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Herodotus, who wrote about 456 years B.C., is the first 
author who has given any geographical details about the Great 
Bay or Lake of Triton. In describing it, he uses a word which 
may mean either an interior lake, or a lake belonging to the sea, 
otherwise called a lagoon—a word most appropriate to the object 
to which it is applied. He describes this gulf as extending E. and 
W. Where it leaves the main sea, on its South coast, he fixes 
apparently the country of the Lotos-eaters. Then come the 
Machlyes, also eating the Lotos, but not to so great an extent. These, 
he says, inhabit the shore as far as the great river Triton, which 
empties itself into the Lake in which is the Island of Phla. 
He further relates how Jason and the Argonauts were driven 
by a tempest from Cape Matapan into the shallows of the Gulf of 
Triton, and that the God Triton shewed them the means of escape. 
__ From this passage,it is obvious that the Gulf of Triton 
communicated with the sea, in fact, was so much a portion of it, 
that Herodotus makes no mention of the Lesser Syrtis (a name 
which arose afterwards) but considers the whole of the Lesser 
Syrtis and the sea to the river Triton as one gulf, to which he gives 
the name of the Great Lake, or Lagoon of Triton. 
“The next geographical account of this region is given by 
Scylax, or whoever was the author of the work called the Circum- 
navigation of the Mediterranean, and who probably wrote about 
200 B.C. He mentions in the Lesser Syrtis two islands—that of 
Brachion, on which grows the lotos, and the island Circinna. 
These are obviously the present Djerba and Karkennah. He then 
proceeds :—Towards the interior is found the Great Bay of Triton, 
which forms the extremity of the Little Syrtis and Lake Triton, 
with the Isle of Triton, and also the mouth of a river of the same 
name. The entrance to the lake is narrow, and an island is seen 
at low tide, and then vessels are often not able to enter. The lake 
is of considerable extent, and its shore inhabited by an African 
race, whose chief city lies on the Western coast. 
Like Herodotus, Scylax speaks of the Little Syrtis and the 
Lake of Triton under the general name of the Great Bay of Triton. 
‘But in the interval between Herodotus and Scylax, say two or 
