DERNA (anc. Darnis-Zarine)  , a town on the north coast of Africa and capital of the eastern half of the Ottoman province of Bengazi or Barca . Situated below the eastern butt of Jebel Akhdar on a small but rich deltaic plain, watered by fine perennial springs, it has a growing population and trade, the latter being mainly in fruits grown in its extensive palm gardens, and in hides and wool brought down by the nomads from the interior . If the port Nacre better there would be more rapid expansion . The bay is open from N.W. round to S.E. and often inaccessible in winter and spring, and the steamers of the Nay . Gen . Italiana sometimes have to pass without calling . The population has recovered from the great plague epidemic of 1821 and reached its former figure of about 7000 . A proportion of it is of Moorish stock, of Andalusian origin, which emigrated in 1493; the descendants preserve a fine facial type . The sheikhs of the local Bedouin tribes have houses in the place, and a Turkish garrison of about 250 men is stationed in barracks . There is a lighthouse W. of the bay . A British consular agent is resident and the Italians maintain a vice-consul . The names Darnis and Zarine are philologically identical and probably refer to the same place .

No traces are

left of the ancient town except some rock tombs . Darnis continued to be of some importance in early Moslem times as a station on the Alexandria-Kairawan road, and has served on more than one occasion as a base for Egyptian attacks on Cyrenaica and Tripolitana . In 1805 the government of the United States, having a quarrel with the dey of Tripoli on account of piracies committed on American shipping, landed a force to co-operate in the attack on Derna then being made by Sidi Ahmet, an elder brother of the dey . This force, commanded by William Eaton (q.v.), built a fort, whose ruins and rusty guns are still to be seen, and began to improve the harbour; but its work quickly came to an end with the conclusion of peace . After 1835 Derna passed under direct Ottoman control, and subsequently served as the point whence the sultan exerted a precarious but increasing control over eastern Cyrenaica and Marmarica . It is now in communication by wireless telegraphy with Rhodes and western Cyrenaica . It is the only town, or even large village, between Bengazi and Alexandria (600 m.) (D . G .