Bushaifa Bay had been stated by Captain Lautier to afford good anchorage for shipping, and seemed in consequence to call for some examination; but we must confess that it did not appear, upon inspection, to deserve the character which that officer gives it. Of the protection which may be afforded by breakers we cannot venture to speak, Mesurata not boasting so much as a single boat, but it is certain that the land does not give the shelter required, as will be seen by a reference to the chart. On the point of the bay, where is the best landing-place, there has formerly been a fort, which is now entirely destroyed. As we had arrived on the confines of the Gulf of the greater Syrtis, the position of the promontory, which had been stated by the ancients to form its western extremity, was a most important object of inquiry. Between the town of Mesurata and the sea there is a high range of sand-hills, rising far above the heads of the tallest date-trees about them: and beyond these is a promontory of soft sand-stone[11], which may be (at a rough estimation) about an hundred feet above the level of the sea. This high land is divided into three distinct heads, or capes, and is described by Captain Lautier as having the appearance (from the sea) of three[12] hills in the form of as many islands. The low ground at the back and to the south-east of these capes is thickly covered with date-trees, but their summits are now bare of wood and destitute of any vegetation: the sand-stone in fact is fast crumbling away, and the height of the promontory is every day diminishing. The appearance of this triple cape coincided so well, in our estimation, with the description given by Strabo of the Cephalas Promontorium[13], that we have not hesitated to pronounce it the same with that headland. It does not however form the precise point, or western extremity, of the gulf, which is in fact a low rocky projection, scarcely above the level of the sea, about four miles distant from the cape: but this point is too low to be remarked from the sea, and Strabo, when he observed the cape from his vessel, may well be excused for having overlooked it. The Τριήρων ἄκρον, or Triærorum Promontorium of Ptolemy is no doubt the same with the Cephalas of Strabo; and being laid down a little without the gulf corresponds more exactly with the actual nature of the ground. Strabo certainly describes his promontory as forming the beginning or western extremity of the Syrtis; but the circumstance above mentioned of his having seen it only from the sea, may be easily imagined to have occasioned this little inaccuracy, if such it may indeed be termed.