DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4719#0461
434
THE XANTHIAN MABBLES.
laid down in the charts. After a walk of two or three
miles we found it, and made signals for the other boats,
The party landed consisted of fifteen working men, a boy,
the Lieutenant, the Gunner, the Cavasses, a youth, the son
of Mr. Wilkinson, our Consul at Rhodes, and myself. Our
five tents were soon pitched, fires lighted, and our cutter,
galley, and dingy boats secured within the river. High
sand-hills arose for miles around us, and no signs of life were
visible but the footsteps of the wolves, jackals, and hares.
Huge trunks of decayed trees, washed down during past
ages, afforded plenty of fuel for our fires, which vied with
the full moon in illuminating our encampment, and must
have served as a beacon to our ship, which had sailed afar
to the northward.
The river Xanthus is one of the most powerful, wild, and
unmanageable streams I ever saw: the volume of water is
very great, far exceeding that of the Thames at Richmond;
the stream rushes probably at the rate of Rye miles an hour.
Por the first three miles from its mouth, where it winds
through the high range of sand-hills, I had never before seen
it, but above this had traced it to its source in the Teeilassies
of the high mountains of the Taurus, probably a course of
nearly two hundred miles. Our boats drew two feet and a
half of water, and had great difficulty in making head
against the heaviest part of the stream, which marked the
deepest channel through the bar of sand formed at the
entrance to the river. Once within this, to accomplish
which cost us much labour and risk, the men having to
jump overboard to keep the boats in their course, the waters
were deep and comparatively tranquil.
In manning our boats on the morning of the 27th we
found that the eight oars in the cutter made no way against
the stream; we therefore abandoned them, and set all hands
to work in tracking the lightened boats with ropes from the
shore, leaving in them only a coxswain and one man, who
A a pole
From tli' -
Inn the lei
s the turbid
keeping in tn
;reat: si
jav the brai
irrupted the
our men
put all ha1
toed'
w within I
itotherui
i apparently
itorax. as
f cultivation
tii of the ]
' red wit!
lament at
collected i
lehospitalit
m with this
*ere broueh
as pili i'
our 1». -•
our li
wurse not ei
Momonlv ra
iour.
Our earlv
mrient watt
011 account c
feed at fi
*h an ia
THE XANTHIAN MABBLES.
laid down in the charts. After a walk of two or three
miles we found it, and made signals for the other boats,
The party landed consisted of fifteen working men, a boy,
the Lieutenant, the Gunner, the Cavasses, a youth, the son
of Mr. Wilkinson, our Consul at Rhodes, and myself. Our
five tents were soon pitched, fires lighted, and our cutter,
galley, and dingy boats secured within the river. High
sand-hills arose for miles around us, and no signs of life were
visible but the footsteps of the wolves, jackals, and hares.
Huge trunks of decayed trees, washed down during past
ages, afforded plenty of fuel for our fires, which vied with
the full moon in illuminating our encampment, and must
have served as a beacon to our ship, which had sailed afar
to the northward.
The river Xanthus is one of the most powerful, wild, and
unmanageable streams I ever saw: the volume of water is
very great, far exceeding that of the Thames at Richmond;
the stream rushes probably at the rate of Rye miles an hour.
Por the first three miles from its mouth, where it winds
through the high range of sand-hills, I had never before seen
it, but above this had traced it to its source in the Teeilassies
of the high mountains of the Taurus, probably a course of
nearly two hundred miles. Our boats drew two feet and a
half of water, and had great difficulty in making head
against the heaviest part of the stream, which marked the
deepest channel through the bar of sand formed at the
entrance to the river. Once within this, to accomplish
which cost us much labour and risk, the men having to
jump overboard to keep the boats in their course, the waters
were deep and comparatively tranquil.
In manning our boats on the morning of the 27th we
found that the eight oars in the cutter made no way against
the stream; we therefore abandoned them, and set all hands
to work in tracking the lightened boats with ropes from the
shore, leaving in them only a coxswain and one man, who
A a pole
From tli' -
Inn the lei
s the turbid
keeping in tn
;reat: si
jav the brai
irrupted the
our men
put all ha1
toed'
w within I
itotherui
i apparently
itorax. as
f cultivation
tii of the ]
' red wit!
lament at
collected i
lehospitalit
m with this
*ere broueh
as pili i'
our 1». -•
our li
wurse not ei
Momonlv ra
iour.
Our earlv
mrient watt
011 account c
feed at fi
*h an ia