MERGE TO GYRENE.

507 esque, and the additional bustle occasioned by our arrival gave great animation to the whole scene.

“ Benioleet consists of several straggling mud villages on the sides of a fertile ravine, several miles in length, and bounded by rocks of difficult access. The centre is laid out in gardens, planted with date and olive trees, and producing also corn, vegetables, and pulse. This valley is subject to inundation during the winter rains, but in summer requires to be watered with great labour by means of wells of extraordinary depth. It is inhabited by the Orfilla tribe, which amounts to about two thousand souls, subsisting chiefly by agriculture and the rearing of cattle, aided only in a trifling degree by a manufacture of nitre ; they are accounted hardy, brave, and industrious, but at the same time dishonest and cruel. A large and illproportioned building called the castle, near one of the pleasantest spots in the ravine, was prepared for our reception, and a plentiful supply of victuals and forage provided. Though commanded at almost every point, this is the principal fortress ; it contains several apartments, good stabling, and a large court-yard, but the water must be drawn from a very deep well at the distance of a musketshot. The walls are badly perforated for musketry, and flanked Math round bastions, too weak to bear artillery.

“ Having found several people here who had recently arrived from the place I was bound to, I repeated my inquiries respecting the sculpture, and again received positive assurances that I should see figures of men, women, children, camels, horses, ostriches, &c., in perfect preservation ; and the belief of their being petrifactions Mas 3 T 2