Note 7 — Chapter XIII

On referring to Beechey’s Narrative, since these pages were written, I find that he speaks of Ras Sem as a name unknown to the Arabs to designate the promontory marked thus in our maps. The coast, from a few miles west of Apollonia, has a very gradual inclination southwards, but so slight that it is impossible to designate even the place from which it begins to turn as a headland. Shaw and Bruce’s account of the well five or six days south of Benghazi agrees perfectly with the place called by the Arabs R’sam; and although the very bitter well is eight hours further on, there can be no doubt it is to this place that they allude. The petrified city, with its inhabitants, does not exist; its magnificent castle is only the Saracenic building, now called Sheikh Es-saby; but the ground is to some distance strewed with petrified wood. The dream of the city where “men are conspicuous in different attitudes, some of them exercising their trades and occupations, and women giving suck to their children,” is due, of course, to Arab imagination, and not to those truthful travellers.