BENGAZI. 325 we have seen, is also peculiar to the country in question ; and we know of no other part of the coast of northern Africa where the same peculiarities of soil are observable. We do not mean to point out any one of these subterranean gardens as that which is described in the passage above quoted from Scylax ; for we know of no one which will correspond in point of extent to the garden which this author has mentioned: all those which we saw were considerably less than the fifth of a mile in diameter (the measurement given by Scylax) ; and the places of this nature which would best agree with the dimensions in question, are now filled with water sufficiently fresh to be drinkable, and take the form of romantic little lakes.

Scarcely any two of the gardens we met with were, however, of the same depth or extent; and we have no reason to conclude that because we saw none which were large enough to be fixed upon for the garden of the Hesperides, as it is described in the statement of Scylax, there is therefore no place of the dimensions required among those which escaped our notice— particularly as the singular formation we allude to continues to the foot of the Cyrenaic chain, which is fourteen miles distant, in the nearest part, from Bengazi. When we consider that the places in question are all of them sunk below the surface of the soil, and that the face of the country in which they are found is overspread with brushwood, and nowhere perfectly level, it will not be thought extraordinary if some of them should have escaped us in a diligent and frequently-repeated search. At any rate, under the circumstances which