Tripoly to bengazi. 
213 
have been safely relied upon by those who employed it on this occa- 
sion without any reproach to their caution ; since this geographer 
himself visited the coast in a vessel, and may therefore be supposed 
to have seen what he described. However this may be, we can 
positively assert that no inlet whatever exists in the Gulf of Syrtis ; 
and that the direction of the coast at the bottom of the gulf is, as 
nearly as possible, due east and west for a whole day’s journey toge- 
ther ; turning afterwards to the northward so slightly, that this differ- 
ence is scarcely perceptible to the eye. A large tract of quick 
sand is also laid down by many in this part of the Gulf of Syrtis ; 
but we have traversed the sand and the sand-hills which are found 
here, on horseback, in almost every direction, and may safely affirm 
that they afford as good a footing as any dry sand or sand heaps can 
be supposed to present. If any other authority may be acceptable 
in proof of the extreme dryness of the sand in this neighbourhood, 
we have only to cite that of Doctor Della Celia to put everything like 
scepticism on this point at rest. “ Woe be to us,” exclaims this gen- 
tleman, (in describing the sandy tract here alluded to) “ if a sirocco, 
or southerly wind, had unhappily overtaken us in this place, the 
whole army would have been buried beneath the sands wffiich the 
action of the winds here raised up in waves no less formidable than 
those of the sea! I^ow if anything like moisture had really existed 
in the formidable particles which caused the Doctor such alarm, he 
might have looked in defiance at every point of the compass, without 
anticipating, with so much well- described horror, the fatal conse- 
quences which would have resulted to himself and the whole army 
had the wind been unfortunately to the southward. 
