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the wheel, and the KYPANA, confirming all that has been said by Herodotus and others, of the fondness of the Cyreneans for horsemanship and chariot-driving; in which they so much excelled, that the Grecians learned from them the manner of guiding their chariots with four horses abreast.*

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Our author observed on the corner of one of the streets, inscribed in large characters, the word IПIKO, and on all the roads and streets in and about the city the marks of wheels deeply cut into the rock. He also found, as he supposes, the celebrated fountain of Cyrene, 'one of the clearest and most copious springs that he ever beheld;' it was so abundant as even to be honoured with the notice of the Bey Ahmet. Meeting our author one day on his return from Cyrene, with his usual tone of contempt he thus addressed him: All you Christians have the same taste for searching the old buildings that are to be met with in the states of my father; but, tell me, hast thou discovered any great treasure in Grenna?' (Kurin). Signor,' I replied, there bursts forth from the side of these mountains, a stream of the purest water sufficient to quench the thirst of your whole army, and of all the Bedouins and their cattle which follow it, without its being in the least degree diminished' -and this, it seems, was the only object that excited his curiosity in the whole journey. He and his troops and slaves were constantly washing themselves in the stream once sacred to Apollo, and now, says Della-Cella, contaminated by these barbarians! Near this fountain lay a number of mutilated statues, with their pedestals; vaults, or sarcophagi, as the Doctor calls them, were cut into the rocky sides of the hills, beautifully painted, (the colours as fresh as if newly applied,) and covered with inscriptions; but here again we are left in the dark as to the nature of these paintings and inscriptions. The wide expanded plain which slopes gradually towards the sea-shore from the foot of these hills, was found to correspond fully with the description of the Cyrenaica as given by Herodotus. It is truly delightful thus to find this venerable writer so correctly, we might almost say so minutely informed of all that he advances. The territory of Cyrene,' he says, 'is higher than the rest of the Libyan nomades, and contains three regions deserving of notice. As soon as the harvest of the maritime district is laid

*Herodotus, Melpom.

in and the vintage ended, the fruits of the second region, called the hilly country, arrive at maturity; and whilst they are carrying off, those of the higher part become ripe: so that during the time they eat and drink the first productions the next crop is perfectly ready. Thus the Cyreneans are eight months employed in a continual succession of harvests.'*

The highest ridge of the Cyrenaica is estimated by Della-Cella at 2000 feet nearly above the level of the Mediterranean; and even at this height the rocks are filled with shells, mostly bivalves, and of the genera Cardium and Pecten, the same which chiefly occur in the very heart of the desert. The sloping plain terminates on the sea-shore in an abrupt and lofty precipice, which, to use our author's words, serves as a pedestal to it. A deep chasm, through which the sea has broken, forms the port of Apollonia. Among the majestic ruins of this place were numerous columns of Pentelican marble yet untouched, and masses of granite hewn into square blocks. Here, too, were the remains of an aqueduct, and many Greek and Latin inscriptions.

From Cyrene the army marched on Derna, but not before it had received intelligence that the rebel Bey had retreated to Bomba on the frontiers of Egypt, and finally fled to Cairo. During eight hours travelling between Cyrene and Gobbo, along the ridge of the hills, the remains of ancient buildings perpetually occurred; the road was mostly hollowed out of the living rock, and deeply indented with the marks of wheels; and from Gobbo to Derna it winded among rocks and precipices, and through thickets of. cypress. Derna is a mere collection of hovels, but the plain around it is described as very fertile, abounding with palm trees, beautiful olives and vines, and figs and apricots, and pomegranates, and other kinds of fruits, and above all with the maguificent banana, or musa paradisiaca.-Two copious springs not only serve to irrigate the gardens, but afford to the inhabitants of the town and a neighbouring village called Bemensura, au ample supply of excellent water. Honey, in the greatest abundance and of the finest quality, is found among the rocks and hills of Derna: and we understand from a recent visitor, sent by our Consul at Tripoli, that a forest of timber trees exists at no great distance from the coast, of a size sufficient to build ships of the largest class, and that a thousand ship-loads of it might be procured without the least difficulty.

At Derna, our author says, they found but too many traces of the cruelties practised on the inhabitants by the rebel Bey, before he evacuated the place. As this was the case, Ahmet was gra

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ciously pleased to be satisfied with requiring twenty-two of the most wealthy of the Bedouins, who had espoused the cause of Karomalli, to be sent to Tripoli as hostages for the good behaviour of their tribe, who, with the greatest good-will, stood forth and volunteered the journey, on an understanding that they would be placed under the special protection of the Bashaw. How religiously this was extended to them, we shall have occasion to show. From Derna to the gulph of Bomba, the whole route exhibited memorials of an ancient population, but every thing before them wore the melancholy aspect of total neglect, abandonment, and desolation. The alpine country, however, was beautifully diversified by thick forests of evergreens, among which were the cypress, the thuia, the arbutus, the Phenician juniper, myrtles of gigantic size, the carab tree, and laurels in the greatest abundance. These noble plants were not in continued woods, but interrupted by the rocky summits of hills, and broken into a thousand picturesque shapes. Through such a country, abounding with rills of the clearest water, it took them eight days to reach Bomba, a vast arm of the sea, within which is the port of Menelaus. As this is the last spot under the dominions of the Bashaw of Tripoli and the first of the Egyptian province, the whole of the inhabitants fled into the latter as to a place of safety, on the approach of the Bey, who coolly observed they had done right, as, if they had remained, he certainly would have exterminated them-selon les règles.

Having thus happily cleared the eastern confines of the province of Tripoli of its inhabitants, and driven the rebel Bey into Egypt, the victorious army returned to Labiar, and from thence to Bengazi. Over the whole extent of this latter city are scattered beautiful hewn stones, and other fragments of ancient buildings. It is, however, a wretched place, consisting of about 5000 inhabitants, one half of whom at least are Jews. The Bedouins, not long before, had driven them out by main force and established themselves in their places. The Jews applied to the Bashaw, but as they had paid the tribute for that year, and the new settlers had hastened to do the same, the Bashaw was too well pleased with his good city of Bengazi, which had paid him two tributes in one year, to interfere between the parties. All the cattle, wool, woollen cloths, butter, honey, and ostrich feathers, the produce of Cyrenaica, are brought to the port of Bengazi and pass through the hands of the Jews, who form the industrious part of the population. The island of Malta receives a considerable portion of its cattle from Bengazi. The wool is mostly sent to Tripoli, and the ostrich feathers to Leghorn and Marseilles.

It would be a great want of curiosity in any traveller who visited

this city, raised on the ruins of ancient Berenice, not to make some researches into the situation of the celebrated Gardens of the Hesperides, which the best authorities have placed in the south-eastern corner of the Great Syrtis; for whether these gardens actually existed in nature or only in the lively imagination of the Greeks, it is quite certain that this is the position assigned to a particular district of the name of Hesperides, both by Herodotus, and that plain matter-of-fact man Scylax, the pilot, (as Major Rennell calls him,) who, in point of time, wrote next to Herodotus. Neither of these authors assigns any fabulous story to the gardens of the Hesperides; and it has been a disputed point among the learned whether the double meaning of the word unλov (sheep or apple) might not have led the poets to typify the golden fleeces of Libya under the more alluring name of golden apples. Be this as it may, the district of Hesperides appears to have been as highly celebrated for its fruits as its wool; and Scylax himself enumerates, among its vegetable treasures, the lotus, various kinds of apples, pomegranates, pears, arbutus, mulberries, vines, myrtles, laurels, olives, almonds, and walnuts; all, or most of which still grow wild in this part of the Cyrenaica; and we have heard of the well wooded hills in the neighbourhood of Derna.

Near this city are also found a great variety of precious stones,: mostly intaglios, cut with that exquisite skill for which the Cyrenaicans were once so famed. The British Vice Consul, Signor Rossoni, has a superb collection of these gems; among the rest, a beautiful Hercules in red jasper with his club and lion's skin-a Chiron instructing Achilles to draw the bow-a Vulcan in agate, fabricating a shield-an eagle in granite carrying off Ganymede; and many others not less valuable. As Della-Cella seems to think that the following description of an emerald found near the spot tends to establish the locality of the Hesperides, we can have no objection to place both it and the impression from the stone before our readers.

Il Signor Rossoni rivolse, fra gli altri oggetti, la mia attenzione, sopra uno smeraldo di 16 millimetri in lunghezza, e 12 in larghezza, convesso da ambe le faccie, che da una parte è segnato di greca leggenda, e dall' altra ha un dragone alato, che esce in serpe. Dalla sua testa sporgono sei raggi biforcati, all'estremità de' quali è scolpita una lettera. In questo dragone il Signor Rossoni si compiace di riconos cere il guardiano degli Örti Esperidi, ove appunto questa pietra fu ritrovata. Crederei più discreto il sapere qualche cosa dalla leggenda, anzichè dal dragone. E certo scritta con molti arcaismi, ma l'inscrizione è intatta, i caratteri son nettamente scolpiti, e tutto invita gli Archeologi a rivolgerè sopra di essa le loro cure.'-p. 194.

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We must observe, however, that the sculptor had certainly an odd notion of a winged dragon: it appears to us, with reverence be it spoken, more like the marine animal which inhabits the shell well known to school-boys under the name of periwinkle, without its cap; and as to the Greek inscription, which might throw some light on the subject, we must be content to leave it, with Signor Della-Cella, to the archæologists.

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The characters which head S. Della-Cella's plate of coins are still more puzzling; he does not tell us exactly from whence he procured them, but we take it for granted they are those 'strani e bizarri caratteri,' which with no small degree of labour he copied from the face of a large stone at the port of Apollonia. They bear some resemblance to the writing usually found on the Egyptian papyrus.

VAKY 8 & #FLS¥ Y { { b
THOF YETI V 7 7 7 +0
MB OPENED & D 8 K 62 7
60
i 8 8
$12
ÎI JOSELIAV

754, V

From Bengazi our traveller made an excursion to Teuchira, the walls of which are mostly entire, and enclose ruins of buildings of vast magnitude and extent: the hill on which the city stands is wholly excavated into tombs, of which he counted, at least, a thousand. Within the walls (he says) is a mass of indefinable ruins, from the centre of which rises a square monument of immense blocks

We have inserted copies of these characters, in the hope that they may meet the eye, and exercise the ingenuity, of some of our learned countrymen, as we do not apprehend that the work itself will ever make much way in the literary world; indeed, we do not believe that there is a second copy of it in this country.

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