The whole country of Trapezus rests on rough Armenian mountains; it is a beautiful country, and to us northern people it would appear excellent, but it is, nevertheless, very different from the blessed fields of Asia Minor. The district containing Amisos and Sinope, on the other hand, is a paradise; its fertility even in antiquity reached a height which we can scarcely imagine in an ideal land, and such is the whole of the north coast of Asia Minor as far as Constantinople. The winters, however, are comparatively severe; the south winds from the Armenian mountains are indeed bracing, but do not much impede the growth of the most exquisite fruit of the south. All Greek towns in that part were free and independent, until the kings of Pontus became powerful and subdued them all, even Amisos. SINOPE, north-west of the mouth of the Halys, and geographically within the boundaries of Paphlagonia, was in ancient times the greatest Greek town in those parts. Its site is one of those which must be noticed on account of its great excellence; it was situated on a peninsula connected with the main land by a narrow isthmus; the coast in the neighbourhood is rocky, so that foreign ships cannot easily land. The peninsula was of considerable extent, so that the town embraced large districts, which were used by the inhabitants as gardens, vineyards, and fields, and which in time of war furnished means of subsistence. The tunny fish from the sea of Azow arrive there first, and the Sinopians have the first advantage; these fish always pass along the coast, and in the end, as I have already remarked, go into the harbour of Byzantium. The advantages of its situation made the town great and prosperous, and its inhabitants maintained their independence till towards the end of the Hannibalian war, when Pharnaces, king of Pontus, took possession of it. From that time it was the capital of Pontus; the kings resided in it, and Mithridates Eupator adorned it with splendid buildings of every kind. It was then conquered by Lucullus, and though it was not destroyed, its fate was terrible. Under the Romans it was again a wealthy provincial town of considerable importance. The Greek towns CYTOROS, CROMNA, TION, and SESAMOS anciently existed on the west of Sinope. Amastris, a daughter of a brother of the last Darius, and the wife of Dionysius of Heraclea (she was afterwards married to Lysimachus), united all these towns into one, which she called AMASTRIS, and which became Greek, although she herself was a barbarian. Tion afterwards revived as a separate town.