BENGAZI. 
335 
suggested itself to us had we never visited Eengazi ; it must there- 
fore be left to the discretion of our readers, to adopt it or not, as it 
may seem to deserve, on a reference to the local peculiarities we have 
mentioned. 
With regard to the name of Tritonis, bestowed upon the lake in 
this passage, it is difficult to say whether the lake which Strabo men- 
tions was actually called by that name ; or whether the geographer 
has confounded it with the Tritonis Palus (the Lake Lowdeah of 
Shaw), situated in the Lesser Syrtis, and which also contained an 
island, according to Herodotus. 
But whatever may have been the proper name of the lake at Bere- 
nice which we seek to identify with the Tritonis of Strabo, it appears 
to us to answer remarkably well to the lake of that name which he 
mentions. We will therefore suggest, that the Tritonis in question 
and the lake which now communicates with the Harbour of Bengazi, 
are one and the same lake : that it was originally deep enough to 
admit the vessels of the ancients, and to have formed occasionally the 
island containing the temple of Venus, on the spot of rising ground 
already pointed out, where remains of ancient building are still obser- 
vable : that a small spring of fresh water run« into the same lake 
which may possibly be the remains of the Lathon of Strabo, at its 
point of re-appearance and communication with the Harbour of the 
Hesperides ; and that the subterranean stream in the cavern between 
the lake and the mountains, which we have mentioned above, may also 
be the source of this river. When we add, that the gardens upon 
which we have remarked, are probably some of those called the Gar- 
