TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI.

75 On my return thither in January, 1817, I was surprised, on riding over the ruins, to find that many of the most valuable columns, which were standing in the preceding May, had either been removed, or were lying broken on the spot, and even most of those stiU remaining had had their astragal and torus chipped off. I discovered, on inquiry, that a report had been circulated by the Tschaouses on my former visit, of an intention to embark them for England; and as it had long been a quarry whence the Arabs supplied themselves with mill-stones, they had in the interval been busily employed in breaking up the columns for that purpose, providing not only for the present, but also for future supply. This extensive destruction was prompted by the peculiar construction of the Moorish oil-mills, they being built with a circular surface, having a gentle inclination towards the centre, round which a long stone traverses, formed by about onethird of a shaft.

On the 25th, however, having arranged my tents and instruments, I commenced an excavation near the centre of the city Avith a party of eight Arabs, whom I increased the following day to a hundred; and as they quickly gained the use of the Enghsh spade and mattock, the work proceeded with celerity. But I soon had the mortification of perceiving, from numerous local evidences, that Leptis had been completely ravaged in former times, and its public edifices demolished with diligent labour, owing perhaps to the furious bigotry of the Carthaginian bishops, who zealously destroyed the Pagan monuments in every place under their control. Or it might have been partly effected by the vengeance of the Barbarians for the