•268 
JOURNEY FROM 
where they are found would most probably contain caves, or woods, 
which might serve them as habitations and places of retreat and 
security. This tract we should consequently imagine to be wild and 
stony, unadapted to cultivation, and affording little or no pasturage, 
but certainly not wholly of sand, or altogether unprovided with 
water. The third region, mentioned by Herodotus as succeeding 
to the two before enumerated, and placed farther inland than either, 
is the sandy tract of country usually, though not necessarily, implied 
by the term desert, in which there is neither water, nor vege- 
tation of any kind ; nothing, in fact, by which life could be sus- 
tained *. This tract he merely states to be a long ridge of sand, 
extending itself from Egypt to the pillars of Hercules f. It is but 
justice to state, in confirmation of the account here submitted to us 
by the father of history, whose veracity has been so much called in 
question, that (so far as our own experience, and that of the Arabs 
whom we have questioned on the subject, has enabled us to judge) 
it is perfectly consistent with the truth. What was beyond the 
sandy desert was little known to Herodotus, and must not therefore 
be adverted to in considering this description. 
With regard to the water afforded by the Syrtis, we find the 
Psylli inhabiting a tract of country inland of that possessed by the 
* That is, on the surface ; for in most sandy deserts water may be found by digging. 
J OuTot /Asv hi TTagasQaXstiTffioi tuv No/xatSiwv XiQvoJv si^saraa. Se rovraiv, es ;/,E7oyaiav, vi 
EfTTi \i€vrt' V'Tts^ Se rns SngioiSsos- o(p^vn 4'O.fjitx'ns Kxrrtx.si, Traparemuax ano 9r)Cic</v 
TMv htyvnmm ew liqaxXviocT arriXas, (Melp. gTTcs.) 
