eastern limit of the Bashaw’s dominions; and from thence the shore party to strike to the southward, and explore the regions of the Cyrenaica, and the desert of Barca, varying the direction of your interesting route according to existing circumstances, and the local value of the objects in view.
“And as several interruptions and digressions, on a general plan of procedure, are liable to arise in an undertaking of this magnitude, it is difficult to calculate upon the event; but as the limits of Egypt and Tripoli are ill defined on the sea-coast, and the frontiers of each are the resort of ferocious outlaws from both countries, I think the experience of Mr. Henry Beechey will be best exerted in passing from the desert of Barca, by Augila, and the petrified palm valley, to the Oasis of Siwah and Egypt, where, from his intimate acquaintance with the respective authorities, he will be enabled to procure the proper protection and necessary guards for returning along that part of the coast lying between Alexandria and Bomba. After which I would recommend the mountain track to Tripoli, by which she whole eastern division of the Regency will be completely investigated, and its antiquities, geography, and resources made known.
“To accomplish therefore the first object, I shall proceed to sea as soon as the preliminary arrangements are adjusted, and I have received the Chiaux on board, and proceed along the coast to Mesurata, where I shall remain for your arrival, and send my boats in quest of an anchorage further in the Gulf of Syrtis; you will therefore lose no time in getting ready to meet me at that place, in order to concert a simultaneous movement from thence to Bengazi. But if, from any of the impediments attendant on these excursions, you should be unable to arrive in a given time, and facilities offer themselves to me, I shall continue the operations, leaving, however, the necessary communications with the Reis or Scheick.
“The point where your co-operations in this part will prove most essentially necessary, is the south-eastern extreme of the great gulf, where the altars of the Philaeni were erected; but which, from the substance of all the information I can collect, is at present a marshy waste: here, if I cannot bring the vessel, it will be very necessary to have an observed latitude, by a mean of two or three meridian altitudes, and a longitude by inference, from our nearest chronometric positions. It may be as well to mention in this place, that the determination from which the whole will be deduced, is that of the Bashaw’s castle in Tripoli, which by the mean of numerous observations, I place in latitude 32° 53' 56" N., longitude 13° 10' 58" E. of Greenwich, and the magnetic variation 16° 38' westeriy.
“In the course of your joint researches among the ruins of Arsinöe, Ptolometa, Teuchira, Cyrene, Berenice, aud the Hesperides, you will probably discover various objects of taste; these you will be enabled to transport to Bengazi, and deposit in the house of Rossoni, the British vice-consul, until some further arrangements can be made respecting them.
