400 PTOLEMETA TO MERGE.

(he. still continues) to Africa proper, is the valley of Masouyin (the pronunciation of which name, says De Sacy, is uncertain) in which are found remains of arches and gardens to the number, it is said, of three hundred and sixty ; some of the gardens are cultivated, and the wilderness, or desert tract, from which the hofiey is procured, is situated in this \2l\ey.~-{Chrestomat. Arabe, Tom. ii. p. 521, 2.)

In the Geographia Nubiensis, Barca is described as a town of moderate dimensions and narrow limits; and as being celebrated for an earth called by its name, which was of great service, when mixed with oil, in cutaneous diseases. It was of a reddish colour, and if thrown into the fire smelt strongly of sulphur, emitting at the same time a very offensive smoke; its taste is described as execrable. (Geog. Nubien. p. 92.)

There can be no question that these writers had aU of them the same place in view : the pecuharities which they attribute to it agree too well to doubt it; but there is nothing in the description of any by which the position of the city of Barca can be fixed (at least we cannot see that there is) with any tolerable degree of accuracy.

The only mode of reconcifing the Arab accounts of Barca with the distance which Scylax has given of that city from the sea, is to suppose that the authors of them intended to describe it as situated in some plain within the limits of the range of mountains mentioned above ; and, under this idea, the extensive plain of Merge appears to be the most eligible spot we are acquainted with for the position of the town we are speaking of.

The position of Merge with regard to Ptolemeta, which has