CHAPTER IV
ASIA MINOR, 1874
Elwes after his marriage gradually turned his attention to horticulture, In his early studies he received much advice and help from the late Mr. T. Atkins of Painswick, whose collection of hardy and Alpine plants was at that time unrivalled in this country. The development of his new interests is well illustrated in his account of a collecting tour in South-western Asia Minor.
In the winter of 1873–74 the late Lord Lilford was in the Mediterranean in his yacht, and asked me to accompany him on a trip to Cyprus. I accepted this invitation with pleasure, but, owing to an accident to the yacht, it was postponed after my arrangements for leaving home weic made. So instead of joining the yacht at Naples as intended I took passage to Smyrna from Marseilles on March 6th, 1874. Passing through the Greek islands, where after an unusually severe winter snow was lying within 1,000 feet of the sea, we called at Syra on March nth. A walk into the country showed that vegetation was very backward, and, except a few Grape Hyacinths, Anemones and Genista, there was nothing of much interest in bloom.
On reaching Smyrna the next day in a storm of wind and rain I found that frost and snow had been so prevalent in the interior that it was too soon to travel. After consulting Mr. Whittall, I decided to go furthei south and see what I could do in Lycia; but, as there was no steamer for a week, I spent my time in collecting birds and what few plants I could find in flower near Smyrna. I engaged an Italian interpreter who spoke Greek and Turkish, and paid a visit to Ephesus, where I was befriended by Mr. J.T. Wood, who had for some years been engaged in excavating the Temple of Diana and other ruins for the British Museum.* There were many woodcock and snipe and duck in the country round, and I found three rare and interesting birds new to me —Ruticilla mesolunca, Emberiza cinerea,^ and Sitta syriaca—besides a jackdaw, whose white collar was, like that of the Macedonian jackdaw, much more stiongly marked than in its English relative, I also found Crocuses, Cyclamens and Romuleas, but little else in flower; though that most beautiful shrub, Arbutus andrachne, with its russia-leather-like bark, was very striking.
On March 21st I embarked on a small Glasgow steamer which touched next day at Samos, where I went on shore. It seems a rich and well- cultivated island, and, the climate being milder than that of Smyrna, the almond trees were a mass of bloom. On March 23rd we called at Kalymnos, an island mostly inhabited by sponge divers, and later on at Cos, where I saw the celebrated plane tree.
Symi, another sponge fishers’ island, was very barren looking, but I found the rocks covered with a most beautiful Cyclamen which I believe to be a form of C. persicum; the flowers are not so large as those of the
1 See his Discoveries at Ephesus, 1876.
f Emberiza cinerea was discovered near Smyrna in 1836 by H.E. Strickland and has not been found elsewhere.
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