TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI.

269 Nasamones, who occupied the south-eastern coast of the Gulf * ; these people must therefore have been provided with water, though they were nearer to the sandy desert than the Nasamones ; and if we are told that, in consequence of their supplies being dried up, they were compelled to emigrate, and perished in their journey to the southward, we must at the same time conclude that, previous to this accident, they had water enough to support them at home, though it might not have been very plentiful. On the whole, we may observe, without entering further into this subject, that the district of Barca, including all the country between Mesurata and Alexandria, neither is, nor ever was, so destitute and barren as it has been represented ; that the part of it which constitutes the Cyrenaica is capable of the highest degree of cultivation, and that many parts of the Syrtis afford excellent pasturage, while some of it is not only adapted to cultivation, but does actually produce good crops of barley and dhurra. We may remark, at the same time, that the proportion of sand which is actually to be found in the Syrtis will by no means authorize us to call it a sandy region, and that the proportion of water which it actually possesses will not justify us in asserting that it is unprovided with that necessary. We may observe, too, that the number of serpents and venomous reptiles, so freely bestowed upon the Syrtis by Roman * Strabo seems to place the Nasamones farther inland, whither they were probably driven by the Cyreneans subsequent to the account of Herodotus.

Ttiv Ss ev /SaSsi copccv rns vprEus xixi rns Yi-vp-nvaia. xa.ri’/pvat,') oi AiSvss ■T[ocqa\u7tqov xat Tlqwrov /xsv oi Naffa/xa/VEy, etteitcc xJ/eXXoj xsu Ttvsr /aiTsXoi, iimra.

rstga/xavTSf’ (Lib. 17. p. 838.)