The process, which for revolving centuries marked this singular river, is still going on; deposits are daily made of soft soil, and that which had been left before, hardened into firm ground. This new-created land is stretching beyond the estuary of the stream, and the promontories which marked its mouth, as its barrier against the encroaching of the sea, are now so remote from it, that they are seen distant inland hills. A judicious traveller remarks, that it is probable the land will be pushed away, to join the island of Samos, and such a change will be wrought on this coast by the caprice of the river, that “barren rocks may be enamelled with rich domains, and other cities may rise and flourish on the bounty of the Meander.” The rich valley through which this river winds its way, was formerly filled with many famous cities, and some distinguished for that luxury and effeminacy which a balmy climate and a fertile soil are apt to generate. Tralles and Alabanda sent from hence their swarms of “esurient Greeks,” with their cargoes of figs and prunes, to taint the Roman citizens, already sufficiently corrupt. Notwithstanding the desolation which Turkish indolence and barbarism brought into these fertile regions, the active spirit of the ancient Greeks still seems to animate their oppressed descendants. The whole plain is seen by the traveller in the highest state of cultivation: corn, wine, and oil, the evidence and emblem of fatness and fertility, are now abundant here, as in the days of the free Greek cities,−-pastures covered with sheep and oxen, fields waving with golden crops of wheat, vineyards bending under vast clusters of grape, and gardens shaded by the broad foliage of the fig, are still the prospects which present themselves.