to such employment should, lie find himself stationed for years in
their neighbourhood.
We never, ourselves, passed our time more agreeably, than in
collecting the details which we have been able to procure of them;
and shall never forget the sensations of delight—we will not use a
less impressive term—which we experienced on our first introduction
to these beautiful examples of Grecian art.
The position of the tombs, as well as that of the city, has been
already described, and too much can scarcely be said in its praise;
we wish that our limits would allow us to give more of the architectural
details of the former than can be collected from the general
view of them; but we shall probably avail ourselves of some other
opportunity of submitting a few examples to public inspection, and
can only at present refer for some idea of them to the view which
we have just alluded to,. To have lived in the flourishing times of
Cyrene would indeed have been a source of no trivial enjoyment;
and we are ashamed to say how often we have envied those who
beheld its numerous buildings in a state of perfection, and
occupied, in their former cultivated state, the beautiful spots; on
which they stand.
We must not, however, take our leave of the city, without adverting
once more to the excavated channel that has been formed for the
water of the principal fountain, to which we have formerly alluded.
We had been so much occupied in walking over the ruins, and collecting
the details of Cyrene and Apollonia, that it was only the day
before we set out on our return to Bengazi, that we were able to
explore this passage to the end. I t is formed entirely in the rock
from which the stream issues, and runs, in an irregular course, for
nearly a quarter of a mile into the bowels of the mountain: the sides
and roof of the passage are flat, where time and the action of the
current (which is very strong) have not worn them away; but the
bottom is encumbered with stones, bedded fast in a quantity of clay
which has accumulated about it and against the sides. The general
height of this subterranean channel is scarcely five feet, an elevation
which we found rather inconvenient, for it obliged us to stoop a
good deal in advancing ; and as it would not have been possible to
examine the place properly, or indeed to have preserved our
light, without keeping the head and body in an upright position, we
usually found the water making higher encroaches than its chilling
cold rendered agreeable.
In some places, however, where there appear to have been originally
flaws or fissures in the rock, the roof was irregular, and there was room
enough to stand upright, an occurrence of which we very gladly availed
ourselves, to the great relief of our knees. We found the average
width from three to four feet, although in the places just mentioned
it was occasionally as much as six fee t; and were it not for the clay
which has been collected against the sides, we should often have suffered
from their roughness. From the irregularity of the course of the
passage we were obliged to take bearings very often; and at each time
. we stopped for this purpose we took down the distance measured with
our chain between the point we stopped at and the last; so that after
much trouble we succeeded in obtaining a tolerably correct plan of the