Ghap. 8.] 
ACCOUNT OF COUNTEIES, ETC. 
403 
city of the same name. It is twenty-five miles long, and 
half that breadth at the place where it is the widest, but 
not more than five miles across at the extremity : the di- 
minutive island of Cercinitis^ which looks towards Car- 
thage, is united to it by a bridge. At a distance of nearly 
fifty miles from these is the island of Lopadusa^, six miles 
in length ; and beyond it Gaulos and G-alata, the soil of which 
kills the scorpion, that noxious reptile of Africa. It is 
also said that the scorpion will not live at Clypea ; opposite 
to which place lies the island of Cosyra^, with a town of the 
same name. Opposite to the Grulf of Carthage are the two 
islands known as the -^gimuri^; the Altars ^ which are 
rather rocks than islands, lie more between Sicily and Sar- 
dinia. There are some authors who state that these rocks 
were once inhabited, but that they have gradually subsided 
in the sea. 
CHAP. 8. (8.) — COTJKTEIES ON THE OTHEE SIDE OE AEEICA. 
If we pass through the interior of Africa in a southerly 
direction, beyond the Gaetuli, after having traversed the 
intervening deserts, we shall find, first of all the Liby- 
Egyptians^, and then the country where the Leucsethio- 
^ Now Gherba. It was reckoned as a mere appendage to Cercina, to 
wliich it was joined by a mole, and whieh is found often mentioned in 
history. 
2 Still called Lampedusa, off the coast of Tunis. This island, with 
Gaulos and Galata, has been already mentioned among the islands off 
Sicily ; see B. iii. c. 14. 
^ow Pantellaria. See B. iii. c. 14. 
^ A lofty island surrounded by dangerous cliffs, now called Zowamour 
or Zembra. 
* In the former editions the word "Arse" is taken to refer to the 
^gimuri, as meaning the same islands. Silhg is however of opinion 
that totally distinct groups are meant, and punctuates accordingly. The 
"Arae" were probably mere rocks lying out at sea, which received their 
name from their fancied resemblance to altars. They are mentioned by 
Yirgil in the ^neid, B. i. 1. 113, upon which lines Servius says, that they 
were so called because there the Romans and the people of Africa on 
one occasion made a treaty. 
^ The greater portion of this Chapter is extracted almost verbatim 
from the account given by Mela. Ptolemy seems to place the Liby- 
^ Egyptians to the south of the Greater and Lesser Oasis, on the route 
thence to Darfom*. 
2d 2 
