TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI. 107 To the eastward*, a tenantless and desolate waste, without a single object rising from its surface, lies stretched in one long, unbroken, line, as far as the eye can range. Not a single tree or shrub is on that side to be seen ; not a single house or tent, not a single human being, or animal of any description.

In fact the effect of the Greater Syrtis, from this place, is that of a dreary moor — a wide tract of level, waste land — without anything to distinguish one part of it from another but the windings of a marsh, which threads its dark surface, and is lost in different parts of the unbroken horizon f.

Two days before our departure from Mesurata, a strong scirocco wind set in, and brought such myriads of locusts, that the air was literary darkened by them. The inhabitants in consequence remained out all night, keeping up a continued shouting and firing of muskets and pistols, to prevent them from settling on the gardens and cultivated lands. They who were not engaged in this occupation, employed themselves in collecting the locusts which had been beaten down, and carrying them off in baskets as articles of provision : so great was the quantity collected on this occasion, that we observed many asses, heavily laden with these insects, driven into the town f * The south-eastward would be more correct, for the coast there begins to trend to the southward.

t A more comfortless scene can scarcely be imagined than is presented by the opening of this celebrated region, so little known at any period of history. The opinion which the ancients appear to have formed of it may be inferred from the description of Lucan, in his account of Cato’s march across it (Pharsalia, book 9.) ; but it will be seen, as we advance into the regions of the Syrtis, that this description is more poetical than just.