90 JOURNEY FROM contain 14,000 inhabitants, including those of the town of Mesurata ; the population of the five villages which we have just named amounts to about 1250 persons, supposing the estimate of the Shekh to be correct, from whom this statement is derived. The gardens, which extend from Zouia to Marabut Bushaifa, produce dates, olives, melons, pomegranates, pumpkins, carrots, onions, turnips, radishes, and a little tobacco and cotton ; among these may be mentioned the palma christi, which we frequently observed in this neighbourhood.

Many of the gardens are raised from six to eight feet above the road, and are enclosed by mud walls, or by fences of the prickly pear and wild aloe. The dates, which are of several kinds, are in great abundance, and the olives yield a plentiful supply of oil : these, with barley, which is also very abundant, are carried to various markets for sale ; for the home-consumption of the place consists chiefly of dates and durrah, and the greater part of the barley is exported.

The principal manufactures of Mesurata are carpets, the colours of which are very brilliant, straw mats, sacks of goats’ hair, and earthen jars. The market is in general well supplied with meat, vegetables, the fruits of the country, oil, manteca, and salt ; the latter is procured from some very extensive marshes a few miles to the southward of the town*.

Mesurata (or “ Mesarata,” as some authors write it) has been described by Leo Africanus as “ a province on the coast of the Mediterranean, distant about an hundred miles from Tripoly.” He states * Some account of the government and resources, as well as of the trade, of Mesurata, may be collected from the work of Signor Della Celia, pp. 55, 6, 7.