determined, and would require, from their ruined state, a very long
and attentive examination, before their original dimensions and precise
points of contact could be ascertained, We have given the plans
of two of the forts, one of which, though apparently very perfect, is
unprovided with any visible entrance. Two gates will be observed
in the outer works of the other, although none is apparent in the
habitable part of the building, which constitutes the most important
part of it.
Within a square, or rather quadrangular, inclosure, attached to
another of the same size, is a subterranean storehouse, or reservoir,
which has been first excavated in the soil, then formed with rough
stones, and lastly coated with an excellent cement, which is still in a
very perfect state. The descent to this souterain is by a square well
of trifling depth, which was so much overgrown and encumbered, as
not to be immediately perceived. Having with us the mean's of
procuring a light, we succeeded, without much trouble, in descending
into the chambers which are excavated on each side of it, and in
procuring the plan which appears in the plates. We were in hopes
to have found some inscription on the walls, which we have already
described as being very perfect, but nothing appeared but a few rude
and unimportant Arab scrawls. In the neighbourhood of the military
position, which we have noticed above, are the remains
of the town already mentioned, called Medina, where there are
a number of wells and tanks in very good preservation ; but the
buildings above ground are in so mutilated and ruinous a state, as to
render any satisfactory plan of them impossible, without a great deal
of previous excavation.
So little is mentioned by any writer (with whose works we ourselves
are acquainted) of the buildings contained in the Syrtis, that it will
for the most part be difficult to assign any other name to the remains
of forts and towns at present existing there, than those by which the
Arabs of the country now distinguish them. Charax is pointed
out by Strabo, as occurring after the tower of Euphrantas; but
before the position of this town can be ascertained, it will be necessary
to decide upon that of the tower itself, which, in a country
presenting a continued chain of forts from one extremity to
the other, is by no means very easily established. The Phikeni *
villa is also offered to our notice ; but its position must depend
upon that of the Philaenean altars, which we are told by Pliny
were merely of sand, and which we know were riot remaining in the
time of Strabo f.
Were it not that a more eligible position for the tower of Euphrantas
occurs further eastward, at a place called Bengerwad, in the
neighbourhood of Houdea, we should have been inclined to adopt
MedTnet Sultan as a port where the tower might very well be looked
for; and the circumstance of its being nearer to Zaffran (which we
have already given our reasons for identifying with Aspis) would
* The QiXaivov xaj/xn (of Ptolemy) v<p* nv 01 o[/mw[aoi ¡3co[aoi, oqiov A<pqtxns—between
which and Charax, his (pagai; xwjxti, Ptolemy has however laid down some inconsiderable
places.
•j* Ov yag vi/v of ^i'Kqcivcov ( /.e v o v g i fiu ifx o i a X X ’ o t o k o s /xereiXoQ^e t w Trgocpyiywgtav.*— (Lib. iii,
p. H :
In intimo sinu fuit ora Lotophagon, quos quidam Alachroas dixere, ad Philaenorum
Aras: ex harena sunt eae.—(Nat. Hist., lib. v. c. 5.)