494 MERGE TO GYRENE.

some conversation with the people who appeared at the entrance of them. We made them understand that we should like to ascend and pay them a visit in their aerial abodes, but as they seemed to be unwilling to admit us, we did not press the subject any further *. The lower parts of the ravine are thickly covered with pine, olive, and carob trees, and the whole has a very wild and picturesque appearance.

The town of Apollonia, now called Suza Hammam, from the number of wild pigeons that frequent it, is situated at the bottom of an open bay, formed between Eas El Hilal and the cape known by the name of Eas Sem. It stands close to the sea, upon a small eminence, or long narrow slip of elevated ground ; and is situated at the extremity of a fertile plain, which extends itself from the foot of a ridge of mountains, distant a mile and a half from the sea coast, and running in an east and westerly direction. The length of the city may be reckoned at nearly three thousand English feet, and its greatest breadth at scarcely more than five hundred. It has been completely surrounded by a very strong wall, with quadrangular turrets on three of its sides, and circular ones of much larger dimensions on the remaining side (that to the westward). As the wall has been carried along the brow of the hill, more attention has been paid to its strength than to its symmetry, but the turrets are for the most tolerably equidistant, being about eighty yards apart. The two circular turrets at the north-western angle of the wall have been built with even greater attention to sohdity than other parts of this well-* These are the caves which we have given in the drawing, p. 493.