548 
MERGE TO GYRENE. 
west. There are remains of much larger columns, near the road, at 
the southern extremity of this large mass of building ; and we feel 
confident that matter of considerable interest is still to be found 
beneath the rich soil which covers it, in their immediate vicinity and 
neighbourhood. Corn is now growing over a great part of the ground 
in question ; and an old Arab, who was employed in cutting it down, 
when we measured the remains of building just described, was greatly 
astonished at the trouble we gave ourselves in walking over and 
examining them in a very hot day ; when he could scarcely himself 
make his mind up to cut down his wheat, which was certainly a 
matter (he said) of much more importance. He had his gun ready 
charged by his side, and moved it along with him as he changed his 
position in reaping ; a ceremony at which we should have been a little 
surprised, if we had not before seen frequent instances of similar 
precaution in the Arabs of the Syrtis and Cyrenaica. In fact, the 
Bedouin, like the Albanian or the Corsican, never stirs out without 
his gun, if he has one ; for it rarely happens that any individual has 
not some feud upon his hands, and it is necessary to be provided with 
the means of defence, in a country where every man is the legal 
avenger of his own or his family’s wrongs. We use the term 
Bedouin, because, although our swarthy friend was cutting wheat, 
he was at the same time a wandering Arab ; and only visited the 
place periodically, chiefly during the summer season. For three 
parts of the year Cyrene is untenanted, except by jackalls and 
hysenas, and the Bedouins pitch their tents chiefly on the low 
ground to the southward of the range on which the city is built. 
