474 MERGE TO GYRENE.

is little more than a mere heap of ruins. As this is a conspicuous object in sailing along the coast, the observations for latitude and longitude were reduced to it. Some large building-stones and fragments of columns bedded in the walls of the Arab houses are all that we could perceive of ancient remains in Derna. Above the town there are a few tombs extant, but in a very mutilated state, excavated in the side of the mountain. What is called the port affords some protection for small vessels with the wind from north-west to southeast ; but even these cannot remain with a northerly or north-east wind : during the fine weather, however, some few anchor in it and load with corn, wool, and manteca, the produce of the inland country.

The plague has made dreadful ravages at Derna, as is evident by the number of deserted houses on its outskirts. The year previous to our arrival it was brought (we were told) from Alexandria, and the mortality which it occasioned was very considerable : the prompt measures of the Bey, however, subdued it, who ordered the clothes of all persons attacked with it to be burnt, their houses to be properly ventilated, and the streets to be cleared of everything that was likely to communicate the infection. These exertions were probably assisted by the general healthiness of the place, and the constant change of atmosphere produced by the passage of water through the town : the only remedy we heard of for the disease was the favourite application of a hot iron to the tumours, which we understood to have been peculiarly successful in many cases.

Derna is the residence of Bey Mahommed, eldest son to the BashaAv of Tripoly, who commands the whole district extending