It will be unnecessary to trouble our readers with any protracted discussion of a point which admits of no positive proof; and we will leave others to decide, without further remark, how far the meaning of the term employed by Strabo (συνεχης) may be extended, in consideration of the reasons which we have alleged. On leaving Wady Shegga we passed over a tract of red sand collected in little hillocks about the plain, which were, however, as well as the spaces between them, occasionally covered with vegetation. We here saw some gazelles, hares, and jackalls, and a good many jerboas, and fired at a snake about six feet in length, which the Arabs told us swelled out when much irritated, and was very venomous; he however escaped slightly grazed into a hole in the sand. This was the only snake of any size which we had seen in the Syrtis; it was of a very dark colour, and about as thick as a man’s wrist. Immediately behind the promontory which we have mentioned above, is a small sandy bay which the Arabs call a port, and which might in former days have served as a landing-place for boats. This Ràs (or head land), with Ràs Houeijah, forms a spacious bay, in which good anchorage might probably be found close up under the western shore. After passing Bengerwàd the coast gets lower, and the road leads along an uninteresting flat between it and the hills. Five miles from the Ràs, upon a sandy point, are the remains of a small fort, and about three-quarters of a mile inland of it are several large mounds of sand and rubbish, through which appear occasionally parts of the walls and ground plans of houses. These are evidently the remains of an ancient town, and the houses have here been more concentrated than those of any town which we have observed in the Syrtis; but they are now in so very incumbered a state, that we could form no correct idea either of their number or of their plans. It is probable also that excavation would here be uninteresting, as the hand of time seems to have been fully as much concerned in the destruction of this place as that of its most inveterate enemies. Considerable traces of building may be observed all the way from these remains to the wells at Hudea, and indeed all the way from Bengerwàd; and immediately about the wells the ground plans become more regular, as well as more numerous. There is no doubt that the greater part of this tract has been formerly inhabited, but the mounds which we have mentioned seem to us more characteristic of a town than any of the other remains; and we will venture to suggest them as those of Charax, described by Strabo as a trading frontier-town, resorted to by the people both of Carthage and Cyrene. It was at Charax that the Carthaginians exchanged their wine for the silphium, and the liquor which was extracted from it, (so we translate the passage, reversing the order)[3]; neither of which, from the value attached to these commodities,