TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI. 103 doubt the same with the Cephalas of Strabo ; and being laid down a little without the gulf corresponds more exactly with the actual nature of the ground. Strabo certainly describes his promontory as forming the beginning or western extremity of the Syrtis ; but the circumstance above mentioned of his having seen it only from the sea, may be easily imagined to have occasioned this little inaccuracy, if such it may indeed be termed.

We are at a loss to imagine what the promontory can be which Signor Della Celia has identified with that of Ptolemy (and which he states to have been two hours distant from Mesurata) unless the Cephalas itself be intended, or, in other words, the cape which we have supposed to be the Cephalas For, with the exception of this, there is no other high land which will in any respect answer to the triple cape of Ptolemy ; and this is not more than half an hour’s ride from the town, and is not in the route which the army must have taken in marching from Mesurata towards the Syrtis, as will be seen by a reference to the Chart. At the same time, we can neither persuade ourselves that Strabo would have instanced an accidental range of sand-hills as a promontory; nor that the word applied by this geographer to the Cephalas, can be supposed to mean distant, or deep, instead of high, as Signor Della Celia has imagined ; notwithstanding the passage cited from Homer, which the Doctor reads in favour of his argument f .

* Dopo due ore di cammino giungemmo all’ estremita del Promontoi'io che sporge in tre punte divise da seni di mare : ond’ e che il nome di capo Triero con cui e chiamato da Tolommeo ne esprime la forma. — Viaggio da Tripoli, 8(C., p. 60.

•f* The observations connected with the transposition of the comma recommended by Signor Della Celia, are at the same time, we must confess, rather singular : for it does