58 
JOURNEY FROM 
it from the name of a female native of Africa bearing the same 
appellation * ; and it is probable that had there been any other tra- 
dition existing in his time on the subject, it would have been men- 
tioned with that which he has recorded. The several tribes which 
in his sera inhabited the northern coast of Africa have also been 
enumerated by Herodotus ; and no mention is made among these 
of any race of people called Levatse. It is evident also that his 
knowledge of Africa was not confined to recent occurrences or to 
the actual state of the country in his own time ; for he has given 
us very clear and minute details of events which took place several 
centuries before that period, among which may be instanced the 
account which he has transmitted of the first occupation of the 
country by the Greeks, described in the F ourth Book of his Geogra- 
phy, and alluded to in the passage above quoted from Major 
RennelL 
We may observe, on the ground of these objections, that, if the 
derivation suggested be actually correct, it must, in all probability, 
have taken place long before the period of Herodotus ; but there is 
* yac^ A.iCvv poEv sin Ksysrmt vtco toiv tcoKKoih ExXtivcuv £X,siv yvtia.i'x.os 
a-vrox^ovos. (Melp. § ptE.) It may be at the same time remai’ked, that some writers 
liave derived the term Libya from the Arabic word (Lub) which signifies thirst, 
and might therefore be without impi’opriety applied to a dry and sultry region. We 
may add that KOh (Libya) is the Phoenician, or Hebrew term for a lioness; and Libya 
is emphatically the country of lions — the “ leonum arida nutrix.” DUih (Lubim) is the 
term used for Libyans in holy writ, and the common burthen of Nubian songs at the 
present day is — o-sl, o-eh, to Lubato — of which we could never gain any other translation 
from the natives, than that it applied to their own country. Lubato was occasionally pro- 
nounced clearly Nilbato, and it was sometimes impossible to tell which of the two 
pronunciations was intended. 
