24 THE RUINS OF SELGE. 



which increased at every step, till I found my- 

 self among a host of remains which the man 

 told me was Serhghe itself. For the moment 

 I was disappointed, supposing I had seen the 

 whole ; but in a minute or two, getting over 

 the top of the slope on the southern side of 

 which these vestiges were scattered, I came sud- 

 denly in view of a theatre magnificently situated, 

 a stadium, a row of Ionic columns standing, and 

 a square below, which must have been the Agora, 

 though now a corn-field. Standing myself upon 

 a large square platform of ancient pavement, with 

 a beautiful foreground of a very perfect colonnade 

 and other ruins running down the hill towards 

 one end of the stadium, at the other end of which, 

 at a most beautiful angle, stood the theatre ; and 

 when I turned to the left, and saw another face 

 of old Boz-boroom, — the eastern, — I think in all 

 my life I never saw such a mountain view, so 

 utterly different from anything I had seen else- 

 where. The entire of those two huge slopes 

 over which I had last passed, as far as my route 

 lay, is composed of a very coarse conglomerate, 

 which has been worn away into a succession 

 of circular snail-shaped hillocks ; and round and 

 round these hillocks, in succession, there stand 



