TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI. 265 were the greatest thieves and the most treacherous people to be found in the whole world. They ranged the country round, as far as Nuniidia, attacking and plundering the poor pilgrims who were unfortunate enough to meet them ; and not contented with taking from them everything that was to be found upon their persons, they made them swallow a quantity of hot milk, and then shook them about till it acted as an emetic, so violently as to leave nothing whatever on the stomach.

This was done lest the poor unhappy patients, to whom the medicine was administered, should have taken the precaution of swallowing their money to prevent its being taken from them by their assailants. “ Perciocche dubitano queste bestie (says our indignant author) die i vkandanti, come s’appressano a quel diserto, inghiottino i* danari perch non gli siano trovati adosso.”

It appears to be chiefly from Leo Africanus that modern historians have derived the very unfavourable idea of what they term the district and desert of Barca. Yet the whole of the Cyrenaica is comprehended within the limits which they assign to it ; and the authority of Herodotus (without citing any other) would be amply sufficient to prove that this tract of country, not only was no desert, but was at all times remarkable for its fertility.

W e And on the same authority, that the Libyans (or Africans) who inhabited, at an early period, the southern shores of the Mediterranean, were divided into pastoral and agricultural tribes ; and that the former, most of whom were inhabitants of Barca, were by no