MERGE TO GYRENE.

569 At Wady Jerahib the table land ceases, and a steep and somewhat perilous descent begins into the valley (or wady) here mentioned, down which we wdth difficulty conducted our horses. A strong fort on the right commands, or rather, formerly commanded the entrance on this side to the wady, and overlooks the country to a considerable extent. The sides of this ravine are quite perpendicular ; and in some places more than five hundred feet high ; they are filled with excavated caves, like those which we have described at Apollonia, and are entered by ropes in a similar manner, which are always very carefully drawn up after them by the inhabitants.

The road which leads along Wady Jerahib winds for two hours through woods of pine-trees, some of which were two feet in diameter (the largest size we had hitherto seen in the country), and appear to be well adapted for spars. In the centre of the valley their naked trunks were lying (amongst heaps of stones, and other matter collected about them) in considerable numbers when we passed along it ; and the bark of most of those trees which are standing has been worn the same time used by the Libyans, in the sense which belongs to it in those languages.

I rasa might then be supposed to mean a tract of table land ; for the loss of the letter b is of little importance, considering that the word comes through a Greek medium ; and as the Greeks in the case alluded to were conducted from the low ground to the high, such an application is far from improbable. It is not, however, necessary for this application to Insist upon the omission of the b ; for the i in Irasa might well be a contraction of the article el or il, signifj'Ing the, and I-rasa be pronounced for el-rasa, which is consistent with the usual pronunciation of Ai’abic and other Oriental languages. The whole would then be taken for a part ; and the country which the Greeks were recommended to inhabit, would be termed — the summit of the mountain — and in the Libyan dialect (let us suppose) Ir’rasa, or Er’-rasa.