Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: a numerous offspring of young plants are, produced round the root of the old one; 'thefe are flip'd off, and formed into new plantations, either for hedges or for avenue? to their country-houfes. , The city of Agrigentum, now called Girgenti, is irregular and ugly; though from a few miles diftance at fea, it makes a noble appearance, little inferior to that of Genoa.—As it lies on the flope of the mountain, the houfes do not hide one another i but every part of the city is feen. On our arrival, we found a great falling off indeed; the houfes are mean, the ftreets dirty, crooked, and narrow.—It ftill contains near twenty thoufand people; a fad reduction from its antient grandeur, when it was faid to confift of no lefs than eight hundred thoufand, being the next city to Syracufe for numbers. The Canonico Spoto, from Mr. Hamilton's letter, and from our former acquaintance with him at Naples, gave us a kind, and a hofpitaHe reception. He in- fifted on our being his guefts; and we are now in his houfe, comfortably lodged, and elegantly entertained, which, after our crowded little apartment in the fparonaro, is by no means a difagreeable change.— farewell.—I fhall write you again foon. Ever yours. BETTER XVIII. Agrigentum, June i2th, TTIT" Earejuft now returned from examining the antiquities of Agrigentum, the moft confiderable, perhaps, of any in, Sicily. The ruins of the antient city lie about a fhort mile from the modern one. Thefe, like the ruins of Syracufe, are moftly converted into corn-fields, vineyards, and orchards; but the remains of the temples here, are much more confpicuous than thofe of Syracufe. Four of thefe have flood pretty much in a right line, near the fouth wall of the city. The firft they call the temple of Venus; almoftone half of which f...