486 
MERGE TO GYRENE. 
or accident. It appeared that the road up the mountain which they 
had been observed to take terminated abruptly at the foot of a pre- 
cipice, a circumstance which greatly surprised them, for the track 
which they followed was undoubtedly trodden, and, as it seemed to 
them, very recently. No outlet, however, was on any side visible, 
and as they stood pondering on the object of a road which led only 
to the base of a high perpendicular cliff and was closely hemmed in 
by thickets and brushwood, they thought they heard a mill at work, 
the sound of which seemed to come from above*. As they looked 
up with astonishment towards the side of the mountain, from which 
the noise apparently came, they clearly heard a soft female voice 
issue from it, and soon perceived two very pretty young Arab girls 
looking out of a square hole on the side of the precipice, at the 
height of about an hundred and fifty feet above their heads— the 
place being not only inaccessible from below but equally so from 
above, and indeed on all sides of it, owing to the smoothness and 
perpendicular surface of the cliff in which it was formed. 
When their surprise was a little abated our servants requested 
some water, but were told that there was none in the house ; the 
girls inquiring at the same time where our people were going, and if 
they belonged to the English at Grenna. They replied in the affir- 
mative, and said they had lost their way. One of the females then 
asked how many the party consisted of, and were answered, fifteen, 
* The mill used for grinding corn by the Arabs is nothing more than a small flat 
stone on which another is turned by the hand, and this is usually placed in the lap of the 
women, who are the only millers and bakers in Arab families. 
