TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI. 19

ward; but that owing to the continual advance of the sea it has been

gradually extended in a southerly direction ; they also declare, ’ says our Author, “ that remains of houses and other buildings may still

be observed under water*.”

From this account, contrasted with the actual appearance of the

place in question, we must either suppose that the level of the lands

here alluded to, which are those in the immediate neighbourhood of

Tripoly, is higher, at the present time, than it was in the age of Leo,

or that the sea has retired since that period. F or although the soil

of Tripoly still continues to be sandy, there is now no part of it, as

we have stated above, overflowed to the southward of the town f.

* (Leo Africanus in Ramusio, p. 72.) — With respect to the former extension of Tri-

poly to the northward, here mentioned by the African geographer, the observation is

certainly in some degree correct, and consistent with the present appearance of other

parts of <^he coast of Northern Africa ; but we must at the same time observe that the

town could scarcely have projected any farther to the northward than the sites of the

French and Spanish forts ; for beyond these we get into five and eight fathoms water.

t We must, liowever, confess, that we cannot altogether understand, why the loss of

the ground in the immediate neighbourhood of Tripoly, said by Leo Africanus to have

been flooded in his days, should have necessarily occasioned to the inhabitants of the

town so great a scarcity of grain as that mentioned by this geographer. For the high

grounds immediately beyond the parts which were overflowed, must at all times, we

should- conceive, from their rocky foundation, have been placed above the level ol the

sea at its greatest height, and might therefore have been cultivated as we find them to

be at present ; and the Gharian mountains, as well as the country of Tagiura, both of

which are still very productive, are mentioned by Leo as places highly cultivated at the period of the overflow alluded to.

We may remark on this subject — that the coincidence of the former with the present

state of the last-mentioned places, appears to be the more worthy of notice, from the

circumstance of our finding the actual produce of other districts, both in Tunis and

Tripoly, very different from what it appears to have been in earlier periods. Among

other examples, in proof of this assertion, we may notice the great difference which has

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