MERGE TO GYRENE. 
421 
of building are every where discernible in passing along this route, 
as we were able to ascertain in our return from Cyrene, which will 
hereafter be described. The southern road, however, is that which 
Abou-Bukra selected in escorting us from Merge to Grenna ; and 
we afterwards learnt that he had done so in consequence of the feud 
which he had upon his hands, (already alluded to above,) which 
rendered it unsafe for him to travel along the road most usually 
frequented. We had passed the remains of some strongly built forts 
in our route from Margad to Cyrene, and after ascending the high 
ground to the northward of Wady Bobkasaisheeta we came in sight 
of the numerous, we might almost say innumerable, tombs whicli 
encumber the outskirts of the town. It is well known that the 
burial-places of the ancients were usually without the walls of their 
cities ; and we find the tombs of Cyrene, (hke those of Pompeii and 
other places,) ranged along the sides of the roads by which the town 
is approached, and occupying, at the same time, the greater part of 
the space intervening between one road and another*. When we 
reflect that the inhabitants of this celebrated city have laid their 
mortal remains on the soil which surrounded it for more than 
twenty-four centuries, we shall not be surprised at the multitude of 
* It was not, however, unfrequerit to bury persons of moi-e than ordinary worth and 
consideration within the walls; and the most frequented and conspicuous places were in 
such cases selected for the tombs, or monuments, which the gratitude of citizens reared 
in the midst of their families. The Lacedaimonians, whose laws and customs were usually 
in direct opposition to the other states of Greece, allowed the dead to be buried indis- 
criminately within the walls of their cities, as we are told by Plutarch in his life of 
Lycurgus. 
