78 JOURNEY FROM still occupied by a rivulet, are various ruins of aqueducts, and some large reservoirs in excellent preservation. Between the principal cisterns and the torrent to the westward of Leptis, some artificial mounds are constructed across the plain, by which the winter rains were conducted to the reservoirs, and carried clear of the city. On the east bank of the river are remains of a galley-port, and numerous baths, adjacent to a circus, formerly ornamented with obelisks and columns, and above which are vestiges of a theatre. Indeed the whole plain from the Mergip hills to the Cinyphus (now the river Khahan) exhibits unequivocal proofs of its former population and opulence.

Thus ended my unsuccessful research; but though no works of art were recovered, many of the architectural fragments were moved during the summer down to the beach, by Colonel Warrington, where I called for and embarked them on board a store-ship for England, together with thirty-seven shafts, which formed the principal scope of the expedition, and they are now in the court of the British Museum. Still we were sorry to find that neither the raftports nor the hatchways of the Weymouth were capable of admitting three fine Cipolline columns of great magnitude, that, from their extreme beauty and perfection, we had been particularly anxious about.