TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI. 
245 
which, in that case, must have been higher than the outer walls 
which formed the parapet ; and a space seems always to have been 
left between these central buildings and the parapet, in which the 
garrison placed themselves when employed in defending the fort. 
An opening like a window was observed in the parapet of one of the 
Cyclopian castles at Ghimenes, which might have been used for 
drawing up those who entered the fort, as there was no other mode 
of entrance whatever. In fact there could scarcely have been any 
communication between the upper and lower parts of these erections ; 
for the whole space between the walls was filled up with earth in 
the manner already related, to within a few feet of the top. We 
noticed near most of them a small rising ground, with one or two 
wells in it, having remains of building about it ; they were gene- 
rally within fifty yards of the fort, by which they were commanded. 
The castles have most of them been surrounded with a 
trench, on the outer side of which there is generally a low wall 
strongly built with large stones. Some of the trenches which have 
been excavated in the solid rock of the soil are of considerable depth 
and width ; and in one instance, occurring between Ghimenes and 
Bengazi, we observed chambers excavated in the sides of the trench, 
as we find to be the case in that which surrounds the second pyra- 
mid, and which is equally formed in the rocky soil on which the 
building stands, although of course on a much larger scale. The 
trench of the fort here alluded to is about five-and-twenty feet in 
width, and its depth about fifteen ; the fort itself is an hundred and 
twenty-five feet in length, and ninety in width, of a quadrangular 
form, and in the centre of each of its sides is a quadrangular projec- 
