The following figure, in relief, was over it. We saw the same figure,
with variations, over the gates of several buildings in these ruins; the
episcopal staff is found in all
[p.131]of them. The best executed one that I saw was of this form. On
the outside of the town are several sepulchral caves, and a few coffins.
The town walls on the E. side are yet standing; they are very neatly
built with small stones, with a square pillar at every six or seven
paces, about nine feet high. The ruins extend for about half an hour
from south to north, and consist of a number of public buildings,
churches, and private habitations, the walls and roofs of some of which
are still standing. I found no inscriptions here. The stone with which
the buildings are constructed is a soft calcareous rock, that speedily
decays wherever it is exposed to the air; it is of the same description
as that found in the buildings of the towns about the mountain of St.
Simon, and in the ruins of St. Simon, where not a single legible
inscription remains, though, as at Bara, traces of them are seen in many
places.
