234 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL &.ERICA.

I took a sketch of this remarkable cluster of ruins from their northern end, and afterwards another from the valley helow, whence each pyramid appears distinct and separate, no one covering the other. The rai's and sailors were puzzled what to make of my inspection of the place, but finally concluded that I hoped to find a few golden pigeons, which the Frank astrologer had not carried away. I next visited the eastern group, which consists of ten pyramids, more or less dilapidated, and the ruined foundations of six or eight more.

The largest, which I ascended, consists of thirty-five courses of stone, and is about fifty-three feet in height, eight or ten feet of the apex having been hurled down. Each side of the apex is seventeen paces, or about forty-two feet long, and the angle of ascent is consequently much greater than in the pyramids of Egypt. On the slope of the hill are the substructions of two or three large buildings, of which sufficient remains to show the disposition of the chambers and the location of the doorways. Towards the south, near where the valley inclosed between the two groups opens upon the plain, are the remains of other pyramids and buildings, and some large, fortress-like ruins are seen on the summits of the mountains to the East.

I would willingly have visited them, but the wind was blowing fresh, and the rai's was impatient to get back to his vessel. Many of the stones of the pyramids are covered with rude attempts at sculpturing camels and horses; no doubt by the Arabs, for they resemble a school-boy's first drawings on a slate — straight sticks for legs, squares for bodies, and triangles for humps.

Leaving the ruins to the company of the black goats that were browsing on the dry grass, growing in bunches at their