When we approached Sicily I found we were failing along the fame coaft by which Aneas made his voyage; and as I had a view of the cities and places on the fhore, I could not but obferve the justice and poetical beauties of the defcriptions of the great mafter of the Latin Epic poetry.

As foon as we had doubled the fouth-west point of Sicily we saw the city of Mazra, the antient Mazara, from which one third part of Sicily is now called Valle di Mazara :. fome way to the east of it was the famous city of Selinus, which was destroyed before Strabo's time. The poet makes mention of it as abounding in palm trees :

Teque datis linquo ventis palmofa Selinus.

We afterwards had a very plain view of the city of Xiacca on the fide of a high ground. Sailing on I saw the city of Girgenti on the fide of a hill, being built up to the top of it; this town is about four miles from the fea, and is the antient city of Agrigentum, where the tyrant Phalaris refided. This city remained when most of the other towns on the fouth of Sicily were deftroyed in the Carthaginian wars: it was first a colony of Ionians; and afterwards a colony was brought to it from the cities of Sicily by T. Manlius the Prætor. Under the Greek name Acragas Virgil defcribes its eminent fituation, as well as mentions its having been formerly famous for a fine breed of horfes :

Arduus inde Acragas oftentat maxima longe
Mania, magnanimûm quondam generator equorum.

At the fame time I had a plain view of mount Etna, which now among the vulgar goes by the name of mount Gibello, and is feen almost all along the fouth and eaft coafts of Sicily: I difcerned a very little smoke afcending from the top of it. This mountain, fo famous among the antients, is very beautifully defcribed by Virgil, as feen by Æneas from the coafts of the Cyclops about Catana, where Ulyffes had put in not long before, and where both those heroes, according to the fictions of the poet, met with fuch extraordinary adventures in relation to Polyphemus. I foon afterwards faw cape Leocate at the mouth of the river Salfo, the antient Himera, near which there was a castle called Phalarium, where it is faid the brazen bull was kept: there is also a river called Rocella, which runs into the fea to the north of Sicily, the fource of which is near the fountains of Salfo, and the Rocella was formerly also called the Himera, which gave occafion to the antients to make a very extraordinary ftory, affirming that these two rivers were one, and called Himera, and that part of the river run north, and the other part fouth, and that in fome places the water was fresh, and in others falt; of which Vitruvius gives the true caufe, that one part of this river, or rather one of these rivers paffed through places where they dug falt; for in the middle of the island, about the fource of the river Salfo, there are mines of rock falt, which probably is the reafon of the modern name of this river.

Further to the east I faw a city called Terra Nova, near a river of the fame name; this is fuppofed to be Gela, which had its name alfo from the river, as is mentioned by the poet :

Apparet Camarina procul, campique Geloi,
Immanifque Gela fluvii cognomine dicta.

There is but one city more mentioned by Virgil on the fouth fide of Sicily, which was in ruins in Strabo's time: the place where it ftood is now called Camarana, the old name of the city being Camarina, a colony of the Syracufans.

VOL. X.

5 F

We

We had a fight of Malta at a great diftance, and at length came up with cape Paffaro the old promontory of Pachynum; as it is a peninfula, and the land very low to the weft of it, fo it appears at a distance like an island, with a castle built on it, in order to hinder fhips from going into the port, to lay in wait for other veffels. The ground off this cape is very foul, and fhips cannot come to anchor there without danger of cutting their cables, fo that it anfwers very well to the poet's defcription of it:

Hinc altas cautes, projectaque faxa Pachyni
Radimus.

Over this cape we faw the high lands about Syracufe.

To the east of Sicily is that fea which was called by the antients, firft the Ausonian fea, and afterwards the Sicilian fea; it extended from the ftreights of Sicily, now called the Faro of Meflina, to the promontory of Iapygia in Italy, to the mouth of the Adriatic fea, to the bay Ambracius in Greece, and as far as Crete, having the African fea to the fouth: I do not find any particular name for this fea at prefent, but the mariners call all these feas as far as the Adriatic, by the general name of the Mediterranean, as they call the feas farther to the eaft the Levant.

We loft fight of Sicily on the twenty-firft of September in the evening, and making a great run on the twenty-fourth in the morning we faw to the north of us the high mountains of Candia, the antient Crete, which is remarkable, as it was the scene of so many fables of the antients.

From Crete eastward near to Cyprus it was called the Ægyptian fea, extending weftward on the coaft of Africa to Cyreniaca, where the African fea began.

On the twenty-feventh of September we came in fight of the coast of Africa about cape Solyman, in the kingdom of Barca, and just on the confines of Egypt, which was that part of Marmarica about little Catabathmus, where the famous temple of Jupiter Ammon was fituated, to which Alexander the great travelled with fo much difficulty to confult the oracle: near it there was a famous fountain of the fun, which, they fay, was cold at noon, began to grow warm at night, and was very hot about midnight. The next day we came in fight of the tower of Arabia, and the day after faw Alexandria; as we approached it we had a very agreeable profpect of the famous column, of the walls of the old city, of the country covered with palm trees, which grow to a great height, rifing up above the buildings of the city. And on the twenty-ninth we arrived in the port of Alexandria, after a very pleasant and agreeable voyage of twenty-three days.

Strahan and Preston, Printers-Street, Londo:

END OF THE TENTII VOLUME.