BENGAZI. 345 vated tracts, in this part of the plain, are merely so many portions rescued from the sandy waste by the industry of the individuals who select them ; and must therefore be considered as so many additions made by the original occupiers to the general stock *, The first care of the cultivator is to turn up the sand, and spread layers of faggots underneath: the sand is then replaced, and over it is sometimes spread a mixed stratum of sand and manure.

Upon this the seeds are sown, and care is taken to keep the land irrigated by means of numerous wells of a few feet only in depth.

Some of these are built round with rough stones, but the water is always brackish, and occasionally stinking, owing to the quantity of decayed roots, and other vegetable matter, with which they are suffered to be clogged. By the adoption of this short and simple process, the sand is soon rendered so productive, that the Arabs prefer cultivating it, to the trouble of clearing the rich soil beyond it, to the southward, of the broken stones and fragments of building with which it is thickly interspersed.

When the rains had subsided, and the health of Lieutenant Beechey (which had latterly prevented him from travelling) allowed of it, we set out on our journey to Carcora ; in order to complete that part of the coast which had been left unfinished between Car-* The sandy tract here alluded to is merely formed by deposites from the beach, and extends scarcely half a mile inland ; the country beyond it, all the way to the mountains, , is a mixture of rock and excellent soil, with no sand whatever, and is for the most part, as we have mentioned, well wooded and covered with vegetation.