330 BENGAZL reader is — whether the subterranean stream above-mentioned, which certainly may be said to lose itself underground, be the source of the Lethe, or Lathon, in question ? and whether a small spring, which runs into the lake near the town of Bengazi, may be supposed to be the re-appearance of the same river, in the place so decidedly assigned to it by Strabo — the port of the Hesperides, or, which is the same, of Berenice.

The circumstance of finding a subterranean stream in this neighbourhood, between the mountains and the lake which joins the Harbour of Bengazi, would certainly appear to favour the conclusion, that the course of the stream was towards the lake, that is to say, from the higher ground to the lower. And although the mere discovery of a small stream of fresh water emptying itself into the lake here alluded to, does not by any means tend to confirm the existence of a communication between it and the subterranean stream in question; yet thei’e is no proof (at least, not that we are aware of) that one of these is not connected with the other. At the same time we may add, that if it were really ascertained that no connexion existed between the two, such a circumstance would not be considered as proving that the ancients did not suppose that they communicated.

It was believed by the Greeks (or, at any rate, it was asserted by them) that the Alpheus communicated with the fountain of Arethusa, and that anything thrown into the former at Elis would re-appear on the waters of the latter in Sicily.

Other instances might be mentioned of similar extravagancies, which are considered by the moderns as poetical inventions, and