BENGAZI. 359 dreary swamps and insipidity of the Syrtis, where only one tree had been seen to rear itself in a space of more than four hundred miles.

It could not, therefore, he contrast that made the vallies of Ptolemeta appear to us in such captivating forms and colours— it was the simple impression which Nature’s favourite spots never fail to create on the imagination — heightened only, perhaps, by the solitude of the scene, and the wild, romantic elegance of its character. There are beauties which may be felt, but cannot be described ; and the charm of romantic scenery is one of them.

We will not therefore attempt any other description of the eastern valley of Ptolemeta, than by remarking that it rises gradually from the sea, winding through forests of pine and flowering shrubs, (which thicken as the sides of the mountain on which they grow become higher and more abrupt,) till it loses itself in the precipitous part of the range which bounds it to the southward, and which presents a dark barrier of thickly-planted pines, shooting up into the blue sky above them. The windings of the valley greatly add to its beauty, and the scenery increases in interest at every turn, in tracing it up tow" ards the mountains in which it loses itself. Sometimes the path is impeded by trees, which throw their branches across it, leaving only a narrow passage beneath them ; and sometimes, on emerging from this dark and difficult approach, a broad sweep of verdant lawn will suddenly present itself, fenced in, apparently, on all sides, by liigh walls of variouscoloured pines, rising one above the head of the other, in all the grandeur of uniformity. On reaching the opposite end of this verdant