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.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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