le to imagine any
thing more agreeable than this journey would have been two or three
thousand years since, when, after drinking a dish of tea with Sappho,
I might have gone, the same evening, to visit the temple of Homer in
Chios, and passed this voyage in taking plans of magnificent temples,
delineating the miracles of statuaries, and conversing with the most
polite and most gay of mankind. Alas! art is extinct here; the
wonders of nature alone remain; and it was with vast pleasure I
observed those of mount Etna, whose flame appears very bright in the
night many leagues off at sea, and fills the head with a thousand
conjectures. However, I honour philosophy too much, to imagine it
could turn that of Empedocles; and Lucian shall never make me believe
such a scandal of a man, of whom, Lucretius says,

_--Vix humana videtur stirpe creatus--_

WE passed Trinacria without hearing any of the syrens that Homer
describes; and, being thrown on neither Scylla nor Charybdis, came
safe to Malta, first called Melita, from the abundance of honey. It
is a whole rock covered with very little earth. The grand master
lives here in the state of a sovereign prince; but his strength at
sea now is very small. The fortifications are reckoned the best in
the world, all cut in the solid rock with infinite expence and
labour.--Off this island we were tossed by a severe storm, and were
very glad, after eight days, to be able to put into Porta Farine on
the African shore, where our ship now rides. At Tunis we were met by
the English consul who resides here. I readily accepted of the offer
of his house there for some days, being very curious to see this part
of the world, and particularly the ruins of Carthage. I set out in
his chaise at nine at night, the moon being at full. I saw the
prospect of the country almost as well as I could have done by
day-light; and the heat of the sun is now so intolerable, 'tis
impossible to travel at any other time. The soil is, for the most
part, sandy, but every where fruitful of date, olive, and fig-trees,
which grow without art, yet afford the most delicious fruit in the
world. There vineyards and melon-fields are inclos'd by hedges of
that plant we call Indian-fig, which is an admirable fence, no wild
beast being able to pass it. It grows a great height, very thick,
and the spikes or thorns are as long and sharp as bodkins; it bears a
fruit much eaten by the peasants, and which has no i