MERGE TO GYRENE. 
509 
pitch our tents here, we had first to burn away the stubble to destroy 
a species of venomous spider, from the bites of which we had two or 
three narrow escapes, saving ourselves only by killing them suddenly 
on the spot with a smart blow, the moment we saw them upon us. 
Ghirrza, the scene of the extraordinary story so extensively propa- 
gated, being only within three or four miles of this place, occasioned 
me a restless night : so that early on the morning of the 9 th I 
eagerly sat off over the hills, and after a short ride the ruins of 
Ghirrza abruptly met my sight. 
“ I instantly perceived the error of some writers, in ascribing cold 
springs and moving sands to this spot, for the site is mountainous 
and bare, presenting only dreary masses of lime and sandstone, 
intersected with the ramifications of the great wadie of Zemzem. 
And although I had not allowed my imagination to rise at all in pro- 
portion to the exhilarating accounts I had heard, I could not but be 
sorely disappointed on seeing some ill-constructed houses of compara- 
tively modern date, on the break of a rocky hill, and a few tombs at 
a small distance beyond the ravine. On approaching the latter I 
found them of a mixed style, and in very indifferent taste, ornamented 
with ill-proportioned columns and clumsy capitals. The regular 
architectural divisions of frieze and cornice being neglected, nearly 
the whole depth of the entablatures was loaded with absurd repre- 
sentations of warriors, huntsmen, camels, horses, and other animals 
in low relief, or rather scratched on the freestone of which they are 
constructed. The pedestals are mostly without a dye, and the sides 
bore a vile imitation of arabesque decoration. The human figures 
