548 MERGE TO GYRENE.

west. There are remains of much larger columns, near the road, at the southern extremity of this large mass of building ; and we feel confident that matter of considerable interest is still to be found beneath the rich soil which covers it, in their immediate vicinity and neighbourhood. Corn is now growing over a great part of the ground in question ; and an old Arab, who was employed in cutting it down, when we measured the remains of building just described, was greatly astonished at the trouble we gave ourselves in walking over and examining them in a very hot day ; when he could scarcely himself make his mind up to cut down his wheat, which was certainly a matter (he said) of much more importance. He had his gun ready charged by his side, and moved it along with him as he changed his position in reaping ; a ceremony at which we should have been a little surprised, if we had not before seen frequent instances of similar precaution in the Arabs of the Syrtis and Cyrenaica. In fact, the Bedouin, like the Albanian or the Corsican, never stirs out without his gun, if he has one ; for it rarely happens that any individual has not some feud upon his hands, and it is necessary to be provided with the means of defence, in a country where every man is the legal avenger of his own or his family’s wrongs. We use the term Bedouin, because, although our swarthy friend was cutting wheat, he was at the same time a wandering Arab ; and only visited the place periodically, chiefly during the summer season. For three parts of the year Cyrene is untenanted, except by jackalls and hysenas, and the Bedouins pitch their tents chiefly on the low ground to the southward of the range on which the city is built.