RAS ASSEEZ. 
211 
D'Anville*s arguments to suppose that Ptoleraais Theron lay some- 
where near the latitude we now were in, I inquired of the pilot 
whether he had ever been on shore there, and he assured me he 
liad, but that there were no inhabitants, though the Parsees once 
possessed the place, and that there was one large tank still re- 
maining. He also said, that though it was not an island, yet that it 
was cut off from the main land by a ditch, which, at high water, was 
sometimes nearly full. These circumstances so strongly convinced 
me that this was Ptolemais Theron, that I should have stopped and 
landed, had not the vessel, during the time we were conversing, past 
it for some way. Captain Court was however particularly careful in 
taking its bearings, that its shape might be correctly laid down. 
Asseez is in 18^ 24^ N. lat. and in 38° 18', long, east of Green- 
wich, and therefore its position agrees with that I have attributed 
to Ptolemais Theron, in the beginning of this Chapter. I consider, 
however, the circumstances I have mentioned as forming a much 
stronger proof of its actually being that place ; and I can venture 
to assert, that no other place exists on the whole coast that will 
answer the description given us by the ancients, which in many res- 
pects is more minute than usual. The peninsula of Port Morningtori 
could alone create a doubt, as it is in nearly the same latitude, and at 
a distance of only seventeen miles ; but this peninsula is much more 
uniformly elevated above the sea, and has even rocks, which would 
have been a work of infinite labour to cut through, and could not 
have been done privately, as we are informed by Strabo the works of 
Eumedes were executed at Ptolemais Theron. It is also ascertained 
from the Periplus, that the settlement of Ptolemy was not a port, 
and was only approachable by boats, a circumstance that is still the 
