PTOLEMETA TO MERGE. 
395 
otherwise have done, from the alleviation which this operation 
afforded to the pain of a well-known cutaneous disease, that it will 
not be necessary to name, we must state, at the same time, that it is 
by no means peculiar to them alone ; since the greater part of the 
Arabs from Bengazi to Derna are afflicted with a similar complaint. 
As they have either no effectual remedy for the disorder, or neglect 
the precaution of applying it, the consequences must be distressing 
in the extreme to them ; and it is certain, that their appearance is 
not often remarkably prepossessing, and, perhaps, as we have said, 
not altogether in character with the beautiful scenery about them. 
We shall insist, notwithstanding this unlucky objection, that the 
scenery of the country in the neighbourhood of Merge, is among 
the most beautiful that we have ever beheld ; and that the people 
who inhabit it are not the less patriarchal in their manners, and 
customs, and appearance, because they happen to be afflicted with 
a cutaneous disease the name of which has not usually been asso- 
ciated, in modern times, with ideas of pastoral, or any other 
enjoyments. At the same time, we confess that we did not feel 
ourselves called upon to fill our water-skins any more from the 
pool which we had hitherto used, when we found for what purposes 
it was occasionally employed ; although the Arabs themselves could 
see no sufficient reason why it should not be drank on that 
account. 
Near the centre of Merge is a ruin now called Mardbut Sidi 
Arhooma, and a few miles to the south-east of it are remains of an 
inconsiderable town which the Bey informed us had been built by a 
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