The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-03-12

marble rock in its midst and a frog croaks out a welcome. A red COW is grazing there on the edge of the water and at my right hog is roofing the debris.
 A Theatre Which Seated 30,00O Now let us take horses and ride on down the valley to visit the theatre This has been so uncovered by the Aus trians that we can sit on the marble benches and look at the stage which once held the actors of the chief play house of Asia. Think of theatre which would seat 30.0OO! We have nothing like that in the United States, and there IS none that I know of in any part of the world. The wigwams of our national conventions, thrown up for the time, have accommodated that many, but this great open-air structure was built largely Of marble and altogether of stone. The en- trance to the stage was by tunnels and inc stage was upheld by marble columns. The seats were built of common stone, covered with marble, and they ran around the stage, or rather the pit, in the shape Of a half moon. rising high up the hills at the back. I should say there were zoo feet of such seats. They were in three stories and contained 66 rows
 I measured the outline of the stage. It was about IS feet wide and six or seven feet high. There are long underground passages leading to it. and it had eight two-storied rooms, which were probably used as dressing rooms by the actors. I walked through the pit, which is now filled with marble columns and blocks of marble beautifully carved, and then climbed up the seats from tier to tier, sitting down now and then and trying to imagine the audience and the acting as going on upon the marble stage far below.
 In Ancient Ephesus
 Leaving the theatre, leaving tied my horse to a bush, strolled about through the wide streets of marble, which have been partially uncovered, and made pho tographs of bits of the ruins. There is enough marble here to build a structure equal to our national capitol at Wash
 rgton. and this is mixed with mosaic and the broken statutes of the palaces of the past, There are pieces of friezes, col ,,mns and capitals lying out in the open; there are torsos of statues, the heads and feet of which have been broken off and carried away; and also exquisite carvings which would be treasures to any museum. Here lies a piece of marble drapery. the remains of a goddess there the broken up limb of an athlete, and farther on an exquisite bit from the front of the temple. Among the ruins are the remains of stores, houses and markets I climbed over marble blocks along the street which led to the ship canal. and stood among shattered columns in what was once the stock exchange and wool mar ket. In one place is an artificial terrace on which stood the great gymnasium, and in another marble place 200 feet long, surrounded by portico, back of which were halls in which the market men stood In the mosaic floors of these halls IS different kinds of marbles were used, f and marbles of various colors were em- ployed in the structure.
 Farming the Ruins
 | Today the peasants are working all over these ruins. Here they are planting grain, and there cleaning the fields, a gang of dozen girls working under turbaned man in full, baggy trousers. Here women are digging. and father on man drives camel harnessed to one handled plow
 | The only town near Ephesus is Ayasa
 louk, which has few hundred inhabi- tants. It has. perhaps, a dozen small stores, a railroad station and a. hotel.