MERGE TO GYRENE. 
459 
Mahommed at Derna whenever we heard that any injury of the kind 
had been committed on his Highness’s property. 
If the excavated tombs of Cyrene have been pointed out as objects of 
no trivial interest, those, also, which have been built in every part of its 
neighbourhood are no less entitled to our attention and admiration. 
Several months might be employed in making drawings and plans of 
the most conspicuous of these elegant structures ; and the few exam- 
ples which our short stay allowed us to secure them (as given in the 
plate, page 464) will give but an imperfect idea of the variety 
observable in their forms and details. Many of these are built in 
imitation of temples, although there are scarcely two of them exactly 
ahke ; and their effect on the high ground on which they mostly 
stand, as seen from different parts of the city and suburbs, is more 
beautiful than we can pretend to describe. A judicious observer 
might select from these monuments, as well as from the excavated 
tombs above mentioned, examples of Grecian and Eoman architecture 
through a long succession of interesting periods ; and the progress 
of the art might thus be traced satisfactorily, from its early state 
among the first inhabitants of Cyrene, to its degeneracy and final 
decay under Koman colonists in the decline of the empire. 
The larger tombs were usually divided in the centre by a wall along 
the whole length of the building (which is the case in one of those 
represented in the plate, p, 464), and several bodies were disposed one 
over the other in each of the compartments thus obtained. Every 
place containing a body was covered with a slab of marble or stone, 
in the manner of those described in the excavated tombs ; and there 
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