BENGAZI. 337 it necessary, an hundred years after Mela, to add, when he speaks of the city of Berenice, that it was the same with that of Ilesperis, or, as he writes it, Hesperides* ; from which we may infer that the ancient name of the place still continued to be better known than the modern one. But alas for the glories of Hesperis and Berenice !

both names have passed away from the scene of their renown ; and the present inhabitants of the miserable dirty village, (for we can scarcely call it a town,) which has reared itself on the ruins of these cities, have no idea that Bengazi did not always occupy the place which it has usurped on the soil of the Hesperides f . The Arab who now gathers his corn, or his fruit, in some one, perhaps, of those gardens so celebrated in the annals of antiquity, dreams of nothing whatever connected with it beyond the profits which he hopes from its produce. He knows nothing of the stream or the properties of the Lethe ; and the powerful influence of the Biver of Oblivion seems to have been so often, and so successfully exerted, as to have drowned at length even the recollection of itself * Besvinn, 'h Kat’KcTrsiss-. t The name of Berenice is mentioned by Edrisi as remaining in his time in this part of Africa ; but we never could find any traces of the name, though we often inquired for it of the Arabs of the country, as well as of the inhabitants of Bengazi.

J The changes which time may be supposed to effect in the character and appearance of a country, are well expressed in the following little fable of Kazwini, translated from the Arabic by Silvestre de Sacy.

“ I passed by a very large and populous city, and inquired of one of its inhabitants by whom it was founded. Oh, replied the man, this is a very ancient city ! we have no idea how long it may have been in existence ; and our ancestors were on this point