TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI. 
89 
tents in a garden near the town, and proceeded to make the neces- 
sary arrangements. 
The town of Mesurata is built with tolerable regularity ; its streets 
cross each other at right angles, and near the centre stands the mar- 
ket-place, which, like most others in this country, is half occupied by 
a pool of green and stinking water. The houses are only one story 
high, and are built with rough stones and mud; the roofs are flat, 
and formed with slight rafters, covered with mats and a quantity of 
sea-weed, over which is laid a thick coat of mud, smoothed and beat 
down very carefully. They are fortunate who can mix a little lime 
with the mud which forms the outer part of their roof ; for without 
this addition it is wholly incapable of resisting the heavy rains which 
assail it in winter, and a thick muddy stream never fails to find its 
way, through the numerous mazes of sea-weed and matting, to the 
luckless inhabitants below : the white- washed walls are in conse- 
quence usually marked with long streaks of this penetrating fluid, 
and present a singularly-variegated appearance. The greater part 
of the town has been built upon a hard rocky incrustation, about 
two feet in thickness ; the soil beneath is soft and sandy, and, being 
easily removed, is excavated by the Arabs into storehouses for their 
corn and dry provisions. Some of these have in the course of time 
fallen in, and the streets are in such places not very passable. 
The extent of the district of Mesurata, according to the report of 
its Shekh, is from Selin to Sooleb, a place in the Syrtis, two days dis- 
tant to the southward of the town; it consists of the villages of 
Ghara, Zouia, Zoroog, Gusser Hdmed, Gezir, ^c., and is said to 
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