278 JOURNEY FROM Cellarius has, however, been censured by Signor Della Celia for having ventured to adopt this derivation, and for “ not knowing that Sert meant desert in Arabic, and that this name is still preserved in the bottom of the (Greater) Syrtis But were we even to agree with Dr. Della Celia, that the district called Syrt is a desert, (which our friend Shekh Mahommed, who lives there, with many others, very comfortably, would be very unwilling, and very ungrateful to allow,) there does not appear to be any reason why the regions in question should be particularly distinguished as deserts, when the country which bounds them to the southward, and which is much more entitled to the appellation of desert than they are, was never called Syrtis either by ancients or moderns. The term existed, it is evident, in the age of Scylax and Herodotus, both of whom we find to have used it ; but, in enumerating the several tribes which inhabited the shores of these gulfs, it by no means appears (as we have stated above) that the latter of these writers meant to characterise their country as a desert, or that he was aware of any such meaning implied by the term in question, Syrtis. If, therefore, we suppose the word to be of oriental origin, we should rather look beyond the language of the Arabs for its root ; and as the Phoenicians were well acquainted with these shores at a very early period of history, we might suppose, with some appearance of probability.

ing the same derivation. As if (he adds) “ a avqa/, traho, quod in accessu et recessu arenam et ccenum ad se trahit et congerit.” (Vid. Eustath. Comm.) Travels in Barbary, vol. 1. p. 211.

* Viaggio da Tripoli, &c. p. 62.