The extent of the territory which is supposed by Signor Della Cella to have been included in the province of Byzacium, that is, (as we have stated above) from the country of the Massæsyli, on the western side, to the Cephalas Promontorium on the east, would occupy a coast-line of no less than 700 miles, exclusive of its limits in a southerly direction; and it will more readily be seen how much this extent differs, from that of the actual Byzacium, by comparing it with the dimensions which Pliny has given of the country, in the passage which Signor Della Cella has partially quoted above[29]. We shall there find that the district of Byzacium was comprehended within a circuit of no more than 250 Roman miles; so that it is difficult to imagine how Pliny could have intended to extend its limits, either eastward or westward, to the points which the Doctor has claimed for it: since the historian’s intentions must have been sadly at variance with his assertions, had he really meant to bestow upon Byzacium so much more than he has stated it to contain[30]. The region of the Cinyphus has still the same peculiarities which it has been stated to possess by Herodotus; there we still find the rich and dark-coloured soil, and the abundance of water which he mentions: but every thing degenerates in the hand of the Arab, and the produce of the present day bears no proportion to that which the historian has recorded. The average rate of produce of this fine tract of country (so far, at least, as we could learn from the Arabs who inhabit it) is now scarcely more than ten for one; and the lands in the neighbourhood of Zeliten and Mesurata are the only places cultivated to the eastward of the Cinyphus. The produce, in grain, is principally barley, with a moderate proportion only of wheat; but the date-tree and the olive are very generally distributed, and their crops are extremely abundant. We were informed that there was usually a considerable overplus of dates, olive-oil, and barley, both at Mesurata and Zeliten; and that the Arabs of the western parts of the Syrtis draw their principal supplies from the former of these places. The country to the west of the Cinyphus is, to all appearance, equally productive (we should rather say equally capable of being made so) with that which we have mentioned to the eastward. A small part of this only, however, is cultivated, and we may observe generally, of the region of the Cinyphus, that by far the greater portion of that beautiful tract of country, from the eastern limit of the Syrtis at Mesurata, to the edge of the sandy desert at Wad’m’Seid, is now left in its natural state. * * * * *