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JOURNEY FROM 
of what is termed by seamen working off a lee-shore, for which the 
vessels of the ancients were very ill adapted ; and we can readily 
believe, from what we have seen of the coast, that (under the influ- 
ence of the heavy surf which rolls over the shallows when the wind 
blows strongly on shore) few vessels which chanced to strike could 
escape. The inset into the gulf, at the same time, being great, 
(when the north and east winds blow strongly against the coast,) it 
must have been extremely difficult for vessels of this description to 
avoid being drawn into its vortex ; and indeed we may observe that 
few ships will, at the present day, sail from Bengazi, westward, when 
the wind is blowing strongly into the gulf, on account of this conse- 
quent indraught *. 
“ The improved state of navigation” (Major Eennell very justly 
observes) “ has, however, stripped the Syrtes of the greatest part 
of their terrors and it is probable that the report of them which 
we shall have from Captain Smyth will in consequence prove to be 
much less formidable than the accounts which have descended to us 
from the ancients. 
It appears, from Mela, that the Syrtes were not only considered 
to be dangerous on account of the frequent occurrence of shoals, 
but more so in consequence of the flux and reflux of the sea which 
we have already mentioned above f. This rise and fall (as we have 
* We allude here to the vessels of the country, which we were told at Bengazi usually 
gave the Gulf a wide birth ; thus realising, in modern days, what Strabo mentions of the 
vessels of the ancients. 
f importuosus atq. atrox, et ob vadorum frequentium brevia, magisq. etiam ob 
alternos motus pelagi affluentis ac refluentis infestus. (De Situ Orbis. Lib. 1. c. 7.) 
