LUCAS. 
321 
sometimes to Tripoli, but more frequently to Tu- 
nis. The soil is dry and barren, producing great 
quantities of dates, but little corn. The domes- 
tic animals are camels and goats. The Gademsis 
carry on a considerable trade with the negroes by 
the routes of Fezzan, Taboo, and Tuat, a similar 
oasis, which lies 20 journeys to the south-west of 
Gadamis. Morgan relates, that he was told by a 
Gademsi, at Algiers, that his countrymen spoke 
the ancient original African language, and that 
there was a remarkable fountain in Gadamis, al- 
ternating from hot to cold, like that which is said, 
by Lucretius and Pliny, to have been situated in 
the country of the Garamantes. Gadamis, like 
Fezzan, contains many ancient ruins. 
On the N. E. of Fezzan lies the desert of Sort, 
which is prolonged into that of Barca, through 
which the Cairo caravan, consisting of between 
100 and 300 travellers, passes from Mourzouk, 
which it leaves about the end of October. The 
route, which occupies 53 days, and about 770 
miles, crosses the mountains of Hanibba, Ziltan, 
and Sibbeel, to Angela, the ^'Egila of Herodotus, 
and Augila of Ptolemy and Pliny, which lies in 
N. lat. 29° 20^ From Angela, after crossing the 
barren ridges of Gerdobah, the Catabathmus of 
the ancients, which divided Cyrene from Mar- 
marica, they reach in seven days the narrow sandy 
plain of Gegabib, extremely fertile in dates. As 
VOL. I. X 
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