52 JOURNEY FROM ancients was conspicuously manifested in its selection as a principal town.

The city of Leptis Magna appears to have been comprehended within little more than a square half mile of ground. It was situated close to the sea, on the banks of a ravine now called Wady Lebda, which might probably in the rainy season have assumed the appearance of a river. When we passed through the place it was, however, nothing more than a small stream, although too deep in some parts to be easily forded; and it is probably dry, or nearly so, in the summer. The inadequacy of this supply to the consumption of the city may be inferred from the remains of an aqueduct communicating with the Cinyphus, still existing, in unconnected portions, in the space between the town and that river. At the back of the town are several large mounds of earth, thrown up in the form of banks ; which are supposed to have been raised for the purpose of turning off the water which might occasionally have threatened it from the hiUs, and which the slope of the ground from the hills to the sea may possibly have rendered very necessary *.

The quantity of alluvial soil brought down the Wady above mentioned by the winter torrents, have, together with the accumulation of sand from the beach, nearly effaced all traces of the port and cothon of Leptis Magna, which does not indeed appear to have been at any time very capacious. The actual remains of the city are still * This is the opinion of Captain Smyth, who examined the remains of Leptis Magna with attention (in the year 1817) ; who has obligingly favoured us with the plans and account of it which are given at the end of the chapter.