TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI.

■253 surrounded, and which it was necessary to cross before they entered the town ; the rains which had already fallen had swelled it more than the Chaous had anticipated, and the darkness of the night rendered it difficult for him to find the spot at which it was necessary to ford it. After wandering about the banks for some little time in uncertainty, and trying several plans without success, they at length reached the opposite shore ; though not before their horses had plunged into several holes, from which they could only extricate themselves by swimming. On the following day our whole party arrived at Bengazi, and were received with every mark of attention and politeness by Signor Bossoni, the British Vice-Consul, to whom the necessary instructions from Mr. Consul Warrington had already been forwarded. We found that Signor Rossoni vas already in treaty for the house of an Arab Shekh, one of the best which the place afforded, and only waited our arrival to arrange the terms on which we were willing to take it : these were soon settled, and we took possession of our new abode the day after our arrival in the town, and began to make ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would allow, under the disadvantages of a rainy winter, at Bengazi.

Bengazi is allowed to have been built upon the site once occupied by the town of Berenice, the most western city of the Pentapolis ; but before we proceed to describe this part of the Cyrenaica, it will be proper to look back upon the tract of country already before the reader, and, in taking a general view of the gulf and shores of the Greater Syrtis, to bring together some of the most prominent remarks of ancient writers respecting it.