phosed thus all at once, and did not stiffen by degrees as water hardens into ice. We came into a public room, where a crowd of people was got together, like as at our coffee-houses: here I observed that all the company had cast their eyes on one that stood at the upper end: he was tall, broad-faced, and lusty; his right arm was extended; it seemed as if he was making a great bustle by his talk; and by his habit he was known to be a priest of that country. In his features was an exceeding vehemence; his mouth remained in such a manner open, as when a man is speaking loud and earnest; and he must continue to be the figure of one making a noise, until he shuts it at the general change.

A

From hence we went through a long alley into an open area. The statues here were not so thick, nor seemed so full of business. stately building fronted us, of which we took a view. It was the temple of their god. Descending a few steps, we came into a spacious aile, on each side whereof there ran a row of pillars, exceeding beautiful, though very different from any order I had ever seen. At the east end, a square place, into which we went down several more steps, was separated from the rest by a partition finely wrought. Here stood the

image of their deity, formed of white stone, naked in several parts of the body, and in others gilded and diversely coloured. It had many heads, all of them very frightful, though each seemed to intend something of a human countenance. Its hands I could not number, there were so many of them, and every one held somewhat; this a sword, that a pouring bottle, one a battle-axe, another forked thunder; but all denoting wrath and terror. The temple was full of people standing all upright: their countenances were serene and placid, which I imputed to the music playing at their ceremonies; for I observed the religious officers with their uplifted trumpets and other instruments, in the posture the petrifaction found them.

As we came from the temple, in a bye-corner we saw two persons richly habited, stabbing at each other with a kind of weapon something like the swords of our horse-guards, but longer. The history of their quarrel is not guessed, but the passion against his enemy, and the defence of himself, is wonderful in both. Tradition says, one of them is a person of great merit, which makes people under great concern for him. The weapon of his enemy is now but half way its push, although it touches his beliy;

and the fear is, that upon the instant return of life and sensation, it will rush onwards, and go quite through the body. I would have broke the weapons, to put them both out of danger; but my guide informed me, that, as this judgment came on them from above, altering any thing would be impiously to oppose God's will; "and therefore (said he), though you may pity this noble person, yet, if thus you should save his life, I must immediately destroy yours."

In the upper part of the town, that way which leads from the temple, we found but few people, excepting some on the tops of the houses, leaning over a kind of rails, and others looking out of the windows. At the turning of a street we met a funeral; and a father's grief (which, in the picture of Agamemnon following his daughter to be sacrificed, the famous painter, unable to draw, covered with a veil) was here expressed in statuary. The mother and relations of the deceased African maid, whom they surrounded, appeared like real Niobes turned to stone with weeping.

From this place, in a little time we came to the great square before the palace, where I had the pleasure to see a whole troop of horse in stone: every soldier had his particular martial

countenance, and seemed intrepid. Just at the palace gate was a great crowd of statues; and as we made up to them, I observed some footsoldiers placed as sentinels on every side: one made a compliment with his weapon, which was like a battle-axe; I turned my eyes, and perceived an officer in stone just by. When we came nearer, I found a number raised above the rest, in seats in a circular position: here was the king himself distributing justice, and many learned statues in the law assisting him: his countenance was majestic, but not terrible, and he seemed about the middle part of life. The grandeur of this assembly, and the silence here, struck me with much regard: the Gauls stopt not with greater reverence, when they found the elders of Rome sitting with all the dignity and decorum becoming that august senate. It scarcely ever rains in this country, which made them have an open court.

My curiosity would fain have led me into the king's palace, and the houses of the great men (for to look all over the city I thought would be an endless task); but my guide told me, that in those places many things were doing which it was not proper for me to see. This answer did not, however, satisfy me; and with pressing

him too eagerly I lost my dream, and found I had been no farther than the Minories.

UNIVERSAL SPECTATOR, vol. i. p. 113.

The story in the Arabian Nights, to which this entertaining paper alludes, is in the History of Zobeide, vol. i. p. 264, of Forster's translation. The Arabs, ignorant of the effects of chemical solution and deposition, very generally attributed phenomena of this kind to the operation of magic. Dr. Shaw, in his Travels through Barbary, has recorded some striking instances of this credulity." At the distance of some leagues (he relates) to the eastward of Constantia, are the Silent, or Enchanted Baths. They issue from a low ground, surrounded with mountains. Several of the springs have an intense heat, and at a small distance others are comparatively cold, near which are the ruins of some houses, probably erected for the convenience of bathers.

"The steam of those springs is strongly sulphureous, and the heat is so great as to boil a large piece of mutton very tender in fifteen minutes. The rocky ground, over which the water runs for the space of one hundred feet, is in a manner dissolved, or rather calcined by it. These rocks, being originally soft and uniform, the water, by making equal impressions on them all round, has left them in the shape of cones and hemispheres, which being six feet high, and nearly of the same diameter, the Arabs believe to have been the tents of some aboriginal inhabitants, turned into stone.

"Where these rocks contain a mixture of harder matter with their usual chalky substance, and consequently cannot be equally and uniformly dissolved, you are entertained with a confusion of traces and channels, distinguished by the Arabs into camels, horses, and sheep, men, women, and children, whom they suppose to have undergone similar transformation with their tents.

"On riding over this place, it reverberates such a hollow