228 
JOURNEY FROM 
mity. Among these sand-hills are some wells, in which the water, 
though several hundred feet above the level of the sea, is perfectly 
brackish. Beyond them to the southward is a hiUy country covered 
with verdure, in which a number of camels were feeding, and nume- 
rous flocks of sheep and goats ; but although we found ourselves in 
the midst of such plenty, we were unable to purchase a single sheep, 
in consequence of our friend the Dubbah’s manoeuvres. At Gar- 
tubbah, which possessed the same advantages, we were equally 
unable to succeed in a similar attempt. Among the green hills just 
mentioned are several ruins of forts, of the same quadrangular form 
as usual, and which have been built with large stones very regularly 
shaped ; so that Braiga may be considered as a military station, and 
must have certainly been one of importance*. If it be necessary to 
p’ive it an ancient name, we shovdd consider it as the site of Auto- 
o 
mala, which was also a military station, according to the account of 
Strabo 1 . 
♦ A few miles inland of Braiga, at a place called Attallat, are the remains of a castle, 
whose outer walls are still standing to a considerable height ; it is a quadrangular 
building, surrounded by a trench ; and within it we observed the remains of anarch 
constructed without a key-stone, in the manner of one at Tabilba, which we shall 
allude to in describing that place. 
t AvroyiaXa. ip^ov^iov, (pvXixxvv e%ov, &c. 
It appears, upon the authority of Diodorus Siculus, that the fortress of Automala 
was ali-eady erected when Gyrene was first occupied by the troops of Ptolemy Lagus . 
for the army which was led by his general Ophelias to the assistance of the tyrant Aga- 
thocles, then at war with the Carthaginians, pitched their tents, we are told, in the 
neighbourhood of Automala, having consumed eighteen days in their march to that foi- 
tress from the Cyrenaica. 
Oxrw xai hxcc /aev r v ajptEgzr o^omoqmocvler, xai SieXQovtej ara^tous 
•jtcpi Avroy-xkas . — Lib. xx. p. 753-4. 
^ If It 
