72 
JOURNEY FROM 
equally productive (we should rather say equally capable of being 
made so) with that which we have mentioned to the eastward. A 
small part of this only, however, is cultivated, and we may observe 
generally, of the region of the Cinyphus, that by far the greater 
portion of that beautiful tract of country, from the eastern limit of 
the Syrtis at Mesurata, to the edge of the sandy desert at Wad’m’- 
Seid, is now left in its natural state. 
The following short account of the objects most worthy of notice 
which presented themselves to Captain Smyth in the course of his 
journey to Lebida in the year 1816 , and the succeeding one, have 
been extracted from his private journal, and obligingly placed at our 
disposal by the author ; and as we think they will not be unaccept- 
able to our readers, we submit them, without further comment, to 
their notice. 
The first principal point to the eastward of Tripoly is Ras al Amra, 
a projecting low sand, with rocks close in, but possessing a small 
boat-cove on its east side, resembling an ancient cothon : near it are 
the ruins of several baths with tesselated pavements. 
Beyond Ras al Amra there is another small port, formed by a point 
of land between the wadies of Ben z barra and Abdellata, whence 
the produce of the country is shipped off in summer. The mouth 
of the Abdellata forms a picturesque cove, and on its left bank, a 
little inland, is a village consisting of troglodytic caverns, excavated 
