392 PLI^fT's IfATUEAL HISTOEY. [Book T. 



of their quicksands and the ebb and flow of the sea. Poly- 

 bius states the distance from Carthage to the Lesser Syrtis, 

 the one which is nearest to it, to be 300 miles. The inlet 

 to it he also states to be 100 miles across, and its circum- 

 ference 300. There is also a way^ to it by land, to find 

 which we must employ the guidance of tlie stars and cross 

 deserts which present nothing but sand and serpents. After 

 passing these we come to forests filled with vast multitudes 

 of wild beasts and elephants, then desert wastes^, and beyond 

 them the Graramantes^, distant twelve days' journey from 

 the Augylae^, Above the Garamantes was formerly the na- 



Giilf of Cabes, and the Greater the Gulf of Sydra. The country situate 

 between the two Syrtes is called Tripoh, formerly Tripohs, a name 

 which, according to Sohnus, it owed to its three cities, Sabrata, LeptK, 

 and CEa. 



1 Marcus observes with reference to this passage, that both Hardouia 

 and Poinsinet have mistaken its meaning. They evidently think that Pliny 

 is speakmg here of a route to the Syi-tes leading from the interior of 

 Ah'ica, whereas it is pretty clear that he is speaking of the dangers wliich 

 attend those who approach it by the line of the sea-coast, as Cato did, on 

 his march to Utica, so beautifully described by Lucan in Ms Ninth Book. 

 This is no doubt the same route which was taken by the caravans on their 

 passage from Lebida, the ancient Leptis, to Berenice m Cyi'enaica. 



2 Those which we find at the middle of the coast bordering upon the 

 Greater Syrtis, and which separate the mountains of Eezzan and Atlas 

 fr'om Cyrenaica and Barca. 



3 In its widest sense this name is applied to all the Libyan tribes in- 

 habiting the Oases on the eastern part of the Great Desert, as the Gsetu- 

 lians mhabited its western part, the boundary between the two nations 

 being drawn at the soxirces of the Bagrada and the mountain Usargala. 

 In the stricter sense however, and in which the term must be here under- 

 stood, the name 'Garamantes' denoted the people of Phazania, the mo- 

 dem Fezzan, wliich forms by far the largest oasis in the Grand Desert 

 of Zahara. 



i^ Augylcc, now Axxjelah, was an oasis in the desert of Barca, in the 

 region of Cyrenaica, about 3-^° south of Cyrene. It has been remarked 

 that Pliny, here and in the Eighth Chapter of the present Book, in abridg- 

 ing the account given by Herodotus of the tribes of Northern Africa, has 

 transferred to the Augylse what that author really says of the Nasamones. 

 This oasis fonns one of the chief stations on the caravan route from Cairo 

 to Fezzan. It is placed by EenneU in 30° 3' North Lat. and 23° 46' East 

 Long., 180 miles soxith-east of Barca, ISO west by north of Siwah, the 

 ancient Amrnonimn, and 426 east by north of Mourzouk. Later autho- 

 rities, however, place the village of Aujelah m 29° 15' North Lat. and 

 21° 55' East Long. 



