MERGE TO GYRENE.

4-23 We were at first induced to stop at every object of importance which presented itself in our passage through these regions of the dead ; but we soon found that such delays, however agreeable, would make it night before we reached the city itself if we continued to indulge in them as our inclination prompted ; and we bade our conductor (the chaous from Bengazi) lead on to that part of it which he himself considered to be most worthy of particular attention. The taste of the African displayed itself on this occasion precisely in the manner which we had expected it would do ; and after passing for some little distance along the edge of a ravine where we perceived the remains of an aqueduct, he descended by a gentle slope into a level spot of ground, overspread with remains of building, till we found ourselves at the foot of a perpendicular clilF and heard the grateful sound of running water. Nothing further was necessary to rouse the drooping energies of our horses, fatigued with the day’s journey, and parched with tliirst from the heat of the weather; they sprang forward instinctively, without the stimulus of whip or spur, and plunging up to their knees in the cool clear stream drank deep of the fountain of Cyrene.

We are by no means indifferent to the beauties of antiquity, — nay we often imagine ourselves to be among their most ardent admirers ; but we confess, to our shame, that, on this occasion, we followed the example of the poor beasts who carried us, and, springing from our saddles, took a copious draught of the fountain before we turned to pay our homage to the shrine from which it flowed*.

* The fountain of Cyrene was a consecrated stream, and the face of the I’ock from which it flows was originally adorned with a portico like that of a temple.