1
The south of Libya is deep sand and parched earth, desert for the most part, completely infertile, all flat land, devoid of green shoots and grass and growing things and water, except perhaps for a standing pool left by the rain—and this is turbid and stinking, unfit even for a very thirsty man to drink. For this reason the country is uninhabited—for who could live in a land so wild, arid, and barren, oppressed by continual drought? The very heat of the sun, the downright fiery hotness of the air, and the temperature of the seething sand make the country completely inaccessible.
2
Only the Garamantes live near by—a slim, agile race, tent-dwellers, living for the most part by hunting. They sometimes cross into the country on hunting forays, generally about the time of the winter solstice, after waiting for rain, when most of the heat has abated and the sand, now damp, can be trodden after a fashion. They hunt for wild asses and the ostrich, monkeys a great deal, and an occasional elephant. Only these animals can stand the thirst and endure for long periods the pressure of the great fierceness of the sun. Nevertheless, as soon as the Garamantes exhaust the food they have brought with them they drive for home, for fear that the sand may heat up again and become difficult and impassable and they and their spoil perish together as though caught in a trap. There is certainly no escape if the sun draws off the moisture and becomes excessively hot—it soon parches the land. Its rays are made keener by the wet and are all the more intense, wetness being fuel to the fire.
