From these baths the distance to the sea is between two and three miles—a gentle declivity covered with low woods, and partially interspersed with spots of cultivated ground.  On this slope the ancient city of Alexandria Troas was built.  On the north-west, part of the walls, to the extent of a mile, may yet be traced; the remains of a theatre are also still to be seen on the side of the hill fronting the sea, commanding a view of Tenedos, Lemnos, and the whole expanse of the Ægean.

Having been conducted by the guide, whom they had brought with them from Tenedos, to the principal antiquities of Alexandria Troas, the visitors returned to the frigate, which immediately after got under way.  On the 14th of April she came to anchor about a mile and a half from Cape Janissary, the Sygean promontory, where she remained about a fortnight; during which ample opportunity was afforded to inspect the plain of Troy, that scene of heroism, which, for three thousand years, has attracted the attention and interested the feelings and fancy of the civilized world.

Whether Lord Byron entertained any doubt of Homer’s Troy ever having existed, is not very clear.  It is probable, from the little he says on the subject, that he took no interest in the question.  For although no traveller could enter with more sensibility into the local associations of celebrated places, he yet never seemed to care much about the visible features of antiquity, and was always more inclined to indulge in reflections than to puzzle his learning with dates or dimensions.  His ruminations on the Troad, in Don Juan, afford an instance of this, and are conceived in the very spirit of Childe Harold.

And so great names are nothing more than nominal,
   And love of glory’s but an airy lust,
Too often in its fury overcoming all
   Who would, as ’twere, identify their dust
From out the wide destruction which, entombing all,
   Leaves nothing till the coming of the just,
Save change.  I’ve stood upon Achilles’ tomb,
And heard Troy doubted—time will doubt of Rome.

The very generations of the dead
   Are swept away, and tomb inherits tomb,
Until the memory of an age is fled,
   And buried, sinks beneath its offspring’s doom.
Where are the epitaphs our fathers read,
   Save a few glean’d from the sepulchral gloom,
Which once named myriads, nameless, lie beneath,
And lose their own in universal death?