COMM UNICA TIO NS. 
65 
hills, the caravan arrived at the entrance of an extenfive and 
'beautiful plain, that every where exhibited a luxuriant growth of 
olive trees, intermixed with dates. 
The next two hours brought them to the fea coaft, and to all that 
now exifts of the town of Lebida, where, in the ruins of a temple, 
and in the much more perfe£l remains of feveral triumphal arches, 
the Traveller contemplates the magnificence of an antlent Ro- 
man colony ; and difcovers, in the beauty and fertile appearance 
of the adjoining plain, the reafons which led them to chufe, 
for a fea-port town, a fituation that furniflies no natural harbour. 
Eaftward of the ruins, for about five and twenty miles, the 
foil, though entirely unaided by the poor Arabs who inhabit it, 
exhibits the fame luxuriant vegetation ; and the fcene is rendered 
ftill more interefting by the remains of a ftupendous aqueducl, 
which formerly conveyed to Lebida the water of a dillant hill. 
At half an hour after five, and in the neighbourhood of a mi- 
ferable village, the caravan encamped for the night. 
' Feb. 5th. The next day's journey, which was attended with 
nothing remarkable, and during which they followed the line 
K of 
