The traveller who sails from the Piraeus for the Hellespont sees, after havingpassed the western shore of Lesbos, the Cape Lectum, which forms the westernextremity of the Ida range of mountains. This cape is the southern extremity ofthe land, which from Homeric times until now, and probably for many centuriesbefore Homer, has borne the famous, the immortal, name of Troas. In sailingthence along its western shore, which extends almost in a straight line to thenorth, and ends in Cape Sigeum, the traveller distinguishes there, in the midstof a dense forest of oak-trees, the gigantic ruins of the once flourishing cityof Alexandria-Troas, which, by its immense extent, seems to have had at least500,000 inhabitants.