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ever, this error is general, it will not be amiss to correctthe impression. It is not only impossible that the watershould have the effect of rendering men effeminate andunchaste; but, on the contrary, that alluded to is clear ascrystal, and of the finest flavour. The origin of thestory, by which it gained the reputation of the abovequality, is as follows. When Melas and Arevaniasbrought to the place a colony from Argos and Troezene,they drove out the barbarous Carians and Lelegae.These, betaking themselves to the mountains in bodies,committed great depredations, and laid waste the neigh-bourhood. Some time afterwards, one of the colonists,for the sake of the profit likely to arise from it, establishedclose to the fountain, on account of the excellenceof its water, a store where he kept all sorts of merchan-dize ; and thus it became a place of great resort of thebarbarians who were drawn thither. Coming, at first, insmall, and at last in large, numbers, the barbarians by de-grees shook off their savage and uncivilized habits, andchanged them, without coercion, for those of the Greeks.

The fame, therefore, of this fountain, was acquired, not bythe effeminacy which it is reputed to impart, but by itsbeing the means through which the minds of the barbari-ans were civilized. I must now, however, proceed to finishmy description of the city. On the right summit we have *described the temple of Venus and the above namedfountain to have been placed : on the left stood the royalpalace, which was planned by Mausolus himself. Thiscommanded, on the right, a view of the forum and har-bour, and of the whole circuit of the walls: on the left, itoverlooked a secret harbour, hidden by the mountains,into which no one could pry, so as to be aware of what