58 JOURNEY FROM it from the name of a female native of Africa bearing the same appellation * ; and it is probable that had there been any other tradition existing in his time on the subject, it would have been mentioned with that which he has recorded. The several tribes which in his sera inhabited the northern coast of Africa have also been enumerated by Herodotus ; and no mention is made among these of any race of people called Levatse. It is evident also that his knowledge of Africa was not confined to recent occurrences or to the actual state of the country in his own time ; for he has given us very clear and minute details of events which took place several centuries before that period, among which may be instanced the account which he has transmitted of the first occupation of the country by the Greeks, described in the F ourth Book of his Geography, and alluded to in the passage above quoted from Major RennelL We may observe, on the ground of these objections, that, if the derivation suggested be actually correct, it must, in all probability, have taken place long before the period of Herodotus ; but there is * yac A.iCvv poEv sin Ksysrmt vtco toiv tcoKKoih ExXtivcuv £X,siv yvtia.i'x.os a-vroxovos. (Melp. § ptE.) It may be at the same time remai’ked, that some writers liave derived the term Libya from the Arabic word (Lub) which signifies thirst, and might therefore be without impi’opriety applied to a dry and sultry region. We may add that KOh (Libya) is the Phoenician, or Hebrew term for a lioness; and Libya is emphatically the country of lions — the “ leonum arida nutrix.” DUih (Lubim) is the term used for Libyans in holy writ, and the common burthen of Nubian songs at the present day is — o-sl, o-eh, to Lubato — of which we could never gain any other translation from the natives, than that it applied to their own country. Lubato was occasionally pronounced clearly Nilbato, and it was sometimes impossible to tell which of the two pronunciations was intended.