MEMOIR OP BRUCE. 35 



to Has Sem, the petrified city, where the Arabs 

 pretend that men and horses, women churning, 

 little children, dogs, cats, and mice, were to be seen 

 in a state of petrifaction. It is needless to say that 

 Bruce discovered none of these marvels, and found 

 them all to be fables. Approaching the sea-coast he 

 came to Ptolemeta, the ancient Ptolemais, the walls 

 and gates of which he found still entire, and covered 

 with an immense number of Greek inscriptions. 



The turbulent state of the country, the appearance 

 of the plague, and the plundering of the great pil- 

 grim caravan, induced our traveller to fly at once 

 from that inhospitable coast, to save his life and the 

 information he had so laboriously acquired. Em- 

 barking with his little party on board a Greek 

 junk belonging to Lampedosa, a small island near 

 Crete, he resolved to proceed on his journey; but 

 the vessel being badly appointed, and overcrowded 

 with starved passengers, he discovered, when too 

 late, that he only escaped one species of danger 

 to encounter another. The captain was ignorant 

 of his duty, and being overtaken with a storm, the 

 ship struck upon a sunk rock at the entrance of the 

 harbour of Bengazi ; a few of the men perished by 

 attempting to save themselves in a boat ; Bruce was 

 an expert swimmer, and reached the shore in a state 

 of great exhaustion ; for a considerable time he lay 

 insensible, and was at length roused from his stupor 

 by a blow on the head from the lance of an Arab, a 

 party of whom had come to plunder the vessel. 



From the fashion of his dress, which had been 



