BENGAZI. 
347 
very fertile and beautiful country, though a comparatively small por- 
tion of it only is cultivated. It may be described as a plain, thickly 
covered with wood and flowering shrubs, stretching itself from the 
sea to the foot of the mountains which form the northern hmits of 
the Cyrenaica, and narrowing every mile as you advance towards Pto- 
lemeta, where the mountains run down very close to the sea. We have 
already stated that the space between this range and Bengazi is 
about fourteen geographic miles ; and the distance between it and 
the sea, at Ptolemeta, is no more than a mile, or a mile and a half ; 
the whole length of the plain, from Bengazi to Ptolemeta, being fifty- 
seven geographic miles. The sides of the mountains are also thickly 
clothed with wood, chiefly pine, of various kinds, and the juniper is 
found in great quantities among the other shrubs which overspread 
them. 
Ravines, whose sides are equally covered with wood and verdure, 
cross the road very frequently, in their course from the mountains to 
the sea ; and most of these, as there is nothing hke a bridge over 
any of them, must be nearly impassable in winter. The force 
with which the water rushes down the ravines in the rainy season 
is evident from the slightest inspection ; the ground being furrowed 
and torn up in the parts which form the beds of the torrents, and 
encumbered with trees and stones of various sizes, washed down from 
the mountains and from the sides of the ravines. Open spaces are 
occasionally met with in the woods, some of which are of consi- 
derable extent ; these were probably once cultivated, but are 
now thickly covered with grasses of various kinds, among which we 
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