Fellows, Charles: Travels and researches in Asia Minor, more particularly in the province of Lycia (London, 1852)

MINARA.

329

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neened on either i
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are mingled the pomegranate, the orange, wild olive, ole-
ander, and the elegant gum-storax; these are matted to-
gether by the vine, clematis, asparagus: in the fields are left
standing, for their shade as well as their fruit, the carob,
the fig, and the oak. Barley is the principal produce of
the fields at this season, but the old stems of the maize
show the second crop of the last year. A few huts in the
centre of this valley give the name of Yakabalyer to the
plain also.

Another valley further on our way, in which stands Kestep,
is more wooded, appearing, as we ascended through a forest
of fir-trees on the hill of separation, one wood of splendidly
grown oaks ; they are the Quercus JEgilops, which is here a
considerable source of wealth from its acorns, called by the
Smyrna merchants Velanea ; the timber would, if wanted for
the market, be of high value.

On entering a third of these valleys, called, from its village,
Gruilemet, we turned up a ravine to the west, leading di-
rectly into the midst of the Cragus range; this was about
ten miles from Minara. Gradually ascending for nearly
two hours, we arrived at the village of Tortoorcar, where we
sought the remains of an ancient city, but were told that
high in the mountains above us were the ruins, and within
them was the village of Tortoorcar Hiss<i. We climbed for
more than an hour up a steep, quite unfit for horses, when
we found ourselves amidst the splendidly-built tombs of an
unknown city of the ancient Greeks.

The inscriptions soon told the name of this city to have
been Sidyma, and the style of its architecture led me to assign
to it a date purely Greek, but by no means so early as that
of Pinara or any of the cities more marked by the Lycian
peculiarities. In this city we saw no Cyclopean walls, and
none of that other extreme of art, differing in all points but
its simplicity, the sculpture accompanying the Lycian in-
scriptions. I saw only one ornamented tomb in the rocks,