The innocents abroad; . yesterday, as it were—troops of mail-clad Crusaders throngedthe streets ; and to come down to trifles, we speak of meander-ing streams, and find a new interest in a common word whenwe discover that the crooked river Meander, in yonder valley,gave it to our dictionary. It makes me feel as old as these dreary hills to- look down upon thesemoss-hung ru-ins, this his-toric desola-tion. Onemay read theScripturesand believe,but he can notgo and standyonder in theruined theatreand in imag-ination peopleit again withthe vanishedmultitudeswho mobbedPauls com-rades there and shou
The innocents abroad; . yesterday, as it were—troops of mail-clad Crusaders throngedthe streets ; and to come down to trifles, we speak of meander-ing streams, and find a new interest in a common word whenwe discover that the crooked river Meander, in yonder valley,gave it to our dictionary. It makes me feel as old as these dreary hills to- look down upon thesemoss-hung ru-ins, this his-toric desola-tion. Onemay read theScripturesand believe,but he can notgo and standyonder in theruined theatreand in imag-ination peopleit again withthe vanishedmultitudeswho mobbedPauls com-rades there and shouted, with one voice, Great is Diana ofthe Ephesians ! The idea of a shout in such a solitude as thisalmost makes one shudder. It was a wonderful city, this Ephesus. Go where you willabout these broad plains, you find the most exquisitely sculp-tured marble fragments scattered thick among the dust andweeds ; and protruding from the ground, or lying prone uponit, are beautiful fluted columns of porphyry and all precious. ANCIENT AMPHITHEATRE AT EPHESUS. A RELIC. 423 marbles ; and at every step you find elegantly carved capitalsand massive bases, and polished tablets engraved with Greekinscriptions. It is a world of precious relics, a wilderness ofmarred and mutilated gems. And yet what are these thingsto the wonders that lie buried here under the ground? AtConstantinople, at Pisa, in the cities of Spain, are greatmosques and cathedrals, whose grandest columns came fromthe temples and palaces of Ephesus, and yet one has only toscratch the ground here to match them. We shall never knowwhat magnificence is, until this imperial city is laid bare tothe sun. The finest piece of sculpture we have yet seen and the onethat impressedus most, (forwe do not knowmuch about artand can not ea-sily work upourselves intoecstacies overit,) is one thatlies in this oldtheatre of Eph-esus which riot hasmade so cele-brated. It isonly the head-less body of aman, clad in acoat of mail,with a
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectvoyagesandtravels
