MERGE TO GYRENE. 
569 
At Wady Jerahib the table land ceases, and a steep and somewhat 
perilous descent begins into the valley (or wady) here mentioned, 
down which we wdth difficulty conducted our horses. A strong fort 
on the right commands, or rather, formerly commanded the entrance 
on this side to the wady, and overlooks the country to a considerable 
extent. The sides of this ravine are quite perpendicular ; and in 
some places more than five hundred feet high ; they are filled with 
excavated caves, like those which we have described at Apollonia, and 
are entered by ropes in a similar manner, which are always very 
carefully drawn up after them by the inhabitants. 
The road which leads along Wady Jerahib winds for two hours 
through woods of pine-trees, some of which were tw^o feet in diameter 
(the largest size we had hitherto seen in the country), and appear to 
be well adapted for spars. In the centre of the valley their naked trunks 
were lying (amongst heaps of stones, and other matter collected 
about them) in considerable numbers when we passed along it ; and 
the bark of most of those trees which are standing has been worn 
the same time used by the Libyans, in the sense which belongs to it in those languages. 
I rasa might then be supposed to mean a tract of table land ; for the loss of the letter b is 
of little importance, considering that the word comes through a Greek medium ; and as 
the Greeks in the case alluded to were conducted from the low ground to the high, such 
an application is far from improbable. It is not, however, necessary for this application 
to Insist upon the omission of the b ; for the i in Irasa might well be a contraction of the 
article el or il, signifj'Ing the, and I-rasa be pronounced for el-rasa, which is consistent 
with the usual pronunciation of Ai’abic and other Oriental languages. The whole would 
then be taken for a part ; and the country which the Greeks were recommended to 
inhabit, would be termed — the summit of the mountain — and in the Libyan dialect (let 
us suppose) Ir’rasa, or Er’-rasa. 
