298 BENGAZI.

that we felt an inclination to visit a second time. Strangers who arrive there may indeed find a shelter from the weather, in a place well known to Mahometans as the Fundook, a temporary place of reception and partial accommodation. We once, and once only, took occasion to visit this place ; and on entering, it through the aperture of a broken door, we found ourselves in a long arched room, in which there was scarcely sufficient fight to show us where to place our feet, a precaution which was nevertheless highly essential. Here we perceived the remains of a charcoal fire, which had been kindled on the well-smoked capital of a marble column, and a a greasy Arab stretched close to it on the ground, snoring amid the folds of his barracan. The building itself was of some antiquity, though not apparently older than the worst time of the lower empire, the roof being supported upon small columns of execrable taste, and the other parts of the building in no better style. The exterior had undergone some repair from time to time, but no attention whatever had been paid to the chamber within, not even that of removing the dirt and filth which was collected there ; and the consequence was, that the level of the floor reached two-thirds of the way up the columns. We need scarcely add, that whatever attractions this place may have had for an Arab, it had httle allurement for us ; and we should have laid ourselves down, without the least hesitation, to pass a rainy night in the street, rather than subject ourselves to the punishment of taking shelter for an hour under its roof.

The house in which we had taken up our abode was the property of the Shekh el Belad, a very worthy person, much respected by all