Facsimile · p. 423
BENGAZI. 369 stone used were large and heavy. Two ranges of stone, longitudinally placed, form the outer and inner surface of the structure ; and these are crossed by a single block at regular intervals the length of which is the thickness of the wall : a space is left between the longitudinal ranges, about equivalent to the breadth of the stones which compose them ; and this is filled up with what is usually termed rubble, (which here appears to be the refuse of the material employed,) and occasionally with a single stone. Little or no cement has been used in the building (so far at least as we were able to discover) ; and, indeed, the weight of the several blocks, with the pressure upon them, would seem to render it wholly unnecessary.
Six and twenty quadrangular turrets contribute at the same time to the strength and the defence of the wall ; and two gates flanked with buttresses, projecting inwards, by which the entrance is defended, and placed opposite to each other on the east and western walls, are the only approaches to the town The entrance through these (as is usual in ancient towns) is by means of a narrow passage formed by the buttresses mentioned above ; but the gate itself is not placed within the line of the walls, as we find to have been the case with that of Mycenae, but ranges with them. Nearly in the centre of the southern wall there are two turrets of considerably larger dimensions than the rest, which are at the same time of a more recent construc-* We must except a low, narrow door, through one of the turrets at the south-west angle, the mode of constructing which will appear in page 367. It seems to have been intended as a sally-port and one person only can pass through it at a time. From the remains about this angle, there appears to have been an outer wall of very inferior strength, but it seems to have made no part of the original plan.