[Footnote 3: Supposing Tripoly to be Oea, we must look for Abrotonum in some place as near to that city as possible; for the distance given by Scylax from Abrotonum to Leptis Magna will become more and more perplexing as we continue to place it farther to the eastward of Oea. Tagiura, under this supposition, is the site we should allow to Abrotonum; but the difficulties which we have stated are against such a conclusion, and we confess that we are unable to reconcile the contending authorities[a]. Neither Sabrata nor Oea (as we shall hereafter mention) appear to have existed in the time of Strabo: the first town which is mentioned by that geographer to the eastward of the Lesser Syrtis, after the lake Zuchis, and the town of the same name (famous for its purple dye and its salted provisions), is that of Abrotonum in question[b]. No distance is given by Strabo from Zuchis to Abrotonum; but the mention of a lake much smaller than that of Zuchis, immediately before Abrotonum, (as will be seen in the quotation below,) is consistent with the idea that Tagiura might be the place of the city intended; for we have stated that there is a lake a little to the westward of Tagiura; and although it is of tolerable size, it is nevertheless much smaller than that of Zuchis, which is estimated by Strabo at 400 stadia.] [Footnote a: In Ptolemy we find Abrotonum placed to the westward of Oea; and in Pliny to the eastward of Taphra (or Graphara) neither of which positions tend to simplify the matter in question.] [Footnote b: Μετα δε την Συρτιν Ζουχις εστι λιμνη . . . καὶ παρ᾽ αυτην πολις ομωνυμος . . . ειτ᾽ αλλη λιμνη πολυ ελαττων· καὶ μετα ταυτην Αβροτονον πολις, καὶ αλλαι τινες. (Lib. 17. κεφ. Γ. § 18.) It must be recollected that Strabo is passing from west to east, and that this is also the course of the Expedition.] [Footnote 4: The Psylli inhabited the southern parts of the Greater Syrtis, and are said to have been altogether destroyed by clouds of sand which overwhelmed them in their passage to the interior. The Nubian army of Cambyses is thought to have experienced a similar fate.—_Vide_ Herodotus, lib. iv.] [Footnote 5: We would not here be thought to allude to any particular writer; but merely to the general practice, which has obtained in all ages, of exaggerating the effects of the sand-storm in desert travelling; which, without amplification, is sufficiently obnoxious in its genuine native dangers and inconveniences.] [Footnote 6: These solitary enjoyments are by no means overdrawn; every traveller accustomed to desert journeys must have experienced them: and the late lamented Burckhardt has frequently been heard to declare, that his most pleasant hours in travelling have been passed in the desert.] [Footnote 7: Lieut. Clapperton, Mr. Carstenson, and some other friends from Tripoly, had rode with us thus far on our journey.]