TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI. 
121 
in different parts of the marsh; and most of these places are 
honoured with a name by their Mahometan visitors or occasional 
inhabitants. The road, if such we may call it, either winds along 
the margin of these little islands, or traverses them, when necessary 
for greater security. The first of these which occurs, after leaving 
Mesurata, is the little oasis called Towergah ; lying out of the track 
at a distance of seven or eight miles from the coast : it has a village, 
and a considerable plantation of date-trees. 
A little beyond this is said to be another small insulated spot 
called Wady Haifa, where date-trees are also to be found ; but this 
was not in sight from the immediate neighbourhood of the coast. 
The surface of the marsh, in the direction of these places, presents a 
smooth, unvaried level, as far as the eye can reach, wholly destitute 
of any vegetation ; it consists entirely of an incrustation of salt and 
alluvial deposit. In following the route along the coast, the first 
rising ground which occurs, of any tolerable dimensions, is Melfa*; 
where are the remains of an old, dilapidated Mardbht, and 
occasionally a patch of vegetation, affording a scanty supply to a few 
miserable-looking goats. 
To this succeeds Sooleb, which we have already pointed out as 
the southern limit of the marsh, according to the dimensions given 
Arar occurs before Melfa ; but, though a good deal above the level of the mar 
It cannot well be considered as an island, but is rather a continuation of the little range 
of high land which we have mentioned as running along the coast in the neighbourhood 
of the causeway. It consists wholly of heaps of sand, overspread occasionally with vege- 
tation, and is remarkable as possessing a tall and solitary date-tree, the only one to be 
met with on the coast of the Syrtis, in a tract of more than four hundred miles. 
R 
