228 JOURNEY FROM mity. Among these sand-hills are some wells, in which the water, though several hundred feet above the level of the sea, is perfectly brackish. Beyond them to the southward is a hiUy country covered with verdure, in which a number of camels were feeding, and numerous flocks of sheep and goats ; but although we found ourselves in the midst of such plenty, we were unable to purchase a single sheep, in consequence of our friend the Dubbah’s manoeuvres. At Gartubbah, which possessed the same advantages, we were equally unable to succeed in a similar attempt. Among the green hills just mentioned are several ruins of forts, of the same quadrangular form as usual, and which have been built with large stones very regularly shaped ; so that Braiga may be considered as a military station, and must have certainly been one of importance*. If it be necessary to p’ive it an ancient name, we shovdd consider it as the site of Autoo mala, which was also a military station, according to the account of Strabo 1 .

♦ A few miles inland of Braiga, at a place called Attallat, are the remains of a castle, whose outer walls are still standing to a considerable height ; it is a quadrangular building, surrounded by a trench ; and within it we observed the remains of anarch constructed without a key-stone, in the manner of one at Tabilba, which we shall allude to in describing that place.

t AvroyiaXa. ipoviov, (pvXixxvv e%ov, &c.

It appears, upon the authority of Diodorus Siculus, that the fortress of Automala was ali-eady erected when Gyrene was first occupied by the troops of Ptolemy Lagus .

for the army which was led by his general Ophelias to the assistance of the tyrant Agathocles, then at war with the Carthaginians, pitched their tents, we are told, in the neighbourhood of Automala, having consumed eighteen days in their march to that foitress from the Cyrenaica.

Oxrw xai hxcc /aev r v ajptEgzr oomoqmocvler, xai SieXQovtej aratous •jtcpi Avroy-xkas . — Lib. xx. p. 753-4.

If It