140 JOURNEY FROM the beach are constructed with larger stones than are usually employed in the Syrtis, and, from what we could perceive of them, for the tops only appear above the sand, have been built with more than common attention to workmanship and regularity. Traces of building may also be observed for nearly a mile from the Mersa to the eastward, and the whole place is strewed with fragments of pottery. Several stone troughs are lying on the beach, some of them in an unfinished state ; they do not appear to have been intended for sarcophagi, as their lengths vary from five to eight feet ; while their breadth remains nearly the same, or from fifteen to eighteen inches. Had our time and means allowed it we should have remained a few days to excavate at Mersa Zaffran, and we had marked it as one of the places to be examined on our return : there is little to remove but sand, and it is by no means improbable that the results of excavation at this place would be interesting. As Mersa Zaffran appears to have been used as a port by the ancients, and is the first which occurs after the marsh, we may fairly consider it as that mentioned by Strabo with Aspis; and the remains at Zaffran are probably those of Aspis itself, which we may conclude to have been a mihtary post from the nature of the buildings which are found there ; although the word toto? applied to it by Strabo, does not necessarily imply any idea of fortification. No place worth selecting for any advantages which it might afford could, however, have been secure without some fortification ; and accordingly we find every desirable position in the Syrtis provided with forts lor its defence, which ensured, at once, the possession of the local advantages and a communication with the adjacent inhabited places.