Above the port, and below the town to the south-west, are large lakes of salt water, which formerly probably joined to the water of the harbour, and enclosed the south side of the town, forming the peninsula called by the ancients Pseudopenias.
About ten miles to the eastward is the lake Tritonis, with a small island, where was the Temple of Venus, now Monastier, and to the northward of this, the lake Zeian or the Beautiful, formerly called that of the Hesperides, into which a stream rising in a small hill above it runs into the sea, which has a communication likewise with the lake, and is the Leithon of Strabo.
About seven miles from Bengazi, to the south-west, is a small low cape called Teyonis, which, running out considerably to the north, is that which Strabo says makes the mouth of the Syrtis, with Cephala or Cape Mesrata.
The country about Bengazi, for several miles, is chiefly sand and gravel, brought thither from the coast by the violent winds, but beyond the influence of these, towards the mountains, to the east and south-east, it is a reddish clay of the same soapy quality as fuller’s earth; and provided plentiful and frequent rains fall about November, December and January, their seed-time, nothing can be more fertile; but these rains have failed for several years, and now the famine is so great, that people hourly die in the streets, and many people have been detected, chiefly women, with the heads and remains of children, murdered and eaten, all but the parts which were saved for another meal.
There was no staying at Bengazi, the Bey recommended me to a Sheikh of distant Arabs, where the calamity of famine had only reached in a smaller degree. We went to Arsinoe and several cities in the Pentapolis, the works of Ptolemy Philadelphus, which are now totally obliterated.
We went to Ras Sem, the supposed petrified city,[288] concerning which so many lies have been told. It is about nine miles south from El-Wadi, between that and El-Murag, and four days’ smart travelling south, a very little west of Bengazi; it is not so named either from the supposed fable of the Gorgon’s head, or from the petrifactions of men, horses, &c., which have been idly invented and believed, but from a fountain of mineral water of a greenish colour, so strongly impregnated with metal that it instantly, upon drinking, discharges itself by purging and vomiting. The head of a fountain or spring is called in Arabic Ras el-Ain, so that Ras Sem, the fountain of poison, is all that is implied in this name.
The only antiquities here consist of a ruined castle, not of earlier date probably than the wars of the Vandals, perhaps much later, and there are no petrifactions but what are common in many other parts of Africa.
This is all of that immense city which the Tripoli ambassador made Sir Hans Sloane believe was of considerable extent, with petrified men and horses, women at the mill and churn, and cats and mice petrified also. This severe accident has, I suppose, destroyed the breed, as neither of these animals are to be seen in the country now.
Only the jerboa, or rat of the Cyrenaicum, is very plentiful here; our Arabs killed many of them, and eat the hinder part. I engaged one of them on the journey to kill me several hundreds, which was very easily done, in time enough to carry them to Bengazi to deliver them in charge there to my Greek servant, going to Tripoli, who was to dry and take care of them. I brought these home for the lining of a cloak, flaying the tails in the manner they do ermine, happy if we had taken charge of them, and gone home with them ourselves!
The leffah, or cerastes of the ancients, is also very common here. It is a horned viper, generally about 16 inches in length, though often considerably longer. That of which I made a design in the desert of Barca was 22 inches long. The colour varies in darkness according to the colour of the earth in which he lives. It is remarkably supple in the spine, according to the observation of Lucan,