TRIPOLY TO BENGAZI. 
265 
were the greatest thieves and the most treacherous people to be 
found in the whole world. They ranged the country round, as far 
as Nuniidia, attacking and plundering the poor pilgrims who were 
unfortunate enough to meet them ; and not contented with taking 
from them everything that was to be found upon their persons, 
they made them swallow a quantity of hot milk, and then shook 
them about till it acted as an emetic, so violently as to leave nothing 
whatever on the stomach. 
This was done lest the poor unhappy patients, to whom 
the medicine was administered, should have taken the precau- 
tion of swallowing their money to prevent its being taken from 
them by their assailants. “ Perciocche dubitano queste bestie 
(says our indignant author) die i vkandanti, come s’appressano 
a quel diserto, inghiottino i* danari perch^ non gli siano trovati 
adosso.” 
It appears to be chiefly from Leo Africanus that modern historians 
have derived the very unfavourable idea of what they term the 
district and desert of Barca. Yet the whole of the Cyrenaica is 
comprehended within the limits which they assign to it ; and the 
authority of Herodotus (without citing any other) would be amply 
sufficient to prove that this tract of country, not only was no desert, 
but was at all times remarkable for its fertility. 
W e And on the same authority, that the Libyans (or Africans) who 
inhabited, at an early period, the southern shores of the Mediter- 
ranean, w^ere divided into pastoral and agricultural tribes ; and that 
the former, most of whom were inhabitants of Barca, were by no 
