114 
JOURNEY FROM 
but spreads itself in pools over a wide tract of country, and commu- 
nicates occasionally with the sea. Many of these pools, are, how- 
ever, some miles in extent, and were they deep enough would 
deserve the appellation of lakes. ^Vhen we passed along the marsh 
the rainy season had not commenced although a good deal of rain had 
fallen, and it is probable that, at the close of it, the greater number 
of the pools are collected into much larger masses. While at 
Tripoly, Shekh Mahommed was anxious for our departure chiefly on 
account of this morass, which he represented as being very danger- 
ous, if not wholly impassable, after the long continuance of heavy 
rains. The dimensions given by Strabo are three hundred stadia for 
the length, and seventy for the breadth of the marsh, or lake, which 
he describes ; and these measurements correspond quite sufficiently 
with the appearance of that which actually exists ; its length, from 
Mesurata to Sooleb, being little less than forty miles, and its 
breadth, from the sea inland, from nine and ten to fifteen. It does 
not indeed finish wholly at Sooleb, but is contracted in passing that 
place, to the narrow limits of two and three miles in width, and then 
continues as far as Giraff. The great body of the marsh may how- 
ever be considered as contained between Sooleb and Mesurata ; for 
though it extends much further in length and widens itself again 
after passing the former place, there is no part where it presents so 
broad, and uninterrupted a surface, as in the space comprehended 
within the measurements of Strabo, beginning from the Cephalas 
Promontorium. 
Strabo’s lake is stated to have enclosed several islands and to have 
