224 JOURNEY FROM Indeed, after passing the bottom of the gulf, the country at the back of the sand-hills becomes very capable of cultivation, and affords, in many places, an excellent pasturage. So that if we should consider the Syrtis in general as a large unbroken body of sand, which the ancients seem mostly to have done, we should certainly form a very wrong idea of the nature of the country in question.

North-west of Sachreen, which may be considered as the bottom of the gulf, at about a mile and a quarter from the shore, is a small islet called Bushaifa, with breakers east and west of it ; and to the southward is a large marsh, with a ruin on a small rising ground inland of it : from here a valley extends eastward between the high land to the southward and some sand-hills on the coast. The road lies tolerably close along the sides of these sand-heaps, which in some places rise abruptly from the edge of the marsh, leaving a very narrow path between the two. It was probably here that Signor Della Celia and the army which he accompanied chose the passage over the sand-hills in preference to that along the marsh at the foot of them ; or it may be possible that the water of the marsh reached too close to the sand-hills when they passed, to allow of any choice of road at all. We however found the path at the foot of the sandhills very praeticable, although we were occasionally obliged to pass singly along it. Had these sand-hills been capable of suddenly detaching large masses from their summits or sides, we might occasionally perhaps have been buried pro tempore under their weight, and might, in some places, have experienced considerable difficulty in extricating ourselves at all ; but we must confess that we did not