The MAEANDER discharges itself into the sea in the south, near Miletus; it is a very muddy river like all others in Ionia, and hence it alone has filled up the whole bay of Miletus, which was several miles in breadth, but the cleaning out of which has been neglected for thousands of years. Accordingly the island of Lade, which Herodotus mentions there, is now only a hill rising in the midst of marshy meadows. Such is the nature of all the rivers of that coast, and the most beautiful countries have thereby been changed into pestilential swamps. In the north, a range of mountains, extending from mount Taurus to the coast opposite to Chios, forms the peninsula on which the towns of Clazomenae and Erythrae are situated. Chios itself is a continuation of those mountains, separated from the rest by the sea. What Herodotus says of the nature of Ionia, holds good also of the greater part of Aeolis: it is the pearl of creation. The present marshes, which have been formed by the deposits of the rivers in consequence of the neglect of barbarous ages, form the only exceptions. Nowhere in all the world is the splendour of a southern climate more thoroughly felt than there; nowhere are the seasons so healthy, and yet the country suffers neither from excessive heat nor drought; and nowhere are fruits, such as grapes, figs, and pomegranates, produced in such perfection. The Scirocco is unknown there (though it exists in Rhodes), but the mildest west winds prevail, and the south winds are not in the least injurious, while at Rome they are very much so. Hence we cannot wonder, that, during the period of the weakness of the states in western Asia, Ionia attained to such prosperity and greatness.