1828.] [ 521 ] 



MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN. 



Proceedings of the Expedition to Ex- 

 plore the Northern Coast of Africa, from 

 Tripoli to Derna, in the Years 1821-22, 

 by Captain Beechey and his Brother ; 1828. 

 This is no book for the dippers into tours, 

 and the skimmers of circulating libraries. 

 It is calculated solely to gratify the scholar 

 the contemplator of the olden times, to 

 whom the whole northern coast of Africa 

 is familiar, as successively peopled by 

 Greeks, and Romans, and Vandals, and 

 Moors, and who has long wished for au- 

 thentic accounts of the actual state of the 

 scene to know what relics are left to ac- 

 credit the records of history, to illustrate the 

 career of the arts, and to aid him in inter- 

 preting, or, perhaps, in correcting the older 

 geographers and historians. 



The expedition was undertaken under the 

 auspices and at the expense of the govern- 

 ment, with what political view, or with 

 what hope of national benefit, it may be 

 difficult to guess ; but the possession of ac- 

 curate knowledge is at all times desirable, 

 because none can know how soon, nor to 

 what extent, it may be turned to account ; 

 and, at all events, there are numbers whose 

 convenience deserves to be attended to, to 

 whom the reports will prove highly accept- 

 able, and the cost in the ocean of our nu- 

 merous expenses is but a drop. Captain 

 Smyth had surveyed a portion of the coast 

 in 1817? and he and the consul at Tripoli, 

 Colonel Warrington, had so far conciliated 

 the good will of the Bashaw of Tripoli, that 

 every facility was frankly offered for con- 

 tinuing the survey along the extensive line 

 of coast within his dominions. On Captain 

 Smyth's representations, an expedition by 

 land was planned, to act simultaneously 

 with him, and, by this double means, ascer- 

 tain to a greater degree of accuracy the 

 bearings of the coast. Captain Beechey 

 was accordingly appointed for this purpose ; 

 and, what is alone important, in a literary 

 point of view, his brother, Mr. Beechey, of 

 the Royal Academy, was also appointed, to 

 examine and report upon the antiquities of 

 the coast. 



The volume before us is the result of this 

 examination the survey extending from 

 Tripoli to Derna, the extremes of the Ba- 

 shaw's territories, he himself residing at 

 Tripoli, and his eldest son some years ago 

 in active rebellion against him at Derna. 



Of scarcely any part of the habitable 

 world have we had less information in 

 modern times. In the beginning of the 

 sixteenth century, Leo Africanus gave some 

 general accounts of it, which seem, how- 

 ever, to have been hastily got up, and 

 rarely bear the close scrutiny to which Mr. 

 Beechey subjected them ; and very shortly 

 before the Beecheys set out, a book was 

 published at Genoa, by a Dr. Delia. Cella, 



M.M. New Series VOL. V. No. 29. 



who had accompanied the Bashaw in his 

 expedition against his rebellious son, giving 

 a very lively sketch of what he saw, but 

 which his opportunities scarcely permitted 

 him to describe very accurately. Though 

 undoubtedly Delia Cella shews a little of 

 the coxcomb, and is much too ready to cut 

 the knot where he cannot untie it, Mr. 

 Beechey is, we think, too severe occa- 

 sionally carping, and even almost deter- 

 mined to depreciate all he says. We do 

 not m.ean to say Delia Cella has not given 

 a handle, by hazardous assertions, to justify 

 some general suspicion especially, when 

 at Tucheira, he infers, from the multitude 

 of inscriptions visible on the ruins, that the 

 very annals of the city might be gathered 

 from them and which, on closer inspec- 

 tion, prove to be nothing but names rudely 

 carved by idlers but still an eagerness is 

 shewn by the writer to detect and expose, 

 and by implication, to make his <fwn pane- 

 gyric, which was quite superfluous, and 

 somewhat unworthy of his sober character. 

 Besides, his business was to state what he 

 himself saw he had nothing to do with 

 Delia Cella. 



The personal narrative of the party, though 

 given with great particularity, is of very lit- 

 tle interest ; it is marked by no variety 

 no perils, except once in a quicksand no 

 impediments worth speaking of. They tra- 

 velled under the special and known pro- 

 tection of the Bashaw, and were conducted 

 by the shekh of Syrt, and deli vered over by 

 him to the shekh of Barca. Some attempts 

 to alarm and impose, on the part of the 

 shekh and his Arabs, were baffled and de- 

 feated by the resolution ot the party, who 

 seem to have taken a pretty accurate mea- 

 sure of the character of their guides. The 

 country was every where in a state of per- 

 fect tranquillity occupied generally by Be- 

 douin Arabs, who every where shewed a 

 disposition to be hospitable to the utmost 

 of their power. The population was every 

 where thin a few villages with a few mud 

 huts particularly through the whole sweep 

 of the gulf of the greater Syrtis ; and even 

 Bengazi, the seat of a Bey, not containing 

 more than 2 or 3,000. One solitary palm- 

 tree was seen through a range of 400 miles. 

 The expedition started from Tripoly in 

 November 1821, travelling without inter- 

 mission till they reached Bengazi, when the 

 rains compelled them to stop for a time, 

 and, in the following July, when arrived at 

 the extremity of the Bashaw's power, they 

 received a communication from England, 

 with orders to suspend their operations and 

 return. Captain Smyth informed them he 

 had completed the survey from Derna to 

 Alexandria. The whole of these nine 

 months was indefatigably occupied by the 

 Beecheys in laying down the line of the 



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