tion, sloping outwards from the top, of twenty feet in length by
twelve, which appears to have served both as a tower and a
buttress.
The measurements are here given in the rough, but they will be
found in detail by a reference to the ground-plan and elevation No. 9,
in the plate containing the details of some of the forts which have
been noticed in the course of the journey.
In some instances we found wells in the trenches surrounding the
forts, at others, within the outer walls ; and more frequently without
the forts altogether, among traces of building in their immediate
vicinity. The remains of building last mentioned were sometimes very
considerable ; but the ground-plans alone of these are now extant,
from which little more may be collected than that the chambers
were built in squares, ranged in line with some attention to regularity,^
though differing a good deal in size. Tombs are occasionally
found excavated in the neighbourhood of such forts as are built on
a rocky soil ; but we never were fortunate enough to find any thing
in them whieh could point out deeidedly the mode of burial which
had been adopted. Some of these were entered by wells of different
depths, and others by approaches cut in the rock, sloping down from
the upper part of the door, like those in front of the Kings’ tombs
at Thebes,
The remains about Ghimenes and Imshaila may answer to those
of the Diaehersis Præsidium of Ptolemy ; but we are not aware of
any remains which may be pointed out on the coast as those of the
Turri&Hercvdis, qr of the Diarrhoea Portus, of this geographer.
When we had arrived within a day’s journey of Bengazi, the weather,
which had hitherto been very fine for the time of year, began
to show that the rainy season had commenced in good earnest, and
we congratulated ourselves in having escaped it so long; for had the
bad weather overtaken us sooner, it would effectually have put an end
to our researches, and obliged us to advance as fast as possible upon
Bengazi, the only place which could have sheltered us between
Mesurata and Derna. Indeed, it would have been difficult to make
any progress at a ll; for the ravines would, in a few hours, have
assumed the form of torrents, and the marshy ground have become
everywhere dangerous, and in most places wholly impassable; our
camels besides would have fallen every moment under their loads, as
they cannot keep their feet in slippery weather, and some of our
horses would certainly have sunk under the exertions which would
have been necessary to overcome these additional disadvantages.
As it was, we had been obliged to lead two of the horses for several
days before our arrival at Bengazi, and it would indeed be thought
extraordinary, by those accustomed only to the horses of Europe,
that any of them arrived there at all after the fatigues and privations
whieh they had endured. They had all of them been rode
through the whole of the day, over a country without any roads, for
more than two months successively, exposed to the heat of the sun
during the day, and without any shelter from the cold and damp of
the night; while at the same time, instead of having any extra allowance
to enable them to support this exertion, they were often left,
unavoidably, for more than four-and-twenty hours, without anything
whatever to eat or drink, and on one occasion were as much as four