TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI. 235 stone, of square blocks, arranged so as to touch each other at the bottom, and having the interstices above filled up with good cement, which appeared to be more durable than the stone. We found other examples of arches so constructed in different parts of the Syrtis and Cyrenaica. The appearance of the top of the arch just described had given us hopes of discovering an entrance to some part of the fortification through the wall in which it was formed ; but we found to our disappointment, on clearing it from the rubbish, that what we thought would prove the entrance extended no more than three feet from the external surface ; and that all farther advance was prevented by a solid wall built across it, which appeared to be part of the original structure. Among the rubbish we found a silver coin, and several copper ones, so corroded that it was impossible to ascertain their antiquity.

We should willingly have given a much longer time to the examination of the ruins at Tabilba than the few hours we were enabled to bestow upon it ; but the lateness of the season left us no choice on the subject, and we had already spent more time at Braiga than we could well afford to employ in such researches. It must however be confessed, that if we had doubted the probabihty of being able to return and examine them with greater minuteness, we might have been tempted to stay longer at many places in the Syrtis than we should perhaps have been authorized in doing.

We have no hesitation in supposing Tabilba to be the site of the maritimcB stationes of Ptolemy. Its position corresponds so w'ell with that assigned to the naval stations in question, and its remains are so 2 H 2