Chapter XXXII

BRUCE’S ROUTE FROM TEBESSA TO THE DJERID AND BACK TO TUNIS.

In the third part of Bruce’s wanderings, from Tebessa southward through the Belad el-Djerid, and thence to Tripoli and the Pentapolis, I have been unable to follow personally in his footsteps. I must content myself with giving the journey in his own words, and trust to the observations of others to illustrate his rough and fragmentary notes. It is almost an injury to his reputation to reproduce what was never intended for publication, notes which, in the event of his death during the journey, he had particularly requested should not be published. The reader is requested never to lose sight of the probability that all his fairly copied manuscripts were lost during his shipwreck, and that the present narrative is compiled from the roughest memoranda, letters to his friends, and the autobiographical sketch which he has left, written years afterwards in the retirement of Kinnaird, when the particulars of this journey had been to some extent effaced from his recollection by many years of more stirring events in Abyssinia.

In the first part of this work, page 103, his arrival for the second time at Tebessa was recorded on December 16, 1765; he continues:—

The 17th continued our course towards Ferreanah over the mountains Tenoucla, on the skirts of which, in the neighbourhood of Jebbel Usmir, found large strata of petrified oyster-shells. Passed Tenoucla and lay (18th) on a plain without inhabitants or water, called Lerneb.[248] From Lerneb arrived the 19th, in the evening, at Melew, where the Bey of Constantine was encamped with about 3,000 men.

The 20th, in the morning, set out for Ferreanah, from whence we were distant about 10 miles. Ferreanah is the ancient Thala[249] taken and destroyed by Metellus in his pursuit of Jugurtha. I had formed, I know not from what reason, sanguine expectations of elegant remains here, but in this I was disappointed. I found nothing but baths of very warm water, without the town; in these there was a number of fish, above four inches in length, not unlike gudgeons. Upon trying the heat by the thermometer I remember to have been much surprised that they could have existed, or even not been boiled by continuing long in the heat of this medium. As I marked the degree with a pencil while I was myself naked in the water, the leaf was wetted accidentally, so I missed the precise degree I meant to have recorded, and I do not pretend to supply it from memory. The bath is at the head of the fountain and the stream runs off to a considerable distance. I think there were five or six dozen of these fish in the pool. I was told likewise that they went down into the stream to a certain distance in the day and returned to the pool, as warmest and deepest water, at night.

The ruins of the ancient town begin at the mouth of a valley, or opening of the mountains to the south of that valley, on the west side of the bed of what appears to have been a river, but which is now only sand. This part is called Gobul. On the river side is a well or reservoir paved with cut stone, on which are the marks of the cord of the bucket, which are so strong as to seem to indicate that the water was brought from a great depth. The mouth is on a level with the bed of the river. There are here the traces of a very large fabric, which by the remaining ornaments, now much consumed, appears to have been a very elegant Corinthian. There was no possibility of making out the place, though there seemed to have been three temples, situated nearly like those of Spaitla. These ruins extend, with considerable interruption, south-east, till within a mile of the sanctuary of Sidi Mohamed Teleely, the building of whose Cubba has probably taken up many of the most elegant materials.

About two miles south-east of this marabout, there are four columns on foot which seem to be in their places, about two feet buried in the earth, forming the four angles of a square, 17 feet distant, in very bad taste. These are all the remains at this time, no traces remaining of Dr. Shaw’s.

The situation, in a plain everyway surrounded with mountains, agrees with the ancient Thala; so does its extent; but Metellus might have met with water nearer than 50 miles, as there were two large lakes at Malen, in a very convenient situation, where the Bey encamped . . .[250] from the history other objections in Jugurtha’s flight to the desert before he came to Thala.

The 21st, left Ferreanah, continued along the river to the mountain Sidi Eisa[251] within sight of his sanctuary, no water or inhabitants.

Next morning descended into a plain, passed Sidi Ali Ben Oune and still further the Maretba (?), the route of the Tunis camp, about seven miles east; continued along the plain, where copied the following inscription on a monument of bad taste.[252]

VRBANILLA MIHI CONIVNX VERECVNDIA PLENA HIC SITA EST

ROMAE COMES NEGOTIORVM SOCIA PARS PARSIMONIO FVLTA

BENE GESTIS OMNIBUS CVM IN PATRIAM MECVM REDIRET

AV MISERAM CARTHAGO MIHI ERIPVIT SOCIAM

NVLLA SPES VIVENDI MIHI SINE CONIVGE TALI

ILLA DOMVM SERVARE MEAM ILLA ET CONSILIO IVVARE

LVCE PRIVATA MISERA QVESCIT IN MARMORE CLVSA

LVCIVS EGO CONIVNX HIC TE MARMORE TEXI

ANC NOBIS SORTE DEDIT FATVM CVM LUCIDAREMVR

The 23rd, came to Gaffsa, the Capsa of Jugurtha, situated immediately in the narrow plain between the point of two mountains, a valley to the south . . . . . the mountains east and west, advantageous positions for a prince whose strength is horse.[253] The key of the Jereed, the hilly place where Marius halted, to the south the Jugis Aqua, a plentiful spring in two basins from one to four feet deep and thirty feet square, in the middle of the town,[254] another in the citadel,[255] the water, which is more than lukewarm, runs in a pretty considerable stream, and is drunk up in watering the plantations of date trees and gardens among them, on the west side of which Gaffsa is situated.

Gaffsa is built of clay, but is considerable and much better than Ferreanah. No antiquities.

The 24th to the 28th, stayed here correcting and perfecting my designs; the 29th, set out for Tozer.

On the left, or east, Jibbel Orbatt;[256] on the right Jibbel ben Younus to the Dowary, another mountain, and so on to the frontier of Algiers. Passed Garbata[257] about four miles; lay that night at a Dowar of Zowawas, Welled Seedy Abid.

The place where Marius encamped before the taking of Capsa was to the east, at the foot of the mountain, and answers the description _locum tumulosum_, as it agrees in distance. These hillocks are continued to the brink of the river, after passing the dry bed of which there is a plain of about 500 yards broad, and over this, on a small eminence to the west, is situated Gaffsa.

On the night of the 29th, and all the next day, we were followed by five of the Nememchah, who had not the courage to attack us, but on our arrival at El-Hamma, about 22 miles, they fell suddenly upon some people herding sheep and drove them off in triumph.

We lay here on the 30th; it is a small, mud-walled date village; five miles further is Tozer. It is the largest of the date towns, the residence of a Cayd, the chief of all the Jereed. It is the ancient _Tisurus_, but nothing now remains of the old town but three broken columns of cippolino, whose capitals were Corinthian, but are now consumed entirely. It is the greatest mart in Barbary for woollen goods, such as haicks, burnooses, baracanes, &c. Its next commodity is dates, with which it furnishes the Bedouins throughout the kingdom. 20,000 camels are annually loaded here with this fruit. Here the caravan arrives from Timbuctoo in . . .[258] days bringing gold of Tibar and negroes. Here also did formerly arrive the caravans of the Gaddemsees, but being plundered and waylaid by the Nememchah, they now direct their course to Nefzowah.

From Tozer to Wurglah is about ten days with camels; thence to Tripoli ten days.

The second of January (1766), arrived at El-Hamma or Tegeuse,[259] another set of villages about six miles east of Tozer.

Tozer is better situated than any of the date towns, by a number of springs which break out above a mile west of the town, and immediately form several considerable streams, which are divided by the hour amongst the inhabitants as of old; between the palm trees are gardens of figs, vines, and herbs. In some places, and chiefly at Tigeuse, the ground between the trees is laid out in small beds, about five feet long and two broad, sown with wheat, which is here very scarce and only brought when the camp comes in November, when the Dreedy and other clans attend, and bring this in exchange for dates and manufactures.

The third of January passed the Lowdeah or Palus Tritonides, about three miles below Tegeuse, the large lake of water called the Lake of Marks, because in the passage of it there is now a row of large trunks of palm trees set up to guide travellers in the road which crosses it.

Dr. Shaw has settled very distinctly the geography of this place and those about it. It is the Palus Tritonidis,[260] as he justly observes.

This was the most barren and unpleasant of my journeys in Africa, barren not only from the nature of the soil, but from its having no remains of antiquity in the whole course of it.

From entering the water to the small island half-way to Fatnassa, the route is entirely through water, equal in saltness to the sea, the depth is never above seven inches after passing this. It is chiefly dry for the other ten miles of the distance to Fatnassa, but never more than one inch where the water is deepest; it has a fine gravelly bottom. I measured four hundred feet on each side of the signals; the breadth nowhere seven miles.

It is nearly east and west; in the west end inclining more southerly. The mountains of Lowdeah form the north boundary, but it is plain on all sides on the south and south-west, and extends with some very considerable interruptions far into the Sahara. Anciently it was of consequence, much larger, and gave just reason for the account of a number or succession of lakes, which Dr. Shaw thinks impossible, from intervention of mountains, erroneously (_sic_).

M. Charles Tissot, in a notice about to be published in the ‘Bulletin de la Société de Géographie,’ and quoted by M. Roudaire in his report,[261] thus describes the Chott el-Djerid: ‘The vast and profound depression of the Chott el-Djerid is now to a great extent filled up with recent deposits of sand. The central portion of the basin appears, however, to contain a considerable mass of water covered with a saline crust, which has caused the Arab geographers to compare it, now to a carpet of camphor or crystal, and again to a sheet of silver, or a mass of metal in fusion. The thickness of this crust is very variable, and it is only at certain places that it is sufficiently solid to admit of travellers trusting themselves to it. The moment that they quit those passages the crust gives way, and the abyss swallows up its prey. Even these passages are very dangerous in the rainy season, when the water covers the saline crust and decreases its thickness.’

M. Tissot did not observe the trunks of palm trees set up to mark the path, so often alluded to by Bruce and other old writers; his guide informed him that they had been carried away by the heavy rains, and had never been replaced. A few stones had, however, been placed on the surface at intervals of five or six hundred yards, which, though actually small, were magnified by the mirage, and could be seen at a considerable distance.

About the middle is a circular platform, two or three feet above the level of the Sebkha, to which the names El-Mensof (_the Middle_), Bir en-Noosf (_Well of the Middle_), or Hadjarat en-Noosf (_the Middle Stone_), are given; it is also called Djebel el-Melah (_the Mountain of Salt_). Here the caravans usually pass the night, if they are not sure of reaching the opposite shore before dark.

There are 102 villages of dates here in Nefzowa,[262] but much inferior to those of Tozer. The fruit is chiefly sent to Europe. The eastern of these are called the Ghaara, inhabited by the Noile and many others. The panther, or faadh, and the fennick are natives of this district.

To the southward, Fatnassa is a small, mud-walled town. Telemeen is the largest of this district; it has a small fort with a cayd, and the town a sheikh. The fort is in a wood of date trees; it is of stone, very small, with fifty Moorish foot, or Zowawa, for a garrison. Few medals.

Arrived here the 4th; staid the 5th; the 6th, set out for Ebilla,[263] arrived there at noon, being but 6 miles.

The 7th, went hunting to Ghaara, five miles southwards; killed three wild boars with the lance.

The 8th, hunted likewise; killed one. At night, the house attacked by banditti, and we were near assassinated; my horse wounded.

The 10th, we passed the camp of the Henneishah at the foot of the mountains, to the north near the Thibkah,[264] and about 7 miles to the eastward that of the Welled Yagoube, who that day were in motion, and encamped at Nisse y-deep.[265] The next morning they fell upon and robbed the caravan going from Biscara to Mecca.

The night of the 10th arrived at El Hamma of Gabbs, the Aquæ Tacapitanæ of antiquity, consisting of three small mud-walled villages, Sambat, Menzil, and . . .[266] The first we stopped at, and were miserably lodged. It belongs to the Beni Zeed, a set of banditti of the neighbouring mountains, whose douars we passed at the foot of a mountain called Sidi Ben Owne, to the southwards.

There are about fifty hot springs at El-Hamma, all sufficient to form a considerable rivulet, were they not drunk up. They are of different degrees of heat, from bloodwarm to boiling hot, as intense as those at the baths near Baiæ. There are, in many of the miserable hovels built over the bagnios, remains of their ancient magnificence, such as bases of columns and pilasters, and large blocks of white Grecian marble.

One of these springs arises in the castle, a weak ruinous building, with a garrison of 50 Zowawa or Moorish foot. The Palus Tritonidis arrives at El-Hamma, the brook of which falls into it to the north-east [at a distance of] two miles.

The moisture which it furnishes most agreeably and suddenly changes the desert scene, and covers the adjacent fields with all kinds of flowers and verdure.

The 11th, changed to the neighbouring town, Menzil, where we were better lodged.

The 12th, set out from El-Hamma, arrived in three hours and three quarters at Gabbs; it is about 12 miles, though Dr. Shaw and the Itinerary made it XVII, through a large plain full of the seedra or lotus, a shrub not unlike blackthorn.[267]

Gabbs consists of three villages, as is the custom of the Jereed, in groves of palms, Menzil, Jaara, and Shineny,[268] the two former constantly at war with each other.

The river of Gabbs, which runs along the north side of the south division of Jaara, separates it from a grove of palm trees where is a house of the Bey, and behind it the town. Menzil is a short mile to the south-west; in the same direction is the old Gabbs, the Tacape of the ancients, formerly a very considerable place on the Lesser Syrtis. Its ruins at present consist of three broken frusts of granite columns of an oval form, and one square one, which last is still standing, and seems to have had a statue upon it. The buildings here seem to be so small in circumference that I rather imagine this was some considerable temple than the city itself, which I imagine did extend a mile further to the east, to that chain of eminences which run north and south, upon which, and between which, there are traces of ancient buildings. Between these and the river was probably the port, now choked up by the east and north-east winds, the violent ones on these coasts.

Digging for building materials four years ago, the inhabitants of Menzil found a statue as big as life, which, contrary to their usual practice, they did not break immediately to pieces; but after it had been an object of contention between them and Jaara, the latter obtained it and buried it under ground.

Here it continued till some months before I came to Tunis, when, hearing of it, I did ask it of the Bey, who readily granted it, and by a special order desired it might be delivered into my hands; but upon my arrival I found it had been broken to pieces, to repair a miserable bridge, and only some of the pieces could be gathered, which were brought on producing the king’s order.

It was of white Greek marble, in a very elegant taste, the hair before, gathered under a round crown-like ornament, which we see on the medals of Faustina, from which a veil fell down behind. The hair on the sides fell down in small curls on the shoulders. It was in a sitting posture, the two feet appearing from under the robe, one upon the other, in the attitude like the Agrippina the elder in the Farnese Gallery; but the pleats in the clothing were larger than those of the Agrippina.

The whole was in excellent taste. There was also brought me a piece of a basso relievo, probably belonging to the temple, likewise a half figure, that of a Neptune or Triton stretching his hand over a stormy sea, with a dolphin before him; all diligence was used, but it was impossible to find the other part.

The river is undoubtedly the Triton; it has no connection with the Palus Tritonidis; it rises in a plain called Chausæ, directly west, and near the palms it is divided; part continues its course by Jaara to the sea, part is conducted through the palms, after which it is again united, and continues its course to the sea, a small distance from the palms.

The 13th being calm, I observed the flux and reflux of the tide; the wind was from the S.W.; the tide rose on the bar at the mouth of the river 37½ inches perpendicular height. 14th, stormy, wind N.E. 15th, wind continued till 8 o’clock more easterly; fell calm at midday. The evening we could not measure, having a swell.

The full sea the next evening rose 41 inches perpendicular height upon the bar; no sea; the wind changed to N.W.; no swell.

Unfortunately, Captain Mouchez was unable to make any observations regarding the tide here during his recent survey, but he remarks that it rises as high as on any place on the Atlantic coast.

The plantations of Gabbs are laid out in the most advantageous as well as the most pleasant manner; between the palms the grape is made to run along cords of hair in festoons. Below, the plats are laid out in squares, in which is planted the Al-Henna,[269] the chief commodity of this place, a shrub like the myrtle, which the women use when dried to paint themselves with. It is packed in large oblong baskets of a caphise weight, and sells, according to its goodness, from seven to eight and a half piastres of Tunis (four and a half piastres being seven shillings English)[270] per hundredweight. This is cut every year and kept low; the ground around is bordered with roses. Between Menzil and Jaara is a castle, and under it encamps the Cayd of Amadis.(?) He has with him 100 spahis of Tunis and Zowawa; he collects the tribute from all the tribes of the south-east district of this kingdom, resembles a Bey, and has the greatest command in Tunis given to a subject. It extends to the frontiers of Tripoli.

Ottoman ben Mengsah was Cayd at this time; he was one of the descendants of a Portuguese renegade, now called Welled Hassan. Although considered as Turks, they were always abroad among the Moors. In the time of Ali Bashaw, whose relations they were, although in the wars of Younus he strangled eleven of their number in one night, as well as in the present reign, they were always employed in great commands among the Moors.

It is in this region, just below the thirty-fourth parallel of latitude, that M. Roudaire proposes to pierce the Isthmus of Gabes, which now separates the sea from the region of the Chotts, the ancient Bay of Triton. Thus he hopes to create an inland sea, and introduce fertility, commerce and life into the very heart of the Sahara.

The Governor-General of Algeria sent a mission in 1874 to examine the region south of Biskra; it was commanded by Captain Roudaire, and consisted of several eminent African geographers, amongst whom were Captain Parisot, and M. Henri Duveyrier. M. Roudaire announces that the basin capable of submersion in Algeria occupies an area of 150 kilometres long by 40 broad, or upwards of 6,000 square kilometres, comprised between latitude 34° 36′ and 33° 51′ N., and longitude (of Paris) 3° 40′ and 4° 51′ E. In the middle, the depression below the level of the sea is from 21 to 31 metres. On the north the slope is very gentle, so that there would only be two metres of water at six kilometres from the shore. None of the great oases, but at least three of the smaller ones, would be submerged.

Captain Roudaire was sent in the following year to continue his investigations in the Regency of Tunis, and he reports that two other basins there are capable of submersion; namely, that of the Chott el-Gharsa, the superficies of which is 1,350 square kilometres, and that of the Chott el-Djerid, which has a surface of 5,000 square kilometres.

Whether the scheme prove practicable or not, Captain Roudaire has certainly collected a considerable body of evidence[271] to prove that the basin of the Chotts was in communication with the Mediterranean as late as the beginning of the Christian era, and then formed the great bay of Triton; and he believes that the result of his surveys and levels entirely confirm this hypothesis. He quotes all the ancient authors who have alluded to the locality; amongst others, Herodotus, who mentions ‘the river Triton, which flows into the great lake or gulf of Triton, in which is the island of Phla.’ Scylax, who wrote his Periplus of the Mediterranean in the second century before Christ, also alludes to both river and lake. ‘The entrance to the latter,’ he says, ‘is narrow, and an islet is visible therein at low tide, and vessels are often unable to enter.’ Pomponius Mela, two centuries after Scylax, and Ptolemy, in the second century of the Christian era, also mention the same natural features.

The Arabs have a tradition that Nefta was at one time a seaport, and it is said that no later than the end of last century a vessel of unknown form, probably an ancient galley, was dug up in the sand there.

Unfortunately, the most eminent authorities do not agree as to the possibility of the project. Captain Mouchez, of the French Navy, a very distinguished hydrographer, and a Member of the Institute, surveyed the coast from Algeria to Tripoli in 1876. He states that the coast of the Gulf of Gabes is formed by a natural bulwark 85 mètres high at the sea, and rising to a height of 700 or 800 mètres further inland. If these measurements are correct, and no breach of continuity exists in this chain of hills, it is difficult to see how there could ever have been a communication between the sea and Lake Tritonis, or how a canal can now be cut so as to unite them.

Three miles S.E. of Gabbs is a small village called Tobulbu, with a plantation of dates; four miles further in the same direction another called Zereega. About . . .[272] miles hence, still eastward, inclining to the south, is Cattan,[273] another; and further is the river el-Fert,[274] which comes from below the river Matamata. At the head it is fresh, but receiving some salt springs in its course, it turns brackish where it falls into the sea.

Zaratt is 18 miles from Gabbs; and from Gerba, which lies S.E., as Matamata does . . .[275] and Dimmer . . .[275] S.W. by S., and El-Faggera, behind which is Jibbel Abeide, due south; over this lies the way to Gaddems, according to some, eight days’ journey for a camel lightly laden; that is, from Gabbs to Matamata, 22 miles, or one day; thence to Jibbel Abeide, two days, or 40 miles; from thence five days, but it is said by others to be much longer.

The inhabitants of Matamata live underground in the earth; their houses go down with a stair about . . .[276] feet; from thence there is a passage, on each side of which are the chambers. The inhabitants of Jibbel Abeide are the Dowarets, a clan of about 1,000 fighting men. Their houses are not sunk in the earth, as the Matamata, but perforated in the rock itself, like the Trogloditæ of old.

Mela says that they lived in caves, and fed upon serpents; if he had said fed together with serpents, his observation had been just. They have such an esteem for snakes as to suffer them to feed promiscuously with them, and to live continually in their houses, where they perform the office of cats. These animals are perfectly inoffensive to their protectors, and suffer themselves to be lifted up and carried in their hands from place to place. Some are six or seven feet long; they suffer no one to hurt them or transport them to any other place. No persuasion or reward could induce them to let me carry away one of them, it being universally believed that they are a kind of good angels, whom it would be the highest impropriety, and of the worst consequence to the community, to remove from their dwellings.

· · · · · · ·

The Jibbeleah runs in a direction parallel to the coast, which it approaches as we advance eastward to Zarratt. Matamata is S.E. of Gabbs. South of that is Toujan; S.E. is a sharp-pointed mountain called Dimmer; again, continuing the line of Matamata eastwards, is Feggera, due south from Gerba.

I was now arrived upon the Lesser Syrtis, and continued along the sea-coast northward to Inshilla without having made any additions to my observations.

I turned again to the north-west, and came to Tisdrus, as it was anciently called, now El-Gemme.[277]

This was the last ancient building I visited in the Kingdom of Tunis, and I believe I may confidently say there is not, either in the territories of Algiers or Tunis, a fragment of good taste of which I have not brought a drawing to Britain.

I continued along the coast to Susa, through a fine country planted with olive trees, and came again to Tunis, not only without any disagreeable accident, but without any interruption from sickness or other cause.

During my journey through Tunis, I made frequent inquiries regarding the custom of keeping tame serpents, and the reply was invariably the same: ‘No one here keeps them, but the tribes further south are said to do so.’ I mentioned the subject to M. Vignard, of Algiers, who has travelled extensively in Africa, and he assured me that on one occasion when he entered a native hut in the island of Goree, near Cape Verd, he saw the mistress of the house sitting on a mat with a tame snake coiled beside her, and he was informed that it was a very common custom to keep such animals, in order to kill rats and mice. They even asserted that the young shepherds took them to the fields with them, and that the tame serpents watched over them while they slept under the shade of a tree, lest their masters should be bitten by poisonous snakes.

M. Repin[278] gives a curious account of the manner in which large quantities of these reptiles are kept in houses built expressly for the purpose, in the kingdom of Dahomey, and guarded with the utmost care and veneration, exactly as Bruce describes them to be by the inhabitants of Djebel Abeide; enough, however, has been stated to prove that this story is not one of the traveller’s tales which Bruce was for so long a time accused of fabricating.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 248: Bahiret el-Arneb, or plain of the hare.]

[Footnote 249: Bruce is at fault here. Feriana is probably the ancient Thelepte of the Itinerary of Antoninus; Thala has been identified with a village of the same name ten miles north-east of Haidra.]

[Footnote 250: Two words illegible in MS.]

[Footnote 251: Sidi Aïch.]

[Footnote 252: This monument is known by the name of _Soumat el-Hamra_, the red minaret. The inscription as here given is corrected by the subsequent rendering of Guérin. See his work, i. p. 288.]

[Footnote 253: Obscure in original.]

[Footnote 254: Known as _Thermyle el-Bey_, two large open basins communicating by a vault, used as bathing-places, one by men and the other by women.]

[Footnote 255: Used as a bathing-place by the Jews. Both contain numerous snakes of the genus _Tropidonotus_, and fish, probably _Chromidæ_.]

[Footnote 256: Djebel Arbet. 3,612 feet high.]

[Footnote 257: Oued Gourbaia.]

[Footnote 258: Left blank in MS.]

[Footnote 259: More correctly _Degeuche_, the ancient Thiges.]

[Footnote 260: Shaw’s Travels, p. 212.]

[Footnote 261: See note, p. 272.]

[Footnote 262: The Sheikh Et-Tidjani gives the following as the etymology of the word Nefzaoua: ‘It derives its name from that of a tribe established here since the earliest times, Nefzaoua ben Akhbar, ben Berber, ben Keis, ben Elias, ben Modhar, ben Nezar.

‘Goliath, whom David slew, was of the tribe of Nefzaoua. It is from the Nefzaoua that all the Zenata derive their origin; they were originally Arabs, but subsequently became Berberised by their proximity to the Berbers and by intermixture with them.’—_Ann. Arch. Const._ xii. p. 150.]

[Footnote 263: Guebilli, or Kebilli.]

[Footnote 264: _Djebel Tebaga_ of the French maps.]

[Footnote 265: Perhaps the Bahiret Cedret ed-dib of the same.]

[Footnote 266: Left blank in MS., perhaps _Dabdaba_.]

[Footnote 267: _Zizyphus lotus_; the jujube tree.]

[Footnote 268: Perhaps _Bou Shemma_ is here meant.]

[Footnote 269: _Lawsonia inermis_.]

[Footnote 270: The present value of the Tunis piastre is sixpence.]

[Footnote 271: ‘Rapport à M. le Ministre de l’Instruction Publique sur la Mission des Chotts, étude relative au projet de mer intérieure, par le Capitaine Roudaire.’ Paris, 1877.]

[Footnote 272: Blank in MS.]

[Footnote 273: Ketena.]

[Footnote 274: Oued el-Ferd.]

[Footnote 275: These spaces are blank in the original. There is a confusion here. Djerba lies N.E. of Zarat; Matamata S.W. of the same; Djebel Zemerten S.S.W.]

[Footnote 276: Blank in MS.]

[Footnote 277: See _ante_, p. 159.]

[Footnote 278: ‘Voyage au Dahomey,’ par le Dr. Repin, _Tour du Monde_, 1863; 1ère Semestre, p. 71.]