of the neighbourhood. To the same cause is, perhaps, due the fact that they had not been carried away long ago. Had they been of fine marble, they would have been valuable plunder. Sir Charles Fellows, speaking of Assus, says, “After depositing my baggage,