BOOK V. V. 32-35 



Sea, 350 miles " distant from Cape Matapan in 

 Laconia and 225 miles from Crete itself. After the 

 cape of Ras Sem is Cyrene, 11 miles from the sea, 

 from Ras Sem to the harbour of Cyrene being 24 

 miles and to Ras El Tin 88 miles, from which it is 

 216 miles to the Canyon. The inhabitants of this 

 coast are the Marmaridae, reaching almost all the 

 way from the region of El Bareton to the Greater 

 Syrtis ; after these are the Acrauceles and then on 

 the edge of the Syrtis the Nasamones, formerly 

 called by the Greeks Mesammones by reason of 

 their locality, the word meaning ' in the middle 

 of the sands '. The territory of Cyrene for a 

 breadth of 15 miles from the coast is thought to be 

 good even for growing trees, but for the same space 

 further inland to grow only corn, and aftenvards over 

 a strip 30 miles wide and 250 miles long nothing 

 but silphium. 



After the Nasamones, we come to the dwellings 

 of the Asbytae and Macae ; and beyond them, 

 twelve days' journey from the Greater Syrtis, the 

 Amantes. These also are surrounded by sands in 

 the western direction, but neverthcless they find 

 water witliout difficulty at a depth of about three 

 feet, as the district receives the overfiow of the 

 waters of Mauretania. They build their houses of 

 blocks of salt quarried out of their mountains like 

 stone. From these it is a journey of 7 days in a 

 south-westerly quarter to the Cave-dwellers, with 

 whom our only intercourse is the trade in the precious 

 stone imported from Ethiopia which we call the 

 carbuncle. Before reaching them, in the direction § 26. 

 of the African desert stated already to be beyond 

 the Lesser Syrtis, is Fezzan, where we have subju- 



243 



