[22]In a note the author adds, “possibly with an exception to Scylax as a professed guide to others. The observations of Polybius would probably, had they come down to us, have saved us much conjecture.”
When Nature’s hand the first formation tried,
When seas from land she did at first divide,
The Syrts, nor quite of sea nor land bereft,
A mingled mass uncertain still she left;
For nor the land with seas is quite o’erspread,
Nor sink the waters deep their oozy bed,
Nor earth defends its shore, nor lifts aloft its head.
The site with neither and with each complies—