A pilgrimage to the temples and tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and ...

8 PHCENICIAN IDOLS.
nicians were the first people who colonized the
island of JNIalta. Curiosity has, in this instance,
nothing to grapple with but conjecture ; the
skull may be that of a slave, or of a sacrificed
captive, and not of a colonist ; but, if one so igno-
rant as myself might venture a surmise, where so
many learned persons have refrained from offer-
ing an opinion, I should place the date of these
ruins to a far earlier period even than Phoenician
colonization, which, wherever it transported itself,
left indications of a more advanced progress in
the arts than is here discoverable. For instance,
if we admit for a moment that side of the vea^ata
qucBstio which attributes those mysterious monu-
ments, the Round Towers of Ireland, to Phoenician
origin, it is impossible to reconcile the idea that
the shapeless temple of Hagiar Chem could have
been coeval with, or constructed by, a people who
were the artificers of those beautiful and symme-
trical monuments. In short, its very uncouth-
ness authorizes the inference that it was the first
attempt of an untaught people in architectural or
monumental art.
Are you tired of my disquisition ? if you are
not, I am ! I find that I have been swimming
out of my depth, without being furnished with
the cork -jacket of science to keep me afloat ; and