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 Cyre- naica, 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 cele-

brated 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 con-

spicuously 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 accu-

rately 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.