Note 12 — Chapter X

Prima che gli Arabi venissero in Africa fu il detto diserto dishabitato: ma poi che, &c.

There can be no doubt that the desert of Barca, here described, is the whole tract of country bordering on the Mediterranean, from Mesurata to Alexandria; for, after having described Mesurata as situated on the coast, the author proceeds to observe—“This desert (that of Barca) begins from the confines of the district of Mesurata, and extends itself eastward as far as the confines of Alexandria, a space of about one thousand three hundred miles in length, and about two hundred in breadth.” The dimensions of Barca here given appear to be as singular as the description already noticed of it which follows; for besides that the length is much too great, the two hundred miles of breadth which is allotted to it would carry us far to the southward of Augila, into the desert of Libya, which does not seem, from other passages, to have been intended by Leo. We were ourselves, at one time, in passing along the eastern side of the Gulf of Syrtis, only four days’ journey from Augila; and it then bore to the eastward of the south; so that it could not be anything like two hundred miles from the coast, even reckoning from the most northern part of the Cyrenaica.

The place mentioned by Strabo in the following passage, as being four days’ easy journey from the bottom of the Syrtis, could scarcely be any other than Augila.

Τεταρταιους μεν ουν φασιν απο του μυχου της μεγαλης Συρτεως τους κατ᾽ αυτο μαλακως βαδιζοντας ως επι χειμερινας ανατολας αφικνεισθαι. Εστι δε ο τοπος ουτος εμφερης τω Αμμονι, φοινικοτροφος τε και ευυδρος.—Lib. xvii. p. 838.

Procopius also (de Ædificiis, lib. v.) makes Augila four days’ journey from Borium, (the Borium Oppidum, at the bottom of the Gulf.)