From Candia he proceeded to Scio, Ipsara, Metelin, Tenedos, Lemnos, Samos, and Patmos, and then passed over to the continent to Smyrna. Here those traces of antiquity which formed the principal objects of his inquiries surrounded him on all sides. Not an excursion could be made without encountering the ruins or the site of some city renowned in poetry or history. Every river, every stream had some glorious association attached to it, from the Meles, on which Homer is sometimes supposed to have been born, to the Cayster and Mæander, celebrated in his poems. Pococke, it should be remarked, with all his admiration for antiquity, had not suffered much of the spirit of Greek poetry to penetrate into his soul; though he might as a man of the world avoid alluding to trite and hackneyed fables, this will not in all cases account for his omitting all mention of remarkable mythi. When encamped, for example, at night round a large fire on the summit of Mount Latmus in Caria, fearing an irruption of jackals and wild boars, he seems to have thrown himself to sleep upon his huge block of granite without once recalling to mind that it was on that wild spot Endymion was visited nightly by the moon. He observes, however, that the shepherds who have succeeded Endymion on this mountain have begun to cultivate a portion of its summit, and to enclose their fields with large trunks of trees disposed as pallisades. Following up the course of the Mæander he entered the Greater Phrygia, proceeded thence to Galatia, and, turning to the north, took the road through the ancient Paphlagonia and Bithynia towards Constantinople. Here he entered into numerous inquiries respecting the religion and manners of the Turks; and then, descending the Dardanelles, embarked at Lemnos for Mount Athos in Macedonia. This mountain, it is well known, has for ages served as a retreat to numerous monks and hermits, who retire thither from the world to conceal their chagrin at being shut out by more fortunate or more persevering individuals from the participation of its more refined pleasures. There were at this period about forty hermitages situated in a semicircular sweep of the mountain. Some of the gloomy tenants of these cells were poor persons, who subsisted by their own labour, or on the bread and cheese bestowed upon them by the convents in the neighbourhood; and their amusement consisted in carving images or making wooden spoons. Pococke found them employed in drying figs, walnuts, and grapes, and learned that they made a little wine and brandy for their own use, which, I hope, occasionally enabled them to forget their cares. To complete their misery, no women were ever permitted to enter their territories.