Note 2 — Chapter XVIII

“About forty years ago, when M. Le Maire was French consul at Tripoly, he made great inquiries, by order of the French court, into the truth of this report; and amongst other very curious accounts relating to the same place, he told me a remarkable circumstance to the great discredit and even confutation of all that had been so positively advanced with regard to the petrified bodies of men, children, and other animals. Some of the Janizaries who, in collecting the tribute, travel over every year one part or other of this district of Ras Sem, promised him that, as an adult person would be too heavy and burdensome, they would undertake, for a certain number of dollars, to bring him from thence the body of a little child. After a great many pretended difficulties, delays, and disappointments, they produced at length a little Cupid, which they had found, as he learnt afterwards, among the ruins of Leptis; and to conceal the deceit, they broke off the quiver and some other of the distinguishing characteristics of that deity.”

“M. Le Maire’s inquiries (he continues), which we find were supported by the promise and performance of great rewards, have brought nothing further to light. He could never learn, after sending a number of persons expressly, and at a great expense, to make discoveries, that any traces of walls or buildings, animals, or utensils, were ever to be seen within the verge of these pretended petrifactions. The same account he heard from a Sicilian renegado, who attended him as Janissary while in Egypt, and assured him that he had been several times at Ras Sem; and also from another Sicilian renegado, whom the Bashaw of Tripoly had appointed Bey or Viceroy of the province of Derna, where Ras Sem was immediately under his jurisdiction.”