XX INTRODUCTION.

to England he submitted the information which he had been able to collect to the Admiralty, and suggested that a party might be advantageously employed in exploring the Greater Syrtis and Cyrenaica, as well as the country to the eastward of Derna as far as Alexandria and the Oasis of Ammon.

Many spots of more than ordinary interest were comprehended within the limits of the S}Ttis and Cyrenaica : some of these had been the favourite themes of mythology, haunts in which the poets of Greece and Rome had loved to linger ; and others had been celebrated in the more sober language of historians whose fame is less perishable than the objects which they describe. But whatever might once have been the state of a country placed before us so conspicuously in pages which are dear to us, there had not in our own times been any opportunity of ascertaining its actual condition. The name of Gyrene was familiar to classic ears, but no one had visited its remains ; the “ secret springs” of Lethe and the Gardens of the Hesperides had almost been confounded with the fables of antiquity ; and the deep and burning sands, overspread with venomous serpents, which were supposed to form the barrier between Leptis Magna and Berenice, had rarely been trodden since the army of Cato had ]iearly found a grave beneath their weight *.

The outline of this extensive Gulf (the Greater Syrtis), the coast of which was as formidable to the vessels of the ancients as its sands were supposed to have been to their armies, had never been accurately laid down in modern charts, and the contradictory statements of its form and peculiarities appeared to call for minute investigation.

'Fhere were many geographical points to be determined in the space * The poetical account of this tract of country by Lucan Is well known to the readers of ancient literature, and we shall have occasion hereafter to advert to it in speaking of the actual appearance of the Syrtis.