traveller that they could, in clear weather, discern the mountains of Sicily, more than sixty miles distant. Following the bend of the shore, and passing by the sites or ruins of several ancient places, he proceeded through a rugged road, delightfully shaded with olive trees, to Hamamet, or the "City of Wild Pigeons," so called from the prodigious number of those birds which breed in the neighbouring cliffs. At Seloome, a small hemispherical hill, he entered the ancient province of Bizacium, once renowned for its fertility, probably erroneously, as the soil is dry, sandy, and of no great depth, though admirably adapted to the olive tree, which flourishes in great perfection all along the coast. The interior is not at all more fertile. Our traveller's whole employment during this journey was determining the sites of ancient cities, and illustrating other points of geography; but he observed nothing very striking or picturesque until he reached the shores of the Lesser Syrtis, all along which there runs a succession of small flat islands, banks of sand, and oozy shallows, into which the inhabitants wade out for a mile or two from the shore, fixing up numerous hurdles of reeds in various windings and directions as they go, and thus taking immense quantities of fish. Owing to the violent east wind which blew during his whole journey along this coast, he was prevented from observing the flux and reflux of the tide here, from which some authors have derived its name—("à [Greek: surô], traho, quod in accessu et recessu arenam et cœnum ad se trahit et congerit."—Eustathius)—though he was informed that at the island of Jerby, the eastern boundary of the Syrtis, the sea rises upwards of six feet above its usual height, a circumstance which has likewise been observed in the Gulf of Venice.
This was the boundary of his travels along the coast, from which he now turned towards the interior, and arrived upon the shores of the Lake of
