The rich products of mount _Tmolus_ ought not here to be forgot[34], which nature has furnished with that store and variety of plants, that it may deservedly be termed the _physic garden_ of the universe. The valley, which we mentioned, is enriched with a vein of marble, clear and pellucid enough to contend with alabaster. Nor is it to be neglected, that on the southern descent of the hill we traveled over a continued track of stone, adorned with bright and shining particles resembling gold dust; the occasion most probably of so many splendid epithets, which in antient poetry are bestowed on the _Pactólus_. _Birghée_ is a fair and considerable Turkish town, adorned with two very handsome _mosques_; and pleasantly seated in the road from _Sardis_, at the opposite foot of _Tmolus_. This makes it probable, it was the _Hypaepae_ of the antients, that situation exactly answering to the description, which _Ovid_ and _Strabo_ have left us of it[35]. We were here received into a public _kane_, where we enjoyed an hearty and entire repose; tho sweetened rather by the fatigue of the foregoing day, than any entertainment or accommodation of the place. April xxix. We continued our journey by four a clock this morning thro the _Caýstrian_ plain for _Tyria_, and had the satisfaction of fording that celebrated river about three hours from our _conáck_. Not far from hence we found a stone bridge of three considerable arches, built directly along the bank of the river; and therefore now serving to no other purpose, but only to witness that the stream had changed its chanel. Our way lay from hence near the course of the _Caýster_, thro a fertile and well cultivated champain; a place inexpressibly delicious, and which can be equalled by nothing, but the sweetness of that immortal verse: Ἀσίῳ ἐν λειμῶνι Καϋστρίου ἀμφὶ ῥέεθρα. Iliad. β′. ℣. 461. Or those of _Virgil_: _Pelagi volucres, et quae Asia circum_ _Dulcibus in stagnis rimantur prata Cäystri._ Georg. i. 384. It is inhabited by frequent villages, and enclosed on both sides with two high and snowy mountains, namely _Tmolus_ on the right hand, and on the left what _Strabo_ calls Μεσογειότης[36], or the _Midland hills_.