TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI. 159 to which it is difficult to assign any use, unless we suppose it to have been a sepulchral or other monument, built as a conspicuous object merely. It occupies a square of about twenty feet, and could have been little more at any time than a mass of solid stone and cement, the space which is left in the centre being not more than four or five feet square, and without any apparent communication with the exterior. The height of the whole building appears to have been about thirty feet, but little more than the basement upon which it has been raised now remains; and this estimation is made from a computation of the quantity of fallen materials, and from the probable proportion of the height with the breadth given. The basement itself is six feet in height, and composed of well-shaped stones, some of which are five feet long, and from twelve to sixteen inches in height and thickness : above this no more than three feet of the superstructure now remain in any part ; but the base of a pilaster, which still appears in one of the angles, proves that the exterior at least has been constructed with some attention to architectural ornament. The outer part only of this structure is huilt, the whole of the interior, with the exception of the space mentioned in the centre, having been filled up with unshaped stones deeply bedded in cement, the proportion of which is much greater than that of the rubble thrown into it.

Were it not that the base of the remaining pilaster appears to be a Saracenic imitation of the Greek, we should be disposed to allow a greater antiquity to the building in question than it seems to us from this circumstance to possess : for the stones employed in it are of good size, very regularly placed, and well finished, and the cement which has been used is excellent. Attached to this tower, for such