8 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



of that city perfectly known, a traveller in fearch of anti- 

 quities in architecture would think here was a field for 

 long lludy and employment. 



It is in this point of view the town appears moft to the 

 advantage. The mixture of old monuments, fuch as the 

 Column of Pompey, with the high moorifh towers and 

 fleeples, raife our expectations of the confequence of the- 

 ruins we are to find. 



But the moment we are in the port the iliufion ends, and 

 we diflinguifh the immenfe Herculean works of ancient 

 times, now few in number, from the ill-imagined, ill-con- 

 ftructed, and imperfect buildings, of the feveral barbarous 

 matters of Alexandria in later ages. 



There are two ports, the Old and the New. The entrance 

 into the latter is both difficult and dangerous, having a bar 

 before it ; it is the leaft of the two,. though, it is what is call- 

 ed the Great Port, by *Strabo. 



Here only the European mips can lie ; and, even when 

 here, they are not in fafety; as numbers of veffels are con- 

 stantly loft, though at anchor. 



Above forty were call a-fhore and darned to pieces in 

 March 1773, when I was on my return home, moftly belong- 

 ing to Ragufa, and the fmall ports in Provence, while little 

 harm was done to mips of any nation accuflomed to the 

 ocean. 



StrabOj lib. xvii. j> 922. 



