332 
BENGAZI. 
are the existing remains of the Ilissus, the Simois, the Scamander, 
and other rivers, to which we have been in the habit of attaching im- 
portance, we must not be surprised to find a celebrated stream 
dwindled down into a very insignificant one. The changes which 
a lapse of nearly two thousand years may be supposed to have occa- 
sioned on the northern coast of Africa, are fully sufficient to have 
reduced the river Lathon to the spring which now flows into the 
Lake of Bengazi. 
The lake itself is salt, and in the summer is nearly dry ; while the 
small stream in question takes its rise within a few yards of the lake, 
and running along a channel of inconsiderable breadth, bordered 
with reeds and rushes, might be mistaken by a common observer for 
an inroad of the lake into the sandy soil which bounds it. 
On tasting it, however, we found its waters to be fresh, and the 
current which is formed by its passage into the lake is very evident 
on the slightest examination. 
If we may suppose this little stream to be aU that now remains of 
the celebrated Kiver of Oblivion, we shall be enabled to throw light 
upon a passage in Strabo which has hitherto been the subject of 
much discussion. 
It has been questioned by commentators, whether Strabo intended 
to make the river Lathon discharge itself into the lake, or into the 
jiort of the Hesperides ; and the near resemblance which the words 
(limen) and Xipuvri (limne), the former of which means a port, and 
the latter a lake, do certainly bear to each other, will allow of their 
being confounded in transcribing, by the mere transposition of a 
