We had now left the enchanted haunts of gods and goddesses, the battlefields of heroes, to linger for a while in the footsteps of the Holy Apostles. The Military Pasha at the Dardanelles had given us a letter for the Bimbashi in command, who was very civil and showed us over the ruins of the old Greek town, then said to be the most perfect in existence, but even fifty-one years ago fast disappearing under the hand of the destroyer, who must needs carry off the grand old masonry to build fortifications. The Bimbashi was wrecking the old town with ardour, for our friend the Pasha had written him an indignant despatch complaining that the hidden treasures which were supposed to exist had not been found, and he begged us to write to the Pasha, assuring him that all search had proved barren and there was no treasure trove. We were now eager to get on, so, in spite of dismal forebodings from our crew, we insisted on setting sail in an open caique, meaning to reach Aivali as soon as possible; but wind and weather were too much for our poor little craft: we were promptly driven over to Lesbos, and it was forty-eight hours before we managed to reach our destination, after beating about the bay half starved and sleepless. There was a British Vice-Consul in the place—a Greek—who treated us most kindly, though it was rather a disappointment to two starvelings, after having doubled St. Paul’s experience of “a night and day in the deep,” to be offered, Turkish fashion, a teaspoonful of jam and a glass of water. However, a bountiful meal followed as soon as it could be cooked. We had a great disappointment about horses; there were none to be had, and it was all the more provoking as we knew that we must be causing much trouble to our good host; but we did not find out till afterwards, and then to our great confusion, that he actually turned his wife and his mother-in-law out of doors in order to lodge us. The next day at extortionate prices we procured horses and set out for Pergamos, riding through cotton-fields and olive-groves, past a cemetery devoted to the remains of victims murdered by a band of brigands who, until twelve months earlier, had infested that part of the country. But now they themselves had been caught and entered upon the inheritance of their final six feet of earth, so we had no fear. We reached Pergamos that night, a quaint and beautiful old town full of ruins and relics of the past, and lodged in a _khan_ which Rembrandt would have etched with delight. What effects he would have produced with the variously and picturesquely dressed men, the camels and the horses, all dimly visible, scarcely more than guessed at, under the half light shed by an old-fashioned horn lantern. In two more days, on the 28th of October, we arrived at Smyrna, where we spent a most delightful week under the auspices of Mr. Cumberbatch, the British Consul.