326 BENGAZl.

are already before the reader, it will not be thought a visionary or hastily formed assumption, if we say that the position of these celebrated spots, “ long the subject of eager and doubtful inquiry,” may be laid down with some probability in the neighbourhood of the town of Bengazi. The remarkable pecuharities of this part of northern Africa correspond (in our opinion) sufficiently well with the authorities already quoted, to authorize the conclusion we have drawn from an inspection of the place ; and to induce us to place the gardens of the Hesperides in some one, or more, of the places described, rather than in any of the Oases of the desert, as suggested by Monsieur Gosselin and others*. It seems probable that there were more than one garden of this name ; but they could scarcely have been all of them so large as that mentioned by Scylax ; and the greater number of those which we were able to discover were considerably smaller in all their dimensions, as we have already stated above.

It has been mentioned that some of the chasms above described have assumed the form of lakes ; the sides of which are perpendicular, like those of the gardens, and the water in most of them appears to be very deep. In some of these lakes the water rises nearly to the edge of the precipice which incloses them, and in others is as much as twenty feet below it. They are no doubt much fuller after * Signor Della Celia has supposed that the passage of Scylax refers to the elevated parts of the Cyrenaica, and places his gardens of Hesperides in the mountains ; but we think that a review of the passage in question , combined with the local information which we have been able to collect on the subject, will authorize us to doubt this position.