Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/59

 PHYSICAL FEATURES. 41 palm-groves, has some points 2,250 feet high. Barth even mentions the Bibcl, one " very high mountain," whose approximate altitude, however, he omits to give. In the direction of the hills and lowlands which slope seawards, and which are in fact known as the Jefarah or "Flats," the terrace of Ghurian terminates in many places in abrupt escarpments. The ravines at its foot, often filled with verdant fruit-trees, are commanded on either side by bare walls, now of white limestone, now of dark basaltic rocks. On the edge of one of these almost vertical precipices stands the citadel of Kasr Ghurian, flanked with round towers at the four angles of its enclosure. From this eagles' eyrie the Turkish garrison commands an extensive prospect of the region entrusted to its charge. West of the Jebel Ghurian the scarp of the great terrace, which Barth regards as the " true continental coastline," maintains throughout nearly its whole extent the same abrupt declivity. Along the Wady Sert in the Jebel Yef ren the cliff rises vertically at one point to a height of 1,630 feet. One of the summits on the outer ndge of the terrace is crowned at its culminating point (2,180 feet) by a stronghold even more formidable than that of Ghurian, to which the appellation of Kasr-el- Jebel, or " Hill Fort," has been given in a pre-eminent sense. The side of the open cirque at the foot of the citadel is a stratified formation of surprising regu- larity. Diversely coloured gypsum and limestone layers, the latter forming projecting cornices between the softer and more weathered beds of gj'psum, alternate from top to bottom of the cliff in a perfectly uniform series, as if planned by an architect. The culminating point of the whole district, exceeding 2,830 feet, is indicated from a distance by the remains of a Koman tomb. West of the Jebel Yefren follow other still little known ranges, the Nef Clsa and beyond it the Dwirat, which continues to run parallel with and at a distance of about 60 miles from the coast, to which farther west it gradually approaches, ultimately disappearing in Tunisia, near the Gulf of Cabes. All these outer ranges of Tripolitana are almost everywhere covered with a vegetable humus like those of the Algerian Kabylia, and the fruit- trees, cultivated by the Berbers with the same care in both regions, thrive equally well in Tripolitana. Not a village is here without its groves of dates, olives, pomegranates, figs, apricots, and other fruits. Facing the Jebel properly so-called — that is, the rugged escarpment of the plateau — stand a few isolated volcanoes now extinct. Even in the midst of the uplands the limestone rocks arc pierced with crevasses, through which basaltic lavas have burst forth. Some of these cones would seem to have forced their way upwards through the sedimentary rocks of the Jebel Dwirat. North-west of the Jebel Ghurian rises the twin-crested Manterus volcano, and farther east Mount Tekut, perhaps the highest point in North Tripolitana (2,840 feet). North-east of the terminal rampart of the Ghurian system stretches a lower terrace studded with s/mbtis or shabnts, that is, volcanic chasms surrounded by lava streams, which are now overgrown with alfa grass. Farther on the sacred Jebel Msid, its summit crowned with an Arab castle of the thirteenth century, lifts its round grassy cupola far above all the surrounding eminences. Beyond this point stretches seawards the upland Tar-hona plain (1,000 feet), whose argillaceous 85— AF