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 șea-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 magnificent 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, an 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-` 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 unov (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 riconoscere il guardiano degli Orti 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 rivolgere sopra di essa le loro cure.'-p. 194. We 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. 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 && HSV y & R b 754, V * شرف 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. of of stone, on every one of which is an inscription, encircled by a garland of laurel.' The interior side of the walls themselves is so closely covered (tappezzate) with Greek inscriptions, that he thinks one might find all the annals of this city registered on it. He accuses Bruce of a want of veracity or of ignorantly mistaking one city for another, in saying that he found nothing at Arsinoe,' (Teuchira,) and that the walls and gates of Ptolemata are still entire;' whereas (our traveller adds) Arsinoe abounds in fragments of antiquity, while not a trace of either wall or gate is visible at Ptolemata: he admits, however, that the ruins of this city are prodigious, and of a more majestic character than any which he had yet seen; among the rest he notices an immense tower, raised upon a rock, and built of huge square stones, which goes under the name of the Tomb of the Ptolemies. In most of the buildings of Cyrenaica, he says, the Greek style had evidently been adopted upon an Egyptian foundation, but here (in Ptolemata) every thing appeared to be pure Egyptian. As he describes no one object, however, so as to enable us to convey a distinct and intelligible idea of it to the reader, and we have nothing but an endless and unprofitable repetition of ruins upon ruins, we will here close our account of them. And would we could here also close our account of Signor Della-Cella's expedition! But we have a dreadful tale to tell, which he has considerately reserved for the conclusion of his adventures; and must therefore intreat the reader to return with us to Bengazi, where we left the Bey in his triumphant route to Tripoli. At the conclusion of the fast of Ramadan, during which he and his ruthless followers slept all day, and committed all manner of debaucheries through the night, the scattered tribe of Zoasi were collecting round the city, to witness, by invitation, the distribution of the Red Bernous (the robe of ceremony) to their chiefs, by order, as it had been given out, of the Bashaw of Tripoli, as a test of conciliation, and in acknowledgment of their good conduct on the present expedition: at the same time it was stated, that the twenty-two hostages dispatched from Derna to Tripoli, would be sent back, that the reconciliation might be general and complete. On the 5th of September, the day appointed for the ceremony, the unhappy chiefs, to the number of forty-five, made their public entry into Bengazi. They were met by the Bey, who received them most graciously; conducted them with great pomp into the castle; and, while they were in the act of taking coffee, gave the signal to his guards, who burst into the room, and massacred the whole of them upon the spot! At the same instant, the troops were ordered to fall upon the assembled multitudes of the tribe upon the plain, who only escaped universal P 2 slaughter |