298 
BENGAZI. 
that we felt an inclination to visit a second time. Strangers who 
arrive there may indeed find a shelter from the weather, in a place 
well known to Mahometans as the Fundook, a temporary place of 
reception and partial accommodation. We once, and once only, 
took occasion to visit this place ; and on entering, it through the 
aperture of a broken door, we found ourselves in a long arched 
room, in which there was scarcely sufficient fight to show us where 
to place our feet, a precaution which was nevertheless highly essen- 
tial. Here we perceived the remains of a charcoal fire, which had 
been kindled on the well-smoked capital of a marble column, and a 
a greasy Arab stretched close to it on the ground, snoring amid the 
folds of his barracan. The building itself was of some antiquity, 
though not apparently older than the worst time of the lower empire, 
the roof being supported upon small columns of execrable taste, and 
the other parts of the building in no better style. The exterior had 
undergone some repair from time to time, but no attention whatever 
had been paid to the chamber within, not even that of removing the 
dirt and filth which was collected there ; and the consequence was, 
that the level of the floor reached two-thirds of the way up the 
columns. We need scarcely add, that whatever attractions this place 
may have had for an Arab, it had httle allurement for us ; and we 
should have laid ourselves down, without the least hesitation, to pass 
a rainy night in the street, rather than subject ourselves to the 
punishment of taking shelter for an hour under its roof. 
The house in which we had taken up our abode was the property 
of the Shekh el Belad, a very worthy person, much respected by all 
