584 



Mr. Wilde prefaced his observations by stating that he 

 had already published an account of this celebrated building, 

 which is situated at the extremity of the peninsula, on which 

 the town of Corunna stands, wherein he had cursorily men- 

 tioned, that independent of the architectural beauty of its 

 structure, its inestimable value as a beacon to mariners 

 crossing this portion of the Bay of Biscay, and its marking 

 the common entrance to the harbours of Corunna and Fer- 

 rol, what added " still greater interest to it in the eye of the 

 traveller, was the fact of its enclosing within its massive 

 walls one of the most interesting monuments of antiquity — 

 the Pharos of Hercules — the oldest existing specimen of this 

 kind in Europe, and amongst the vei'y few now anywhere 

 to be found."* 



These observations were those of an ordinary traveller, 

 who had no particular theory to support, and no peculiar 

 object in view, save that of eliciting truth, and recording, 

 with fidelity, what passed under his notice. Since then Sir 

 William Betham having, in his "Etruria Celtica," questioned 

 some of the statements put forth in this quotation, and find- 

 ing, as he states, some incongruity between tbe accounts 

 given by Mr. Wilde and Laborde, appears to have come to 

 the conclusion that the ancient Pharos is not included, as is 

 stated, within the walls of the modern Tower. 



Mr. Wilde went on to say, that " being about to repub- 

 lish the original notice of this building, and feeling somewhat 

 piqued at the assertion of Sir William Betham, who, never 

 having seen the locality, laboured, I conceive, under such dis- 

 advantages as hardly entitled him to criticise, although, it 

 must be said, in the most kindly spirit, the description 

 which I had given from a personal examination on the spot, 



* Narrative of a Vojage to Madeira and the Mediterranean, 2 vols. 8vo. 

 1st edition, 1840, pp. 12-14. 



