Athens alone could compare the monuments of her Acropolis with these temples of the most severe Doric style.
That of Neptune had well preserved its lofty and massive columns,--as close together as the trees of a nursery,--enormous trunks of stone that still sustained the high entablature, the jutting cornice and the two triangular walls of its facades.

The stone had taken on the mellow color of the cloudless countries where the sun toasts readily and the rain does not deposit a grimy coating.
The doctor recalled the departed beauties and the old covering of these colossal skeletons,--the fine and compact coating of stucco which had closed the pores of the stone, giving it a superficial smoothness like marble,--the vivid colors of its flutings and walls making the antique city a mass of polychrome monuments.

This gay decoration had become volatilized through the centuries and its colors, borne away by the wind, had fallen like a rain of dust upon a land in ruins.
Following an old guard, they climbed the blue, tiled steps of the temple of Neptune.

Above, within four rows of columns, was the real sanctuary, the _cella_.

Their footsteps on the tiled flags, separated by deep cracks filled with grass, awoke all the animal world that was drowsing there in the sun.
These actual inhabitants of the city,--enormous lizards with green backs covered with black warts,--ran in all directions.