three or four miles from this place, occasioned me a restless night: so that early in the morning of the 9th, I eagerly set off over the hills, and after a short ride, the ruins of Ghirza 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 proportion to the exhilarating accounts I had heard, I could not but be sorely disappointed on seeing some ill-constructed houses of comparatively 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 representations 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 and animals are miserably executed, and are generally small, though they vary in size from about three feet and a half, to a foot in height, even on the same tombs, which adds to their ridiculous effect; whilst some palpable and obtruding indecencies render them disgusting.
“Across a fine but neglected valley, to the south-eastward, in which were numerous herds of wild antelopes, and a few ostriches, is a monumental obelisk of heavy proportions; and near it are four tombs, of similar style and ornament with the first set. These are remarkable, however, as more strongly combining a mixture of Egyptian and Greek architecture, and are placed so as to give a singular interest to the scene. There are but three inscriptions, and those are comparatively insignificant; nor can other particulars be learned, the whole of them having been opened, in search, probably, of treasure; but as no person permanently resides near the spot, I was deprived of any local information. A wandering Bedoween, who had been some time in the wadie, brought me a fine medal, in large brass, of the elder Faustina, which he had found in the immediate vicinity.
“The tombs appear to have remained uninjured by the action of either the sun or the atmosphere, excepting only a deep fallow tint they have imbibed; – the sculpture therefore, as we must call it, remains nearly perfect. As these edifices are near the Fezzan road, people from the interior have occasionally tarried to examine them; and being the only specimens of the art they ever saw, yet representing familiar objects, they have described them on their arrival at the coast in glowing colours. It is this nucleus which, rendered more plausible, perhaps, by the story of Nardoun, soon swelled into a petrified city, and at length attracted the