The extensive plain (or valley) of Merge, for it is equally one and the other, may be considered as occupying a part of the territory within the ancient limits of Barca; and before we proceed with the details of our journey, it will be proper to turn our attention to the imperfect notices which have come down to us of the celebrated city of that name. The limits assigned to the district of Barca by the Arab historians and geographers comprise not only the whole of the Cyrenaica, but, according to some, the whole tract of country between Mesurata and Alexandria; while its actual limits (as we have stated elsewhere) commence at the bottom of the Syrtis, extending themselves eastward as far as Derna, and, as we were also informed, to the eastern extremity of the Bashaw of Tripoli’s dominions. The ancient country of Barca was, however, confined to the western parts of the Cyrenaica, and extended no farther in that direction than to the eastern limits of the Hesperides. The port of Barca, under the Lagidæ, received the name of Ptolemais, and we have the authorities of Strabo and Pliny for considering the last-mentioned city and that of Barca as the same[3]. Ptolemy has, however, distinguished Barca from Ptolemais, and Scylax has described the former of these cities as situated at the distance of one hundred stadia from the sea; so that no doubt can remain of their having been different places[4]. As the distance of Scylax from the port to the city of Barca is given in distance from the sea, we must look for the latter (supposing the one hundred stadia to be correct, which we have no sufficient reason to doubt) in some part of that range of mountains which bounds the country between Bengazi and Ptolemeta to the southward; and it appears extremely probable, that its site should be looked for in some part of the plain of Merge: it may be, in the remains which have already been mentioned in the south-eastern part of the valley. Here, however, a considerable difficulty occurs, if the accounts of the city of Barca, which are given by early Arab writers, are at all to be depended upon as correct; for although these accounts, in many respects, will be found to be extremely unsatisfactory, they all appear to concur in placing the city in the neighbourhood of a mountainous country, but, at the same time, rather in a plain at the foot of it than in any part of the mountains themselves. The distance, however, of Barca from the coast unavoidably places it in some part of the range which we have mentioned; for there is no part of the plain between this range and the sea, (as will clearly appear by the chart,) which is distant anything like one hundred stadia from the coast, with the exception of that to the southward of Bengazi; and to suppose the town of Barca there would be absurd, for it would then be fifty miles distant from its port and only nine or ten from the more convenient harbour of Berenice. Edrisi has given