From this city our traveller continued his journey towards the east, and passing by Rhodes, the ancient Ades, Solyman, and Masourah, arrived at the sanctuary of Sidi Daoud, situated among the ruins of the ancient Nishna. Here he was shown the tomb of the saint, which was found upon examination to be nothing but a Roman prætorium, the pavement of which was adorned with the most elegant mosaics in the world; the general design being as bold and free as that of a picture, while the various figures, which consisted of horses, birds, fishes, and trees, were executed with the most delicate symmetry, and in a variety of brilliant colours so judiciously intermingled and contrasted as to produce an admirable effect. He next fixes at Lowhareah, the site of the ancient Aquilaria, where, during the civil wars, the troops of Cairo were landed, and cut to pieces by Sabura. The remaining ruins were insignificant; but the immense quarries from whence, according to Strabo, the materials for the building of Carthage, Utica, and other neighbouring cities were obtained, still remain open, and are supposed to have furnished Virgil with the original hint of his “Nympharum Domus,” &c., in the first book of the Æneid, though Addison rather supposes that the Bay of Naples is entitled to this honour. Be this as it may, from the sea to the village of Lowhareah, a distance of about half a mile, the interjacent mountain, from the level of the sea to the height of twenty or thirty feet, according to the disposition of the strata, is hollowed out, while enormous pillars are left standing at regular distances to support the superincumbent mass, through which small shafts or apertures were bored at intervals for the admission of fresh air. However, that the reader may perceive the justness of the doctor’s illustration, I will continue the description in his own words, and then subjoin the passage of Virgil referred to: “Moreover, as this mountain is shaded all over with trees, as the arches here described (the openings to the quarry) lie open to the sea, having a large cliff on each side, with the island Ægimurus placed over-against them; as there are likewise some fountains perpetually draining from the rocks, and seats very convenient for the weary labourer to rest upon: from such a concurrence of circumstances, so exactly corresponding to the cave which Virgil places somewhere in this gulf, we have little room to doubt of the following description being literally true, notwithstanding some commentators may have thought it fictitious, or applicable to another place.”
Law Report
The Lives of Celebrated Travellers, Vol. II (of 3) — Part 27
2026-11-15 16:19:57 · Cedar Herald Index
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