MERGE TO GYRENE. 
4-23 
We were at first induced to stop at every object of importance 
which presented itself in our passage through these regions of the 
dead ; but we soon found that such delays, however agreeable, would 
make it night before we reached the city itself if we continued to 
indulge in them as our inclination prompted ; and we bade our con- 
ductor (the chaous from Bengazi) lead on to that part of it which he 
himself considered to be most worthy of particular attention. The 
taste of the African displayed itself on this occasion precisely in the 
manner which we had expected it would do ; and after passing for 
some little distance along the edge of a ravine where we perceived the 
remains of an aqueduct, he descended by a gentle slope into a level 
spot of ground, overspread with remains of building, till we found 
ourselves at the foot of a perpendicular clilF and heard the grateful 
sound of running water. Nothing further was necessary to rouse 
the drooping energies of our horses, fatigued with the day’s journey, 
and parched with tliirst from the heat of the weather; they sprang 
forward instinctively, without the stimulus of whip or spur, and 
plunging up to their knees in the cool clear stream drank deep of 
the fountain of Cyrene. 
We are by no means indifferent to the beauties of antiquity, — 
nay we often imagine ourselves to be among their most ardent 
admirers ; but we confess, to our shame, that, on this occasion, we 
followed the example of the poor beasts who carried us, and, spring- 
ing from our saddles, took a copious draught of the fountain before 
we turned to pay our homage to the shrine from which it flowed*. 
* The fountain of Cyrene was a consecrated stream, and the face of the I’ock from 
which it flows was originally adorned with a portico like that of a temple. 
