The moon changed this morning, and the wind, that in this clime of fable is as constant to her as Endymion, changed too. The white caps vanished from the hurrying waves of the Dardanelles, and after an hour or two of calm, the long-expected breeze came tripping out of Asia, with oriental softness, and is now leading us gently up the Hellespont.
As we passed between the two castles of the Dardanelles, the commodore saluted the pacha with nineteen guns, and in half an hour we were off Abydos, where our friend from the south has deserted us, and we are compelled to anchor. It would be unclassical to complain of delay on so poetical a spot. It is beautiful, too. The shores on both the Asian and European sides are charmingly varied and the sun lies on them, and on the calm strait that links them, with a beauty worthy of the fair spirit of Hero. A small Turkish castle occupies the site of the “torch-lit tower” of Abydos, and there is a corresponding one at Sestos. The distance between looks little more than a mile—not a surprising feat for any swimmer, I should think. Lady-loves in our day, alas! are not won so lightly. The current of the Hellespont, however, remains the same, and so does the moral of Leander’s story. The Hellespont of matrimony may be crossed with the tide. The deuce is to _get back_!
Lampsacus on the starboard-bow, and a fairer spot lies on no river’s brink. Its trees, vineyards, and cottages, slant up almost imperceptibly from the water’s edge, and the hills around have the look “of a clean and quiet privacy,” with a rural elegance that might tempt Shakspeare’s Jaques to come and moralise. By the way, there have been philosophers here. Did not Alexander forgive the city its obstinate defence for the sake of Anaximenes? There was a sad dog of a deity worshipped here about that time.
I take a fresh look at it from the port, as I write. Pastures, every one with a bordering of tall trees, cattle as beautiful as the daughter of Ianchus, lanes of wild shrubbery, a greener stripe through the fields like the track of a stream, and smoke curling from every cluster of trees, telling as plainly as the fancy can read, that there is both poetry and pillaw at Lampsacus.