DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4324#0036
14 PRIENE.
PLATE J.
MAP OF THE COURSE OF THE MEANDER.
Wheler* and Spon are indebted for the account which they have published of this region to a
journey begun in June, 1673, by Dr Pickering and some merchants of Smyrna. These travellers,
quitting Changlee about four in the morning, gained the top of Mycale, on which they had an
extensive view, and one of them designed the mazes of the Maeander. They descended by a
difficult and narrow track, and in two hours came into the plain, having left behind the remains
of a castle eastward. From Samsun, or Priene, then a village at the foot of Mycale, they passed
through a large plain to the Maeander, called by the Turks Boiuc-Minder, or the Great Meander,
which they crossed at a ferry, where it was about sixteen fathom broad, and as many deep in the
middle, as the guide informed them, with the current very swift. About two hours after this, they
arrived at Palatsha, where they pitched their tents on the banks of a large river, which, running
through a great lake, falls into the Maeander.
The reader will observe that these travellers crossed the river but once between Samsun and
Palatsha. The ferry therefore was below the junction of the two beds. There the stream was
called the Great Maander, probably to distinguish it, not, as has been supposed, from the Cayster,
which is remote from the other, or Little River, which it receives. This they mistook for the
principal stream, being ignorant of the true Maeander, with which the lake of Myus communicates,
and which runs by Palatsha. This also lied beneath them, when on mount Mycale, and was seen
distinctly as in a chart. Their draughtsmen delineated its turnings and windings for those of the
old and famous river; and its mazes, which helped to impose on them, prevented even the sus-
picion of an error.
The Maeander, among the rivers of Asia Minor, was anciently noted for the production of new
land. The stream, it was remarked, in passing through the ploughed grounds of Phrygia and
Caria, collected much slime, and bringing it down continually, added to the coast at its mouth.
The Maeander was indictable for removing the soil when its margin tumbled in; and the
person, who recovered damages, was paid from the income of the ferries. The downfals were
very frequent, and are supposed, with probability, to be the cause of the curvature of the bed; the
earth carried away from one part lodging in another, and replacing the loss sustained on one side
by adding to the opposite bank.
* Page 267.
PLATE J.
MAP OF THE COURSE OF THE MEANDER.
Wheler* and Spon are indebted for the account which they have published of this region to a
journey begun in June, 1673, by Dr Pickering and some merchants of Smyrna. These travellers,
quitting Changlee about four in the morning, gained the top of Mycale, on which they had an
extensive view, and one of them designed the mazes of the Maeander. They descended by a
difficult and narrow track, and in two hours came into the plain, having left behind the remains
of a castle eastward. From Samsun, or Priene, then a village at the foot of Mycale, they passed
through a large plain to the Maeander, called by the Turks Boiuc-Minder, or the Great Meander,
which they crossed at a ferry, where it was about sixteen fathom broad, and as many deep in the
middle, as the guide informed them, with the current very swift. About two hours after this, they
arrived at Palatsha, where they pitched their tents on the banks of a large river, which, running
through a great lake, falls into the Maeander.
The reader will observe that these travellers crossed the river but once between Samsun and
Palatsha. The ferry therefore was below the junction of the two beds. There the stream was
called the Great Maander, probably to distinguish it, not, as has been supposed, from the Cayster,
which is remote from the other, or Little River, which it receives. This they mistook for the
principal stream, being ignorant of the true Maeander, with which the lake of Myus communicates,
and which runs by Palatsha. This also lied beneath them, when on mount Mycale, and was seen
distinctly as in a chart. Their draughtsmen delineated its turnings and windings for those of the
old and famous river; and its mazes, which helped to impose on them, prevented even the sus-
picion of an error.
The Maeander, among the rivers of Asia Minor, was anciently noted for the production of new
land. The stream, it was remarked, in passing through the ploughed grounds of Phrygia and
Caria, collected much slime, and bringing it down continually, added to the coast at its mouth.
The Maeander was indictable for removing the soil when its margin tumbled in; and the
person, who recovered damages, was paid from the income of the ferries. The downfals were
very frequent, and are supposed, with probability, to be the cause of the curvature of the bed; the
earth carried away from one part lodging in another, and replacing the loss sustained on one side
by adding to the opposite bank.
* Page 267.