Such were the preliminary steps, divine and human, which brought Battus and his colonists to Kyrênê. In the time of Herodotus, Irasa was an outlying portion of the eastern territory of this powerful city. But we trace in the story just related an opinion prevalent among his Kyrenæan informants, that Irasa with its fountain Thestê was a more inviting position than Kyrênê with its fountain of Apollo, and ought in prudence to have been originally chosen; out of which opinion, according to the general habit of the Greek mind, an anecdote is engendered and accredited, explaining how the supposed mistake was committed. What may have been the recommendations of Irasa, we are not permitted to know: but descriptions of modern travellers, no less than the subsequent history of Kyrênê, go far to justify the choice actually made. The city was placed at the distance of about ten miles from the sea, having a sheltered port called Apollonia, itself afterwards a considerable town,—it was about twenty miles from the promontory Phykus, which forms the northernmost projection of the African coast, nearly in the longitude of the Peloponnesian Cape Tænarus (Matapan). Kyrênê was situated about eighteen hundred feet above the level of the Mediterranean, of which it commanded a fine view, and from which it was conspicuously visible, on the edge of a range of hills which slope by successive terraces down to the port. The soil immediately around, partly calcareous, partly sandy, is described by Captain Beechey to present a vigorous vegetation and remarkable fertility, though the ancients considered it inferior in this respect both to Barka[62] and Hesperides, and still more inferior to the more westerly region near Kinyps. But the abundant periodical rains, attracted by the lofty heights around, and justifying the expression of the “perforated sky,” were even of greater importance, under an African sun, than extraordinary richness of soil.[63] The maritime regions near Kyrênê and Barka, and Hesperides, produced oil and wine as well as corn, while the extensive district between these towns, composed of alternate mountain, wood, and plain, was eminently suited for pasture and cattle-breeding; and the ports were secure, presenting conveniences for the intercourse of the Greek trader with Northern Africa, such as were not to be found along all the coasts of the Great Syrtis westward of Hesperides. Abundance of applicable land,—great diversity both of climate and of productive season, between the sea-side, the low hill, and the upper mountain, within a small space, so that harvest was continually going on, and fresh produce coming in from the earth, during eight months of the year,—together with the monopoly of the valuable plant called the Silphium, which grew nowhere except in the Kyrenaic region, and the juice of which was extensively demanded throughout Greece and Italy,—led to the rapid growth of Kyrênê, in spite of serious and renewed political troubles.