the Cretisca or Cretan, to the north the Egisca or Egean, and to the west the Adriatic.  The island of Sicily is triangular, and at each end there are towns.  The northern is Petores[84], near which is the town of Messina; the south angle is Lilitem[85], near which is a town of the same name.  The island is 157 miles long from east to west, and 70 broad to the eastward.  To the north-east is that part of the Mediterranean called the Adriatic, to the south the Apiscan sea, to the west the Tyrrhene sea, and to the north the [86] sea, all of which are narrow and liable to storms.  Opposite to Italy, a small arm of the sea divides Sardinia from Corsica, which strait is twenty-two miles broad.  To the east of it is that part of the Mediterranean called the Tyrrhenian sea, into which the river Tiber empties itself.  To the south is the sea which lies opposite to Numidia.  To the west the Balearic islands, and to the north Corsica.  The island of Corsica lies directly west from the city of Rome.  To the south of Corsica is Sardinia, and Tuscany is to the north.  It is sixteen miles long, and nine broad[87].  Africa is to the south of the Balearic islands, Gades to the west, and Spain to the north.  Thus I have shortly described the situation of the islands in the Mediterranean.

[1] Anglo-Saxon version from Orosius, by AElfred the Great, with an English
    translation, by Daines Barrington, 8vo.  London, 1773.  Discoveries in
    the North, 54.

[2] This word is always employed by Alfred to denote the ocean, while
    smaller portions are uniformly called sae in the singular,
    saes in the plural.—­Barr

[3] Called Wenadel sea in the Anglo-Saxon original; probably because it
    had been crossed by the Vandals or Wends, in going from Spain to the
    conquest of Africa.—­E.

[4] In the translation by Barrington, this sentence is quite
    unintelligible.  “All to the northward is Asia, and to the southward
    Europe and Asia are separated by the Tanais; then south of this same
    river (along the Mediterranean, and west of Alexandria) Europe and
    Asia join.”—­E.

[5] Riffing, in the Anglo-Saxon.—­E.

[6] Sermondisc in the Anglo-Saxon, Sarmaticus in Orosius.—­E.

[7] Rochouasco in Anglo-Saxon, Roxolani in Orosius.—­E.

[8] Certainly here put for Ireland.—­E.

[9] Taprobana, Serendib, or Ceylon.—­E.

[10] By the Red Sea must be here meant that which extends between the
    peninsula of India and Africa, called the Erithrean Sea in the
    Periplus of Nearchus.—­E.

[11] The Persian gulf is here assumed as a part of the Red Sea.—­E.

[12] He is here obviously enumerating the divisions of the latter Persian
    empire.  Orocassia is certainly the Arachosia of the ancients; Asilia
    and Pasitha may be Assyria and proper Persia.—­E.

[13] The Saxon word is beorhta or bright, which I have ventured to
    translate parched by the sun, as this signification agrees well
    with the context.—­Barr.