Cellarius has, however, been censured by Signor Della Cella for having ventured to adopt this derivation, and for “not knowing that Sert meant desert in Arabic, and that this name is still preserved in the bottom of the (Greater) Syrtis[27].” But were we even to agree with Dr. Della Cella, that the district called Syrt is a desert, (which our friend Shekh Mahommed, who lives there, with many others, very comfortably, would be very unwilling, and very ungrateful to allow,) there does not appear to be any reason why the regions in question should be particularly distinguished as deserts, when the country which bounds them to the southward, and which is much more entitled to the appellation of desert than they are, was never called Syrtis either by ancients or moderns. The term existed, it is evident, in the age of Scylax and Herodotus, both of whom we find to have used it; but, in enumerating the several tribes which inhabited the shores of these gulfs, it by no means appears (as we have stated above) that the latter of these writers meant to characterise their country as a desert, or that he was aware of any such meaning implied by the term in question, Syrtis. If, therefore, we suppose the word to be of oriental origin, we should rather look beyond the language of the Arabs for its root; and as the Phœnicians were well acquainted with these shores at a very early period of history, we might suppose, with some appearance of probability, that the term has originated with them. As the peculiarities of the Gulfs of Syrtis appear to be more striking than those of the territory within them, it is also probable that the country would have been named from them, and not the gulfs from the country; particularly as the Phœnicians were a naval nation, and may be supposed (at the early period to which we allude) to have been better acquainted with the Gulfs than with the country here in question. The Phœnician (or Hebrew) words from which the term Syrtis might originate, are probably the roots of the Arab phrase Sahara (صحرا), to which Signor Della Cella appears to allude; but instead of applying them to the country of the Syrtis, as expressive of its barren and desolate appearance, we should rather apply them to the Gulfs themselves, as expressive of the violent storms of wind which are known to prevail in them, and of the agitation and confusion resulting from their influence. The terms to which we allude are the Hebrew words Saar (סַעַר), or Saàrat (סַעַרַת), signifying whirlwind, or tempest; and the root Sàar (סָער), from which they spring, expressive of agitation and disturbance; Soarah (סֹעַרח), tempest-tossed, is also another derivative of Sàar.