Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/61

 C0ASTLAND8. 48 rivers, flowing over against them on the opposite side of the Mediterranean, would be regarded as but of slight iniiwrtance. Thus the wady debouching at Mukhtar, that is, on the frontier of Barka and Triix)litana proper, has a whole network of secondary wadies, draining a diHtrict 120 miles in length along the northern slopes of the llaruj and Jebel-es-Soda. Farther west, the Wady-esh-Shegga also receives the waters of an extensive territory, in which is included the Jofra oasis. The Wady Um-esh-Sheil has its source in the very heart of the plateaux between the Black Mountains and the Red Ilamada, and reaches the west coast of the Great Syrtis after a course of at least 300 miles. Of smaller volume, but more famous, is the Wady Zemzem, as shown by its very name, which is that of the sacred spring in the temple of the Kaaba. So highly esteemed are the waters collected in the cavities excavated in its bed, that they are supposed to rival those of the Mecca fountain itself. The Sufajin (Suf-el- Jin), the most copious of all these wadies, is fed by all the torrents of the plateaux comprised between the Jebel Ghurian and the Jebel Khadaima. Going westwards, its basin is the last in Tripolitana of any considerable extent, being estimated at about 8,000 square miles. The Wady-el-Kaan, which is crossed in the neighbour- hood of the Leptis mines, has a course of only a few miles ; but it has been identified as the Cynips, so famous in ancient times for the fertility of the valley watered by it. It is also known as the Wady-el-Mghar-el-Grin, or " River of Abysses." But its waters, which were formerly of excellent quality, and which were conveyed by an aqueduct to the inhabitants of Leptis, have become for some unknown reason so bad that travellers carefully abstain from drinking them. In the west of Tripoli the only streams of any extent are the wadies Haera, El- Ethel, Beidha, and Segsao, all flowing from the hills and escarpments of Barth's " continental coastline." COASTLANDS. A very large section of "the seaboard, east and west of the hilly district which terminates at Cape Misrata at the angle of separation between the Great Syrtis and the coast of Khoms, is occupied with the so-called scbk/tas, that is, shallow depres- sions in which the waters of the wadies are collected. Occasionally, also, the marine currents penetrate into these lagoons across the intervening strip of coast, or throuo-hi temporary canals opened during stonny weather. But for the greater part of the year most of the sebkhas are nothing more than natural salt-pits, whose muddy margins are overgrown with alkaline plants. The longest of these coast lagoons begins at Cape Misrata and extends south-east and east parallel with the shores of the Syrtis, from which it is separated by a line of dunes. This is the Tawagha scbkha, into which the «-adies of the interior discharge their floods during the rainy season. It formerly communicated with the sea, and was navigable, as appears from the remains of the "Roman" canal, as it is still called. In certain places the outlines of the sebkhas, as well as those of the arable lands and oases, have been modified by the sands of the beach, which are carried some distance inland, and which are disposed in successive ranges of dunes.