114 JOURNEY FROM but spreads itself in pools over a wide tract of country, and communicates occasionally with the sea. Many of these pools, are, however, some miles in extent, and were they deep enough would deserve the appellation of lakes. Vhen we passed along the marsh the rainy season had not commenced although a good deal of rain had fallen, and it is probable that, at the close of it, the greater number of the pools are collected into much larger masses. While at Tripoly, Shekh Mahommed was anxious for our departure chiefly on account of this morass, which he represented as being very dangerous, if not wholly impassable, after the long continuance of heavy rains. The dimensions given by Strabo are three hundred stadia for the length, and seventy for the breadth of the marsh, or lake, which he describes ; and these measurements correspond quite sufficiently with the appearance of that which actually exists ; its length, from Mesurata to Sooleb, being little less than forty miles, and its breadth, from the sea inland, from nine and ten to fifteen. It does not indeed finish wholly at Sooleb, but is contracted in passing that place, to the narrow limits of two and three miles in width, and then continues as far as Giraff. The great body of the marsh may however be considered as contained between Sooleb and Mesurata ; for though it extends much further in length and widens itself again after passing the former place, there is no part where it presents so broad, and uninterrupted a surface, as in the space comprehended within the measurements of Strabo, beginning from the Cephalas Promontorium.

Strabo’s lake is stated to have enclosed several islands and to have