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BENGAZI. 
viewing them as a refuge still left for mortals, from that troubled and 
imperfect enjoyment which they were doomed to experience in every 
other portion of the globe.” (Murray’s Account of Africa, vol. i. 
chap. 1.) 
Nothing is more just than the picture of human nature here pre- 
sented to us by the intelligent writer just quoted; and it must be 
confessed that the position of the Hesperian gardens has been fixed 
by different authors in so many parts of the coast of Africa, that we 
may scarcely hope to reconcile statements so opposite. 
The legends connected with these celebrated places are at the 
same time so wild and extravagant, as well as so discordant with each 
other, that we might often be tempted to consider the gardens them- 
selves as fabulous and imaginary spots, existing only in the creative 
brain of the poet and the mythologist, and nowhere to be found in 
reality. 
We should not, however, say, from our view of the subject, that 
“ the variety of position” assigned to the gardens of the Hesperides 
“ is referrible to no precise geographical data the details which 
we have already quoted from Scylax are too minute to be wholly 
rejected ; and the position of the gardens, as laid down by Ptolemy 
and Pliny, coincides with that assigned to them by Scylax. 
We have shewn, at the same time, that the nature of the ground 
in the neighbourhood of Berenice (or Bengazi) is consistent with the 
account of Scylax; and that places like those which he has so 
minutely described are actually to be found in the territory where 
he has laid down the gardens. This singular formation, so far as 
