INTRODUCTION, xli 



walls and gates of which city arc ftill entire. There is a 

 prodigious number of Greek inferiptions, but there remain 

 only a few columns of the portico, and an Ionic temple, in 

 the firft manner of executing that order ; and therefore, 

 flight as the remains are, they are trcafures in the hiftory 

 of architecture which are worthy to be preferved. Thefc 

 are in the King's collection, with all the parts that could be 

 recovered. 



Here I met a fmall Greek junk belonging to Lampedo- 

 fa, a little ifland near Crete, which had been unloading 

 corn, and was now ready to fail. At the fame time the 

 Arabs of Ptolometa told me, that the Welled Ali, a powerful 

 tribe that occupy the whole country between that place 

 and Alexandria, were at war among themfelves, and had 

 plundered the caravan of Morocco, of which I have already 

 fpoken, and that the pilgrims compofing it had moftly pe- 

 rifhed, having been Scattered in the defert without water ; 

 that a great famine had been at Derna, the neighbouring 

 town, to which I intended to go ; that a plague had follow- 

 ed, and the town, which is divided into upper and lower, 

 was engaged in a civil war. This torrent of ill news was 

 irrefiftiblc, and was of a kind I did not propofc to wreftle 

 with ; befides, there was nothing, as far as I knew, that me- 

 rited the rifk. I refolved, therefore, to fly from this inhof- 

 pitable coafl, and fave to the public, at leaft, that knowledge 

 and entertainment I had acquired for them. 



I embarked on board the Greek vefTel, very ill accoutred, 

 as we afterwards found, and, though it had plenty of fail, 

 it had not an ounce of ballad. A number of people, men, 

 women, and children, flying from the calamities which at- 



VOL. I. * tCIld 



