AFTER spending four days very pleasantly at Tripoli, we reluctantly took
leave of Colonel and Mrs. Herman, and started for Benghazi, in the
_Boxer_, on the 25th. There being little coal to spare, we went under
sail, and as the winds were light and variable, we did not reach
Benghazi till noon of the 30th.
Shortly after we had anchored, the late Mr. Frederick Crowe, H.M.’s
Vice-Consul, came on board, and most kindly invited us to take up our
quarters at his house. Our original intention was to have gone on to
Derna, and made it the starting-point of our journey to Cyrene, as the
distance from that place was much less than from Benghazi. By Mr.
Crowe’s advice, however, we gave up this idea, and resolved to adopt
Benghazi as our “base of operations.” He told us that as there was not
at that time a single European at Derna to assist us, we should have
great difficulty in forming a caravan, and making the necessary
arrangements for our journey. We were therefore easily induced to accept
his kind offers of hospitality and assistance.
At the landing-place we were received by some officers sent by the
Kaimakam, who informed us that rooms had been prepared for our
accommodation at the Castle. Saddle-horses also were in waiting, out of
compliment rather than for use, the distance to the Castle being only
some fifty yards. After the exchange of the usual salutations and fine
speeches, the ceremonial reception came to an end, and the officers
retired. Immediately afterwards we were happy to find ourselves under
the hospitable roof of Mr. Crowe. The following day the _Boxer_ left to
return to Malta.
Benghazi, built on the site of the ancient Hesperides or Berenice,
occupies the point of a narrow strip of land between the sea and a
shallow salt lake or lagoon. A belt of palm-trees behind the town, and
the solitary minaret of a mosque, are the only objects that rise above
the monotonous level of the surrounding country, and give any
distinctive character to the scene. We must, however, except some half-
dozen bent and melancholy-looking palms on Juliana Point, on the
opposite side of the entrance to the harbour. For upwards of twenty
miles inland from Benghazi, the country is an unvaried undulating plain,
with hardly a single feature to mark one part of it from another. A few
juniper and baturne shrubs grow here and there. The sketch we have given
is taken from the northward of the town near the meat-market, and a few
yards in front of the only windmill in the country.
The streets and houses in the town are wretched in the extreme. The
houses, if such they may be called, are all built of small stones
plastered and held together with mud. The consequence is, that the town
is half laid in ruins every winter by the rain, and as but few of the
fallen houses are ever rebuilt, the miserable appearance of the streets
may easily be imagined. Whitewash, so liberally used by the Turks, and
which gives such an air of comfort and cleanliness to many of their
villages, is here unknown. The streets, encumbered with the ruins of
fallen houses, are, moreover, filthy to a degree unknown in the worst of
European cities.
No account of Benghazi would be complete without mentioning the plague
of flies, to which it is at nearly all seasons subject. During meals, a
partial escape from their persecution may be effected by darkening the
room, and thereby inducing them to settle on the ceiling. Even then,
however, they are perpetually crawling into the cups and plates,
notwithstanding the efforts of a servant “told off” for the very purpose
of driving them away. It is almost unnecessary to add that fleas abound,
as in other Eastern places.
[Illustration: Pl. 3.
BENGHAZI
E. A. Porcher, delt., T. Picken, lith.
London. Published July 1st. 1864 by Day & Son, Lithographers to the
Queen &c., Gate Street Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
Day & Son, Lithrs. to the Queen]
The following graphic and accurate description of the Benghazi flies is
given by Beechey:—“On account of the filth and rubbish and the stagnant
pools in the town, Benghazi is proverbial for flies, and every part of
the town, both within and without the houses, may truly be said to swarm
with them. Among the various annoyances with which the place abounds
these are perhaps the most serious of any, or, at all events, they are
those from which it is least possible to escape; there is, in fact, no
chance of avoiding them. They follow you everywhere from place to place,
settle on every part of the arms, legs, and body, which the heat of the
weather obliges you to leave uncovered; creep obstinately into the
corners of the eyes and up the nostrils, into the hollows of the ears
and the corners of the mouth when it is closed; and often fly down the
throat, nearly choking you, when it is open. At meals, every part of the
dishes and their contents are covered as soon as they are produced, and
every fluid becomes a trap for as many of these insects as can crowd
over its surface. In short, there is literally no riding or walking, no
reading or writing, no eating or resting one’s self in any part of
Benghazi in comfort for them; and if at night they take up their
accustomed position on the ceiling, and give place to the fleas and
mosquitoes, the first dawn of morning finds them on the wing, and all
alive to recommence their operations.”
The Castle, which stands on one side of the entrance to the harbour,
consists of a number of houses enclosed by a quadrangular wall with
round flanking towers at the corners. The masonry is very little
superior to that of the rest of the town; in fact, the walls are so
badly built that they would soon collapse under the concussion of the
fire of their own guns. One range of houses is used as a barrack for the
wing of an infantry regiment, another as the prison, and the remaining
buildings as the residence and council-chamber of the Kaimakam.
The English Consulate, and a few two-storied houses lately built close
by it, give a respectable appearance to the part of the town near the
Castle. When we were at Benghazi, some missionaries from the Propaganda
at Rome were building in this quarter a good substantial house and
chapel, which promised to become by far the finest structure in the
town. The object of this mission is not so much to attempt the
conversion of the native Arabs, as to attend to the spiritual wants of
the Christians of the place, who are almost all Maltese. The mission
consists of one priest and two or three lay brethren, all of the
Capuchin order of friars.
[Illustration: PLATE 4.—AMOR BON ABDI SEYAT AND SHEIKH BOCHLEGA.
_From a Photograph._]
One of the first things we had to attend to at Benghazi was the question
of escort. By order of the Pacha, the Kaimakam was required to furnish
us with an adequate one; but Mr. Crowe advised us to go as independently
of the Turkish authorities as possible; as he thought rightly, that all
the soldiers the Kaimakam could send with us could afford little
assistance if the Arabs actually turned against us, and would, probably,
by their very presence, only provoke hostility. We therefore declined
the Kaimakam’s offers of protection in this respect, and contented
ourselves with a circular letter addressed to his subordinates, the
Mudirs of Merdj, Ghegheb, and Derna. Meantime, Mr. Crowe sent for some
of the principal sheikhs of the tribes on our proposed route, in order,
if possible, to enlist them in our favour. Some of them fortunately
happened to come to Benghazi a few days afterwards, when Mr. Crowe asked
them to pay him a visit at the Consulate. When they came, he told them
of our intended journey to Cyrene, and said that we should prefer their
protection to that of the military escort offered by the Kaimakam. They
replied that they were very happy to be able to do anything in return
for the benefits he had conferred on them, and especially for the
restraint which his presence exercised upon the unlawful and oppressive
conduct of the Pachas. They then gave us letters to the sheikhs of the
principal tribes on our route, and ordered an Arab from the
neighbourhood of Cyrene to accompany us on our journey, and remain with
us afterwards. This man, Amor Bon Abdi Seyat, proved in the end of the
greatest service. He is shown on the left of the annexed sketch, and the
other was one of our friends at Cyrene, Sheikh Bochlega.
The question of escort settled, the next thing to be attended to was our
equipment for the journey. In this, as in all our arrangements, we were
greatly assisted by Mr. Crowe. We were also much indebted to Mr.
Cesareo, a merchant of Benghazi, who afterwards accompanied us to
Cyrene, at Mr. Crowe’s request. The Kaimakam undertook to procure as
many camels for hire as we required. Our horses we bought at an auction,
which is worthy of some notice, as it was conducted on rather a curious
principle. The auctioneer walks about the bazaar, showing whatever is
for sale, and calling out the last bid for it. When no one will bid
more, the article is “knocked down” to the highest bidder, not at the
sum offered by himself, but at the next highest. In bidding, therefore,
against other people, the best plan is to allow them to run the price up
till it has nearly reached the sum one is willing to pay, and then to
offer a much larger price. This, of course, deters them from offering
more; and the article is obtained at the smaller sum which they had bid
for it. Our two horses bought in this way cost £14.
A great many necessaries for the journey had to be got, which, had we
been left entirely to ourselves, we might have forgotten. Among the most
important of these were skins for carrying water, called “girbehs,” and
a leather bucket for drawing it. The _girbeh_ is a whole goat-skin
tanned inside, with the hair left on outside. To our stock of provisions
we added another bag of biscuit and a large bag of onions. We also
bought a dozen Barbary mats, which added greatly to our comfort, both on
the journey, and afterwards during our stay at Cyrene. They make an
excellent covering for the floor of a tent, for which purpose they are
much to be preferred to rugs or carpets. Being made of thin strips of
reed, they are not injured by the rain, and can be dried at once by
simply rubbing them with a cloth. Their special excellence, however, is
that they afford very little harbour for fleas.
We laid in a good stock of coarse-grained powder to be used as
“bakshish,” or presents. As the importation and sale of gunpowder are
prohibited, it is smuggled on shore by the traders of Benghazi, who
charge the Arabs a price proportionate to the risk they run in procuring
it, or the sum they expend in bribing the officers of the Custom-house.
For this reason, powder is often more useful to the traveller than money
itself. By Mr. Crowe’s advice, we also took for “bakshish” some printed
cotton handkerchiefs, and some leaf tobacco for chewing. Somewhat to our
surprise, we found smoking almost unknown, and the habit of chewing
tobacco very prevalent among the Arabs. They use with it a kind of
saltpetre, called “natron,” obtained, as we were told, from the salt
lakes of Fezzan.
Of the ancient city very few remains are now visible. At the back of the
Castle, where the ground rises a little, the sea has washed away the
soil, and thereby formed a steep face or escarp, in which some
foundations may be seen cropping out; but, unfortunately, the tomb of a
Marābut or saint, and the surrounding public burial-ground, prevent any
excavation being made.
During the twelve days that we remained at Benghazi, we made several
excursions with Mr. Crowe in the neighbourhood. The most interesting
locality is at the head of the shallow lagoon about two miles from the
town. Here a succession of mounds and other irregularities in the
surface of the ground mark the position of the ancient cemetery. About
eleven years ago, some rather extensive excavations were made here by M.
de Bourville, French Vice-Consul at Benghazi. His labours were rewarded
by finding a number of valuable vases, and some sculptures of later
date, all of which are now deposited in the Louvre. Judging from the
appearance of a tomb which Mr. Crowe had recently opened, the necropolis
seems to have consisted of tombs built underground. His attention was
attracted to the spot in which this tomb was afterwards discovered by
noticing the hollow sound of his horse’s footsteps when riding over it.
After digging two or three days, his workmen found the entrance in the
end wall, only a few feet below the surface. The interior resembled, in
plan, many of the rock sepulchres at Cyrene and elsewhere, consisting of
an oblong centre chamber with lateral recesses for the sarcophagi. It
was built throughout of isodomous masonry, without mortar. Besides a
large plain marble sarcophagus, it contained two small ones, also of
marble, and highly ornamented with figures in bas-relief. These were
afterwards sent by Mr. Crowe to the British Museum, where they may be
seen among the sculptures from Cyrene.
There is an old Arab at Benghazi, formerly employed by M. de Bourville
both there and at Teuchira, who now spends his time in digging in the
cemetery. His operations are, of course, on a very limited scale; but by
digging small holes at random all over the place, he has found a great
many vases, terra-cotta figures, &c., which he sells to the Maltese
merchants in the town. We were inclined to engage him to go with us to
Cyrene; but as he considered himself entitled to about as much pay as a
dozen workmen, we had to dispense with his services.
[Illustration: PLATE 5.—SUPPOSED ENTRANCE TO THE RIVER LETHE.]
Beyond the cemetery, in the extensive plain of Benghazi, there are
numerous natural hollows or chasms, with steep rocky sides, some of
which still bear the marks of having been used as quarries. Moistened by
the drainage of the surrounding ground, the soil at the bottom of many
of them is covered with a luxuriant vegetation. One of them, about four
miles from Benghazi, known as the “Garden of Osman,” is pretty fairly
cultivated, and contains a well of excellent water. The verdure of these
spots, resembling, as they do, oases in a desert, has given rise to the
conjecture that they are the gardens of the Hesperides.
We also visited a remarkable place, supposed, with a greater degree of
probability, to be an entrance to the subterranean river Lathon, which
has usually been identified with the Lethe. About a mile from the Garden
of Osman we were conducted to the edge of an abrupt ravine, about 100
feet deep, with a dark-looking cavern at the bottom. Leaving our horses
above, we descended the ravine, and entered the cave. At the entrance it
was low and narrow; but after descending a few yards, it suddenly
expanded to a height of fifteen and a width of about forty feet. Some
thirty yards from the entrance we came to the margin of a sheet of
water, which extended as far as the eye could reach. One of our Arab
attendants waded in with a lighted torch, but was obliged to return on
account of the depth of water, after going about fifty yards. Whether
the water is really a river, or only a large subterranean pool, it is
difficult to say. We wished to explore it further, but could not get a
boat at Benghazi small enough to be portable. Some years ago, it was
determined to sink a shaft to the cavern some distance from the mouth,
for the purpose, probably, of making the large supply of water
available; but through an error in the bearings taken by the
superintending officer, the shaft was sunk in the wrong place, and
consequently the water was never reached. The good work was then
abandoned as unlucky, and has not since been resumed.
The harbour of Benghazi is very unsafe, and cannot be entered by vessels
drawing more than six feet of water. The channel at the entrance is
narrow, with a reef of rocks on each side. The outside anchorage is
quite open and unsheltered, so that vessels lying there have to put to
sea when it blows hard from seaward. Instead of doing anything towards
improving the harbour, the authorities do not even prevent vessels from
discharging their ballast into it, and thereby making it gradually
worse. The day before we left, we saw a brig belonging to Benghazi
wrecked on the rocks off the Castle. She had come from Leghorn with a
general cargo, and anchored off the harbour during a stiff breeze from
the S.W., the pilot thinking it unsafe to attempt to enter until the
wind moderated. Her anchors, however, soon gave way, and she drove on
the rocks, where she soon became a total wreck. Had the crew and the
people on shore exerted themselves, they might have saved the greater
part of the cargo; but, with true Mahomedan indifference, they looked on
until it was too late to save more than one or two boat-loads.
The water in the wells at Benghazi is very brackish; so much so, that
the inhabitants are obliged to bring water from sweet wells at some
distance from the town. Some of these are about two miles off, near the
end of the belt of palm-trees; but the best water comes from the wells
on the opposite side of the lagoon. It is carried in skins, or small
breakers, on the backs of camels and donkeys, whose drivers appear to be
the only industrious class of the whole community.