450 MERGE TO GYRENE.

to answer all the various odd questions which the good ladies of Gyrene proposed to us, we should have employed the whole day in replying to them. By the help of a few little trinkets, however, which we usually carried about with us, we contrived to put an end to the conversation, without any offence, whenever it began to exceed moderate limits ; and continued our route under a shower of pious wishes that the blessing of God might attend us.

In passing along the galleries we have mentioned in this ravine, there are a great many excavated tombs, some of which are very beautifully finished, and one of them presents the only example which we remember to have met with at Gyrene of a mixture of two orders of architecture in the same part of a building — the portico in front of this tomb being supported by Ionic columns, surmounted with a Doric entablature. The whole portico is formed out of the rock itself, which has been left in the manner formerly alluded to, and advances a few feet before the wall of the chamber in which the door is excavated. The proportions are bad, and no part of the tomb has anything particular to recommend it to notice beyond the peculiarity we have stated it to possess ; but as it is the only instance which we observed of the kind, we have thought it as well to advert to it. The tympanum is here placed immediately over the zophorus, without any cornice intervening, and the mutules are in consequence omitted*. Like many other excavated tombs at Gyrene, the one now in question has no cellse beyond the chamber ; * In the tomb of Theron at Agrigentum we have a similar instance of a Doric entablature supported by Ionic columns.