TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI.

187 appearance of day-light summons them to rise and take up their burdens, which have probably in the mean time been usefully employed in affording them the luxury of a pillow.

On quitting the hills among which our late acquaintance were encamped, we passed along the track of Ras Houeijah (the promontory above mentioned), and were detained some time in consequence of the lake having terminated in a swamp, which extended to the sea, and in which our horses sank so deep as to render great caution necessary. The land at the back of the marsh rises tolerably high, and was better peopled than any part we had yet seen in the district of Syrt. At about one o’clock we reached Wady Shegga, a large fiumara so called, and having procured some brackish water a little way up it, continued our route till we reached some Arab tents, where we halted for the night. At Shegga we found the remains of some forts, strongly and regularly built, and of the same quadrangular form with those which we have already described. On a large mound of rubbish we also observed a Markbut, rudely built with the stones of fallen structures about it. In a valley belonging to the chain of hills which runs at the back of Shegga are considerable traces of small buildings, rudely put together with the unshaped stones of the soil. They consist principally of strait lines and parts of squares, built with very little regularity, and occupying both sides of the valley. Traces of walls may also be still observed across the valley, which is furrowed and torn up by the passage of torrents rushing down in the rainy season from the hills, but which seems to have formerly contained much more building than can be perceived 2 B 2