CLARKE'S TRAVELS. 
m 
children , is leaning over an eminence as it were , and laughing ;• 
not icing wholly in sight , but only kalj way down , and holding 
a lion's whelp in his right hand , to frighten the children . The 
admirable skill of Zeuxis consists in displaying all the va¬ 
riety of the art in his treatment of one and the same subject: 
here we have a horse , proud, spirited , a shaggy mane over 
his chest and shoulders, a wild and fierce eye; and a female % 
like the Thessalean mares , never to be mounted nor tamed; 
the upper half a woman , but all below the back like a satyr ; 
and the different bodies fitted , and, as it were 9 blended toge¬ 
ther .” 
The signet stones of Cyprus, althought cut in a variety of 
substances, were more frequently of red carnelian than of any 
other mineral. Some of the most diminutive size were finely 
executed in red garnet, the carbuncle of the ancients. Others 
were formed of plasma, onyx, bloodstone, topaz, jasper, and 
even of quartz. Of all these, the most ancient had the scara- 
baean form. Two very interesting examples are here repre¬ 
sented. 
The first is of the most remote antiquity. It was found 
among the ruins whence the idols recently alluded to were 
discovered. The substance of it is an onyx, in a very advan¬ 
ced state of decomposition. The characters are evidently 
Phoenician, and correspond with those exhibited by inscriptions 
found upon the same spot, and published by Pococke.* The 
subject represented appears to be the dove, a very ancient 
symbol of Venus; but whether the figure placed before the 
bird be a grain of the bearded wheat so common in Cyprfe 
# gee Fosecfce’s Travels, voj. ii. p. 2iz- 
