BENGAZI. 
315 
few remains now appear above ground to interest the sculptor, the 
architect, or the antiquary. Berenice has, in fact, disappeared from 
the beautiful plain on which it stood, and a miserable, dirty, Arab 
town has reared itself on its ruins, or rather on the soil which covers 
its ruins, for all its interest is now under ground. 
The erection of Bengazi on the site of the ancient town, rather 
than the effects of time, or of hostile violence, appears to have been 
chiefly the cause of the total disappearance of the latter ; for the 
stones of which the buildings were originally composed being too 
large for the purposes of the Arabs, are broken up into small pieces 
before they are used in modern structures, and generally before they 
are removed from the places in which they are dug up. Many a 
noble frieze and cornice, and many a well-proportioned capital has 
been crushed under the hammer of these barbarians ; so that, even 
^\ere there not a single house in Bengazi which has not been com- 
posed of ancient materials, yet there is nothing of architecture in any 
of them at present to fix, and scarcely to arrest, the attention. We 
were ourselves just too late to save from the hammer several portions 
of a large and well-executed Ionic entablature, which a worthy Arab 
Shekh had caused to be excavated and brought into his court-yard, to 
form part of a house which he was building without the town, and 
which was carefully beat to pieces by his servants and slaves before it 
was bedded in the mud which received it. Very extensive remains 
of building are still found about Bengazi, at the depth of a foot or two 
from the surface of the plain ; and whenever a house is intended to be 
erected, the projector of it has nothing more to do, in order to obtain 
2 s a 
