With regard to the water afforded by the Syrtis, we find the Psylli inhabiting a tract of country inland of that possessed by the Nasamones, who occupied the south-eastern coast of the Gulf[17]; these people must therefore have been provided with water, though they were nearer to the sandy desert than the Nasamones; and if we are told that, in consequence of their supplies being dried up, they were compelled to emigrate, and perished in their journey to the southward, we must at the same time conclude that, previous to this accident, they had water enough to support them at home, though it might not have been very plentiful. On the whole, we may observe, without entering further into this subject, that the district of Barca, including all the country between Mesurata and Alexandria, neither is, nor ever was, so destitute and barren as it has been represented; that the part of it which constitutes the Cyrenaica is capable of the highest degree of cultivation, and that many parts of the Syrtis afford excellent pasturage, while some of it is not only adapted to cultivation, but does actually produce good crops of barley and dhurra. We may remark, at the same time, that the proportion of sand which is actually to be found in the Syrtis will by no means authorize us to call it a sandy region, and that the proportion of water which it actually possesses will not justify us in asserting that it is unprovided with that necessary. We may observe, too, that the number of serpents and venomous reptiles, so freely bestowed upon the Syrtis by Roman writers, and by others who flourished after the occupation of Northern Africa by Roman colonies, appears to be greatly exaggerated: that it possesses, in fact, no terrors peculiar to itself, at least, not that we are acquainted with; and no difficulties which may not be readily surmounted by those who are acquainted with the nature of the country, and will adopt the precautions which are necessary[18]. From the regions of the Greater Syrtis let us pass to the Gulf itself; and of this we may remark, that the accounts which have come down to us of its peculiarities do certainly appear to be much better founded than those which we possess of the country along its shores. Herodotus, although he has minutely described the people who inhabited the coasts of the Syrtes, has left no account of the Gulfs; but we learn from Strabo, that the dangers which presented themselves to navigators, in the Gulfs both of the Greater and Lesser Syrtis, were occasioned by the frequent occurrence of banks and shallows, formed by the flux and reflux of the sea, on which vessels were continually striking, and it rarely happened that any of them were got off. “For this reason,” he adds, “it was usual to keep away from the coast, in order to avoid being embayed[19].”