BENGAZI. 
325 
we have seen, is also peculiar to the country in question ; and 
we know of no other part of the coast of northern Africa where 
the same peculiarities of soil are observable. We do not mean 
to point out any one of these subterranean gardens as that which 
is described in the passage above quoted from Scylax ; for we know 
of no one which will correspond in point of extent to the garden 
which this author has mentioned: all those which we saw were 
considerably less than the fifth of a mile in diameter (the measure- 
ment given by Scylax) ; and the places of this nature which would 
best agree with the dimensions in question, are now filled with water 
sufficiently fresh to be drinkable, and take the form of romantic little 
lakes. 
Scarcely any two of the gardens we met with were, however, of 
the same depth or extent; and we have no reason to conclude 
that because we saw none which were large enough to be fixed upon 
for the garden of the Hesperides, as it is described in the state- 
ment of Scylax, there is therefore no place of the dimensions 
required among those which escaped our notice— particularly as the 
singular formation we allude to continues to the foot of the Cyrenaic 
chain, which is fourteen miles distant, in the nearest part, from 
Bengazi. When we consider that the places in question are all 
of them sunk below the surface of the soil, and that the face of 
the country in which they are found is overspread with brushwood, 
and nowhere perfectly level, it will not be thought extraordinary 
if some of them should have escaped us in a diligent and fre- 
quently-repeated search. At any rate, under the circumstances which 
