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Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/287

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IN THE LEVANT.
237

on arriving at Fanes, the next village on my way home, I found another little collection of objects found in tombs. Among these were two shallow two-handled cups, of the best period of fictile art, one of which was inscribed with the words χἅιρε και πίε "Rejoice and drink;" the other had black figures on a red ground. I also obtained a small bottle of variegated glass, and some curious leaden glands such as were used by slingers, and which were each inscribed with a name. They form a curious illustration of the well-known story of the slinger who is said to have inscribed the words "to Philip's right eye" on a missile which was afterwards accurately delivered to its address. On my enquiring where these objects were found, I was taken by a peasant to a place a short distance from Fanes, where I saw a large extent of ground recently cleared from the forest, strewn with fragments of painted vases and terra-cotta figures over an extent of several acres. These remains had evidently been thrown up by the plough. The vases I had pm'chased at Fanes were found, according to my guide, in a built tomb on this site. I succeeded in purchasing this second collection of antiquities for a small sum, and packing them on a mule in two large panniers, started very early in the morning for Rhodes, very well pleased with the acquisition which I had made, and looking forward to further and more important discoveries on the sites which I had thus accidentally stumbled on. My golden visions were suddenly arrested, like those of the old woman with the basket of eggs, by a crashing sound