TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI. 
187 
appearance of day-light summons them to rise and take up their 
burdens, which have probably in the mean time been usefully em- 
ployed in affording them the luxury of a pillow. 
On quitting the hills among which our late acquaintance were 
encamped, we passed along the track of Ras Houeijah (the promon- 
tory above mentioned), and were detained some time in consequence 
of the lake having terminated in a swamp, which extended to the 
sea, and in which our horses sank so deep as to render great caution 
necessary. The land at the back of the marsh rises tolerably high, 
and was better peopled than any part we had yet seen in the district 
of Syrt. At about one o’clock we reached Wady Shegga, a large 
fiumara so called, and having procured some brackish water a little 
way up it, continued our route till we reached some Arab tents, where 
we halted for the night. At Shegga we found the remains of some 
forts, strongly and regularly built, and of the same quadrangular 
form with those which we have already described. On a large 
mound of rubbish we also observed a Markbut, rudely built with the 
stones of fallen structures about it. In a valley belonging to the 
chain of hills which runs at the back of Shegga are considerable 
traces of small buildings, rudely put together with the unshaped 
stones of the soil. They consist principally of strait lines and parts 
of squares, built with very little regularity, and occupying both sides 
of the valley. Traces of walls may also be still observed across the 
valley, which is furrowed and torn up by the passage of torrents 
rushing down in the rainy season from the hills, but which seems to 
have formerly contained much more building than can be perceived 
2 B 2 
