276 JOURNEY FROM of what is termed by seamen working off a lee-shore, for which the vessels of the ancients were very ill adapted ; and we can readily believe, from what we have seen of the coast, that (under the influence of the heavy surf which rolls over the shallows when the wind blows strongly on shore) few vessels which chanced to strike could escape. The inset into the gulf, at the same time, being great, (when the north and east winds blow strongly against the coast,) it must have been extremely difficult for vessels of this description to avoid being drawn into its vortex ; and indeed we may observe that few ships will, at the present day, sail from Bengazi, westward, when the wind is blowing strongly into the gulf, on account of this consequent indraught *.

“ The improved state of navigation” (Major Eennell very justly observes) “ has, however, stripped the Syrtes of the greatest part of their terrors and it is probable that the report of them which we shall have from Captain Smyth will in consequence prove to be much less formidable than the accounts which have descended to us from the ancients.

It appears, from Mela, that the Syrtes were not only considered to be dangerous on account of the frequent occurrence of shoals, but more so in consequence of the flux and reflux of the sea which we have already mentioned above f. This rise and fall (as we have * We allude here to the vessels of the country, which we were told at Bengazi usually gave the Gulf a wide birth ; thus realising, in modern days, what Strabo mentions of the vessels of the ancients.

f importuosus atq. atrox, et ob vadorum frequentium brevia, magisq. etiam ob alternos motus pelagi affluentis ac refluentis infestus. (De Situ Orbis. Lib. 1. c. 7.)