Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/105

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THE SOURCE OF THE NILE.
5

In passing, I would fain have gone ashore to see if there were any remains of the celebrated temple of Paphos; but a voyage, such as I was then embarked on, stood in need of vows to Hercules rather than to Venus, and the master, fearing to lose his passage, determined to proceed.

Many medals (scarce any of them good) are dug up in Cyprus; silver ones, of very excellent workmanship, are found near Paphos, of little value in the eyes of antiquarians, being chiefly of towns of the size of those found at Crete and Rhodes, and all the islands of the Archipelago. Intaglios there are some few, part in very excellent Greek style, and generally upon better stones than usual in the islands. I have seen some heads of Jupiter, remarkable for bushy hair and beard, that were of the most exquisite workmanship, worthy of any price. All the inhabitants of the island are subject to fevers, but more especially those in the neighbourhood of Paphos.

We left Lernica the 17th of June, about four o'clock in the afternoon. The day had been very cloudy, with a wind at N.E. which freshened as we got under weigh. Our master, a seaman of experience upon that coast, ran before it to the westward with all the sails he could set. Trusting to a sign that he saw, which he called a bank, resembling a dark cloud in the horizon, he guessed the wind was to be from that quarter the next day.

Accordingly, on the 18th, a little before twelve o'clock, a very fresh and favourable breeze came from the N.W. and we pointed our prow directly, as we thought, upon Alexandria.

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