BENGAZI.

301 colours they are less liable to molestation from the Greeks. Besides these articles, oxen are well known to constitute a great portion of the trade of Bengazi, and many vessels are kept constantly employed in transporting them to Malta and other places during the summer months. If the wind prove favourable, and the passage be quickly made, the profits to all parties are great ; but it sometimes happens that, from violent or contrary winds, or from the vessel being ill calculated for the cargo, and more frequently from there being too great a number of these poor animals crowded inconsiderately together, that so many oxen die from thirst and suffocation, from bruises, and occasionally from drowning, as to render the profits of the voyage very trifling.

The cattle are chiefly driven from the neighbourhood of Gyrene, where their original cost is from six to eight dollars a head ; some expenses, of course, are incurred on the road, but these are amply covered by the price of ten and thirteen dollars, at which sum the oxen are furnished to the captains of the bullock-vessels : the master, again, being fully compensated by a contract of about eighteen dollars a head at Malta.

The prospect of fine weather very often induces the captain to take on board as many as there is standing-room for in his vessel, on both upper and lower deck, in both of which the poor animals are jammed as close as they can possibly be stowed. The sufferings of the oxen in hot and oppressive weather, taken at once from the invigorating atmosphere of their native mountains, and exposed to the thick and almost suffocating steam (proceeding from their own