In leaving Zardes our road lay for three hours over hills covered with large junipers and other trees of the cypress tribe. This species of juniper is indigenous to the Cyrenaica; it is the Thuya of Pliny, and though it now only furnishes the small rough beams of which the roofing of the Benghazi houses is formed, it was in ancient times extensively used in upholstery, and furnished the precious citrian tables to the luxury of Greece and Rome. The wood has a bright yellow colour, and might, I should think, become again fashionable if introduced into Europe.[1]
We now came to an extensive plain called El-Hhiah, and further on to Sharb Tawalun, which was entirely burnt up, though the camels still found ample amusement, as they stragglingly loitered along, in plucking on this side and on that the half-dried tufts of thorny shrubs with which it is overgrown. Merawah, eleven hours distant, was our next halting-place; near it we started numbers of gazelles, which I could not get within shot of, though I had murdering intentions, our stock of provisions being very low. Here the camel drivers were busy, all the evening, preparing muzzles for the camels, to prevent them eating the Driâs, with which the country between here and Cyrene is covered. Most authors consider this plant to be the old Silphium, though its medicinal virtues are forgotten, and it is only known as the dreaded poison which threatens the lives of camels which are not reared in this tract of country. It is from no partiality for its flavour that they eat it, for they refuse it when offered to them. They crop it as they pass along, tempted by the long stem, which brings it so near their noses. It is at the present season, when in seed, that it is considered most deadly; I am told that in spring it is unnecessary to take precautions against it. If not the real Silphium, it certainly answers to the description given of the plant by Theophrastus, and I cannot think the objection to its identity urged by the learned M. Duchalais, from the form of the seed on the medals, is of much weight. I have seen seeds which nearly enough resemble the Magydaris on the medals, though they certainly are not heart-shaped, but the plant itself, as represented on them, is evidently what Mr. Pugin would call a conventional Silphium, for no plant of this species has the stem so thick in proportion to its height and flower. The seeds are highly medicinal, but I was unfortunately too late to ascertain if it yields a juice corresponding to the ancient Opos.
The next day our travelling from Merawah to Sireh, nine hours, and thence to Slŭnt, two hours, was very slow, for the camels, with their mouths tied up, were in a very bad humour, and could hardly be made to move. The appearance of the country was now varied by a number of caroub trees, which, contrasted with the duller juniper, looked of a bright green, and afforded a most grateful shade. Half-way between Merawah and Sireh is a large reservoir of ancient construction. It had been supported on six columns, and in many places the cement still adheres to the walls. There being no well in this neighbourhood, it was constructed to collect the rain-water from the hill at whose base it lies; its presence denotes, I presume, the site of some old town or village; but I observed no other remains of antiquity in its neighbourhood. It is true that the morning was very hot, and I, perhaps, gave myself little trouble in looking for them.[2] At Sireh are remains of a square castle, like that which I visited at Elbenich, but not so well preserved nor in so commanding a situation. Many similar remains of castles, which probably formed a line of defence against the border tribes, are to be seen on the summits of the hills. In the face of the rocks at Sireh are many excavations, devoid of ornament, and evidently intended as sepulchres, though the Arabs, of course, assert that they were the abodes of the ancient inhabitants. At Slŭnt the rock is burrowed with such excavations, each with a fore-court cut in the rock, having one or three entrances to the sepulchral chambers, some of which are most extensive, and supported by rude columns. I found one occupied by Arab ladies, who did not welcome my visit; probably thinking I had sinister intentions on their grain, for which it served as a magazine. It was certainly from no Oriental idea of the sacredness of the Hareem that they seemed so relieved when I turned my horse’s head. The Bedawin women, dirty and tattooed, have no difficulty in showing their bare faces to strangers; and, notwithstanding the stories of Herodotus, I think there is no risk in their doing so. They wear leather leggings up to the knee; in other respects their dress differs little, except in its darker colour, from that of the Benghazi women.
The next morning a ride of two hours and a quarter through an interesting country brought us to the Marābut Sidi Mohammed el Himary, where there is an ill-supplied well, and a rock, under which a shade may be obtained without the trouble of pitching a tent. Barth, I think, gives this as the site of the ancient Balaerai, whose distance was twelve miles from Cyrene; but it took my camels seven hours and a half from here to Grennah, which, at the slowest rate of travelling, must give fifteen miles, and from the length of time I was on horseback I should judge the distance nearer eighteen. The ride from here to Grennah is worth a journey from Europe. About half-way, after passing through a valley containing many splendid old junipers, under which goats, flocked together, were enjoying the shade, we came to a spring of living water, called Menezzah Wad Fairyeh. The rest of the journey was over a range of low undulating hills, offering, perhaps, the most lovely sylvan scenery in the world. The country is like a most beautifully arranged Jardin Anglais, covered with pyramidal clumps of evergreens, variously disposed, as if by the hand of the most refined taste; while bosquets of junipers and cedars, relieved by the pale olive and the bright green of the tall arbutus tree, afford a most grateful shade from the mid-day sun. In one of these bowers I had my carpet spread for luncheon; some singing birds joined their voices to the lively chirping of the grasshoppers, and around fluttered many a gaily-painted butterfly. The old capital of the Pentapolis was before me, yet I was strongly tempted to pitch my tent for a time in this fairy scene.
“Nunc viridi membra sub arbuto
Stratus, nunc ad aquæ lene caput sacræ.”
Whoever has traversed these fresh groves in the parching heat of an African July can understand the enthusiastic praises of the older writers, and why the Arabs, coming from the Desert, called the country the Green Mountain. As we approached Cyrene, this exuberant vegetation disappeared, and in its place we passed through long avenues of tombs, hewn in the rock, or out of it; next we came in sight of the ruined towers of the old city walls; and then, through a long line of ruins, we reached the street of Battus, where a narrow gorge opens upon a magnificent view over plains and hills to the blue Mediterranean. I rode on to the cave whence gushes the perennial spring of Cyre, took a draught of its bright, cool water, and fixed my temporary home beneath the world-famed fountain, amidst the countless ruins of temples and public buildings.
CHAPTER III.
Grennah. — Arab Conversation. — Fountain of Cyre. — Ruins of Cyrene. — Interrupted by Bedawin. — Ruins of a Theatre. — Bas-reliefs. — Inscriptions. — Terraces. — Temple of Æsculapius. — Aqueduct. — Cyrene’s History unknown. — Its Ruinous state.