53. Carthage.
An Electric Tramway starts from Tunis Terminus, Ave. Jules-Ferry (Pl. E, 4), near the Casino, for Carthage and (¾ hr.) Marsa-Plage. The chief stations on this line are La Goulette, for the little town of Goletta; Carthage, for the castle-hill (St. Louis de Carthage), for the plateau of the Odéon, and for the cisterns at the Bordj el-Djedid; Ste. Monique, for Damous el-Karita; and Sidi Bou-Saïd, for the lighthouse. The terminus, Marsa-Plage, close to the shore, is connected by a branch-line (½ M.) with Marsa-Ville, which is the terminus of another electric tramway running from the Ave. de Paris (Pl. E, 3) at Tunis viâ El-Aouina.—Uniform fares from Tunis to Goletta, Carthage, Marsa-Plage, or Marsa-Ville single 1 fr. 20 or 65 c., return 1 fr. 75 c. or 1 fr.
A Drive (carr. 15 fr.) from Tunis to Sidi-Daoud, La Malga (amphitheatre and cisterns), La Marsa, Sidi Bou-Saïd, Carthage (cisterns at Bordj el-Djedid, theatre, and museum), Goletta, Maxula-Rades (p. [363]), and back to Tunis is recommended. Luncheon (brought from Tunis) may be taken beside the lighthouse at Sidi Bou-Saïd or at Carthage. Good carriages are to be had also at Goletta and the stations of Carthage and Marsa-Ville (2 fr. per hr.; but the fare should be fixed beforehand).—In cool weather, especially in the forenoon, the Walk from La Marsa viâ Sidi Bou-Saïd to Carthage is very enjoyable.
Hotels at Carthage: Hôt. St. Louis de Carthage, on the castle-hill, tolerable, déj. or D. 3–3½ fr., wine dear; Pavillon Beau-Séjour, R. 3, B. 1¼, déj. 2½, D. 3 fr.; Hôt. des Citernes Romaines, near the cisterns of Bordj el-Djedid (p. [350]), plain but good.
For a short visit to the ruins the following description will suffice. For further study the traveller is referred to the Carte archéologique et topographique des Ruines de Carthage (Paris, 1907; three sheets, scale 1 : 5000) and to ‘Carthage autrefois, Carthage aujourd’hui’ (2½ fr.; to be had at the Musée Lavigerie), a full description, but partly out of date. Comp. also the chapters on Carthage in Cagnat’s book mentioned at p. [289].—The guides and beggars are very importunate. Native vendors offer spurious antiquities (cameos, coins, etc.), ‘just dug up’. It should be noted that the ruins abound in awkward cavities and fissures, and that, in summer especially, scorpions lurk under the loose stones.
The Electric Tramway (see above) to Carthage and Marsa-Plage runs to the Harbour (p. [333]), crosses its N. entrance by an embankment, and follows the N. bank of the ship-canal across Lake Bahira (comp. p. [129]), skirting the passing-place of the steamers. On the left is the islet of Chikly (p. [129]).
6¼ M. Arrêt du Bac, station for the Goletta steam-ferry mentioned at p. [363].—7 M. La Goulette, on the W. side of the little town of—
Goletta, or La Goulette (Hôt. de la Gare, unpretending; pop. 5000, chiefly Sicilian and Maltese fisher-folk), the former little harbour of Tunis, deserted since the opening of the ship-canal. It was strongly fortified by Kheireddin (p. [221]) in 1534 and transformed into a great naval station, but was soon captured by the Spaniards and formed the base whence they kept Tunis in check (1535–74).
On the island between the ship-canal and the two narrow inlets to the harbour are the Dâr el-Bey, an old palace of the beys, and the disused Marine Arsenal founded by Ahmed Bey (1837–55). On the shore, beyond the old harbour-mouth, which is only 6½ ft. deep, rises the Kasba, now barracks.
From Goletta to Maxula-Rades, see p. [363].
Between old Goletta and the ancient harbour of Carthage stretches a tongue of land, the ancient Taenia or Ligula, between Lake Bahira and the open sea, where bathing-places abound: 7¼ M. La Goulette Neuve, with a long row of humble lodging-houses, chiefly patronized by the poorer Jewish families from Tunis; 8 M. Khéreddine, where the old palace of Khéreddine, once the all-powerful minister of Bey Mohammed es-Saddok (1859–82), is now a casino; 9 M. Le Kram, another favourite Jewish resort, on the small Baie du Kram.
The next station is (9¾ M.) Salambo, a new colony of villas named after Flaubert’s novel; near it is the ‘Lazaret‘, an old palace of the beys’ harem, on the shore, between the two ancient harbours of Carthage (p. [345]), used as a cholera hospital in 1884 (now barracks). 10 M. Douar ech-Chott, on the E. side of this picturesque native village (comp. p. [345]).
10¼ M. Dermèche, station for El-Kheraïb (‘the ruins’), supposed to have been once the market-place of Carthage (p. [345]), on the S. side of the Kothon, and also for the Palais de Dermèche, once the palace of the minister Mustapha ben-Ismaïl, and now the property of the bey.
10½ M. Carthage (hotels, see p. [343]), station for the road to the castle-hill and abbey-hill of Carthage (pp. [346], 349). 11¼ M. Ste. Monique, between the convent of that name on the right and Damous el-Karita (p. [349]) on the left.
Passing Briqueterie, we ascend to (13 M.) Sidi Bou-Saïd (p. [351]).
13¾ M. Arrêt de l’Archevêché, for the archiepiscopal palace; Arrêt de la Corniche, the last halt. We then descend to the N.W. to (14½ M.) La Marsa-Plage (p. [351]).
Carthage, once the proud queen of the seas, lay 10 M. to the E. of Tunis on a low range of hills culminating in Cape Carthage (p. [351]). The cape was originally an island, but was probably united with the mainland by the deposits of the Medjerda before the foundation of the city (comp. p. [129]). The neck of land between Lake Bahira on the S. and the Sebkha er-Riana on the N., where the army of Regulus was annihilated in 255 and where Scipio encamped in 146, was, according to Polybius, only 3000 paces (ca. 1½ M.) wide, but is now 3 M. at the narrowest part. In the middle ages Douar ech-Chott (p. [344]; ‘village on the salt-lake’) lay on Lake Bahira. Carthage possessed two harbours. The outer or commercial harbour lay between the Baie du Kram (p. [344]) and Bordj el-Djedid (p. [350]), where considerable remains of its quays are preserved for a distance of nearly a mile. The inner or naval harbour (Kothon) was an artificial inland basin, probably on the same site as the two modern lagoons, with a rectangular entrance-basin and a circular main harbour. On an islet in the latter lay the naval arsenal.
Between the two harbours ran the triple town-wall, which on one side extended from the Bordj el-Djedid to the plateau between the Odeon and Damous el-Karita (p. [349]), and on the other side enclosed the castle-hill (see below) on the S. and W. sides. The market-place (p. [344]), on the N. side of the naval harbour, was connected with the castle-hill by three narrow streets, the chief scene of contest during the storming by Scipio. To the N.W. of the city-wall, as early as the Punic period, lay the villa-suburb of Megara or Magalia (now La Malga).
History. Carthage was founded about 880 B. C. by Phœnicians from Tyre, under the leadership, according to tradition, of Dido, adjacent to Kambe, a colony from Sidon. Under the name of Kart-hadasht (‘new town’) it extended gradually from the dale on the N.E. side of the Bordj el-Djedid up to the castle-hill. Thanks to its most advantageous site near the Sicilian straits and on the sea-route between Egypt and Spain, and to its proximity to the valleys of the Medjerda and the Oued Miliane (p. [363]), the richest in the land, it soon surpassed Utica (p. [353]) and the smaller Phœnician seaports in wealth and power. From the 6th cent. onwards Carthaginian fleets contended with the Greeks and with the Etruscans, from whom they wrested Corsica and Sardinia, for the mastery of the W. Mediterranean, and in 480 their army of mercenaries, in alliance with Xerxes, even attacked the Greeks of Sicily. After a great struggle of more than two centuries for the possession of Sicily, during which Agathocles (p. [163]) carried the war into his enemies’ country (310–307), the intervention of Rome led to the three Punic wars (264–241, 218–201, and 149–146), to the occupation of Spain by the Carthaginians, and to the capture and destruction of Carthage, after a heroic resistance, by Scipio in 146 B. C. On its ruins, in 122, C. Gracchus attempted to found a Roman colony, but it was not till the year 44 that the far-seeing policy of Cæsar led to the firm establishment of the Colonia Julia Carthago. The despatch by Augustus of a colony of veterans and the erection of the city into the capital of the province in place of Utica (29 B. C.) paved the way for the renewed glory of Carthage, which soon became the greatest Mediterranean seaport next to Alexandria and the third-greatest city in the Roman empire. Far and wide its schools of rhetoric and philosophy were famous. Passionate champions of Christianity, like Tertullian (160 to about 245), founder of the sect called after him, and Cyprian (d. 258), who protested against the claim of Rome to precedence in the church, were residents in Carthage, the chief bishopric in N. Africa. In numerous councils (from 393 onwards) the dogmas of the Catholic church were here discussed and settled, and at the synod of the Gargilian Thermæ in 411 St. Augustine with fiery eloquence combated the doctrines of the Donatists (p. [322]) and the Tertullianists.
Genseric (p. [322]) converted the old palace of the proconsuls into his royal residence and made Carthage the capital of the Vandal empire, and a little later the city became the residence of the Byzantine governors. After Hassan ibn en-Nôman (p. [322]) had destroyed the city in 698, almost as completely as Scipio had done, and after he had even caused the harbours to be filled up, the ruins were used for centuries as a quarry for the building of Kairwan (p. [372]), Tunis, Goletta, and the small towns around, while many of the Roman and Byzantine columns were carried off by the Moors to Cordova and by the Italians to Palermo, Amalfi, Pisa, and Genoa. The attempts of the Hafsides (p. [323]) to resuscitate Carthage met with little success. To that dynasty belonged El-Mostanser-Billah, against whom Louis IX., the Saint, directed his last crusade. It was on the castle-hill of Carthage that Louis died of the plague in 1270, and it was from Carthage that Emp. Charles V. led his expedition against Tunis in 1535. Modern builders have again been busy, at the cost of the ancient ruins, since the time of Card. Lavigerie (1825–92), who made the Missions d’Afrique (see below) the centre of the catholic missions in N. Africa and succeeded in 1884 in obtaining the restoration of the old archbishopric.
After all this endless havoc, and owing to constant alterations in the earth’s surface, it is now very difficult to trace the plan either of the Punic or of the Roman Carthage, which seems to have been laid out in chessboard fashion. Yet the beauty of the scenery and the wealth of historical memories amply compensates for the deplorable state of the ruins. The valuable yield of recent excavations is now preserved in the Musée Lavigerie (see below), in the Bardo Museum (p. [340]), and in the Louvre.
The Byrsa (194 ft.), the ancient castle-hill of Carthage, 660 yds. from the sea, was the site in the Punic period of a temple of Eshmun, and in the Roman period of a temple of Æsculapius and of the palace of the proconsul. It is now called the Colline de St. Louis de Carthage and is occupied by the chapel of St. Louis, the seminary, and the archiepiscopal cathedral. The terrace on the side next the sea, adjoining the Hôtel St. Louis de Carthage (p. [343]), commands a delightful *View of the gulf of Tunis and the site of ancient Carthage.
The Grand Séminaire de Carthage, founded in 1875 by Card. Lavigerie as a mission-house and seminary for the Pères Missionnaires d’Afrique (commonly called Pères Blancs from their white semi-Arab garb), contains the *Musée Lavigerie, dating from 1875, where the yield of the excavations made by Père Delattre, the learned principal of the seminary, is preserved. Adm. on Mon., Thurs., Frid., and Sat., 2 to 5.30; on Sun. and holidays 2–3 and 4 to 5.30; probably also before 11, and on other afternoons, on application (closed in Holy Week after Wed.). Visitors make a donation to the offertory-box. No catalogue.
In the Seminary Garden, below the small Chapelle de St. Louis, built in 1845 to the memory of King Louis the Saint (see above), are preserved eight barrel-vaults, with semicircular niches, relics of some ancient edifice of unknown character. On the terrace in front of the chapel is a large Roman sarcophagus in marble. Around it are placed numerous Punic cinerary urns. In the grounds lie fragments of ancient buildings. Along the garden-walls are ranged Roman mosaics, inscriptions, and fragments of sculpture.
The Colonnade of the seminary is adorned with three colossal figures of Victory in high-relief, of the time of the proconsul Q. Aurelius Symmachus (373–5), one of the last champions of expiring paganism.—The Vestibule contains two sadly mutilated early-Christian reliefs, the Annunciation to the Shepherds and the Adoration of the Magi, from Damous el-Karita (p. [349]).—To the left, in the Salle de la Croisade, are Punic, Roman, and early-Christian inscriptions.—On the right is the—
Punic Room, containing the most valuable collection, almost exclusively from Punic rock-tombs (8th–2nd cent. B.C.), unrivalled except in the museum of Iviza. In the 1st Case in the middle of the room are Egyptian scarabs and amulets, trinkets (some Egyptian), and weights. 2nd Case: lamps and vases in clay, gold trinkets, beautiful Greek ivory carving (swan bearing a goddess), an Etruscan inscription (the only one yet found in Africa), Egyptian signet-rings, etc. 3rd Case: necklaces composed of amulets, glass amulets with faces of iridescent glass, gold signet-rings with engraved figures, fragments of painted ostrich-eggs, toilet articles in lead, Cupid in terracotta resembling the Tanagra figurines, a Greek work. 4th Case: bronze mirrors and ‘little axes’ or razors, probably amulets.—In the wall-presses, on the left of the entrance, Punic vases and terracotta masks, iron and bronze weapons. By the left side-wall are statuettes in clay in the Egyptian and Cyprian style, Corinthian and Attic vases, an Etruscan vase (toilet scene), two bronze jugs with fine figures as handles. By the back-wall are terracottas.—At the end of the right side-wall, in the window-niche, cinerary urn of the priest Baalchelek, also that of another priest with a beautiful relief of the deceased. By the last window but one, on the right side, are five cinerary urns; in front of them stands a sarcophagus with two skeletons. Then, at the end of the room, are four anthropoid *Sarcophagi in the Greek style (end of 4th cent. B.C.); two bearded priests in the attitude of prayer (one of them a cast); a priestess, with remarkably well-preserved painting, holding a dove and a situla.
Lastly we enter the Roman-Christian Room from the garden. By the end-wall on the left are early-Christian mosaics and lamps. By the back-wall, Roman mosaics (incl. Autumn and Winter); marble sculptures (Ceres, bust of Apollo, etc.). By the right end-wall are Roman terracottas, *Lamps with figure-compositions, and three reliefs in stucco from the tomb of a lady of rank. By the entrance-wall, Roman and Byzantine weights.—The 1st Case in the middle of the room contains early-Christian relics from the abbey-hill (p. [349]), mostly of the Vandal period. 2nd Case: a bronze lamp and the clay statuette of an organ-player (upper part broken off). 3rd Case: Roman bronzes and glasses; rolls of lead inscribed with curses, from the burial-ground of the Officiales (p. [348]); Byzantine and mediæval coins. 4th Case: coins of the Phœnician down to the Byzantine periods.
The Cathedral (Primatiale de St. Cyprien et de St. Louis), a basilica with nave and two aisles, built in 1884–90 by Abbé Pougnet, in the Byzantine-Moorish style, contains (in the choir) the archiepiscopal throne and the tomb of Card. Lavigerie (p. [346]). Over the high-altar is the valuable reliquary of St. Louis, executed by Armand Caillat, a goldsmith of Lyons. Adm. from 5 to 11.15 and 12.30 to 5.30 (in summer 6.45).
The limestone blocks on the S.W. side of the cathedral, near the small eucalyptus grove, are remains of the stylobate of a Roman Temple. From the brow of the hill we obtain a good survey of the site of the ancient naval harbour (p. [345]) and of the Roman circus (see below). The view of Lake Bahira is charming at sunset.
Between the brow of the hill and the road descending to Douar ech-Chott (p. [344]) Père Delattre’s excavations have brought to light a number of buildings a thousand years apart in date. Above, on the margin of the hill, is an interesting Punic Necropolis with rock-tombs; lower down are remains of the Town Walls, hastily restored under Theodosius II. (p. [541]) in 424, and traces of the Roman Road leading to the harbour; then Punic tombs again, and below them the foundations of a Byzantine Dwelling House (a room here contains early-Moorish tombs).
Below the S. angle of the castle-hill we come upon ancient fortifications. Farther down is a wall or buttress composed of thousands of early-Roman earthenware amphoræ; also a rock-hewn Chapel (key at the Seminary) with remains of wall-paintings (saint bestowing a blessing) in the style of the catacomb frescoes.
Time permitting, we follow the Sidi-Daoud road to the N.W. from the castle-hill, cross the Goletta and La Marsa highroad, and reach (¼ hr.) the Roman Amphitheatre, which has been broken up only since the 16th cent., and which Edrisi, the geographer (1154), has described as one of almost matchless splendour. All that is left of it consists of a few remains of substructures deeply imbedded in rubbish, several underground passages, and in the centre of the arena (where a chapel with a cross recalls the martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas, p. [350]) three underground chambers, probably for the machinery used in theatrical performances.
To the S., not far from Douar ech-Chott (p. [344]), are a few vestiges of the Roman Circus. It measured 770 by 110 yds.; the Spina, or partition round which the racing chariots passed, was 380 yds. long.
Scarcely a hundred paces to the N.W. of the amphitheatre, near a farm-building, is a Burial Ground of the Officiales (1st–2nd cent.), the imperial freedmen and slaves employed in the proconsul’s office (tabularium).—Beyond the amphitheatre the road passes a second Burial Ground of the same kind on the right and the foundations of the Villa of Scorpianus (identified by the inscription ‘Scorpianus in adamatu’) on the left.
To the W. of the highroad, 12 min. from the castle-hill, lies the dirty village of La Malga (82 ft.), which swarms with begging children. On the N.E. side of the village are scanty ruins of Roman Thermae. The Cisterns in the middle of the village, 15 (originally 24) barrel-vaults now in a very ruinous condition and partly used by the natives as dwellings or stables, once formed the chief reservoir fed by the Roman Aqueduct (pp. [329], 353, 358), begun under Hadrian in 117, but not completed till 163. The whole city was supplied thence by means of leaden pipes.
A Roman Road leads almost in a straight line from La Malga, to the N.E., close past Damous el-Karita (p. [349]) and past the Basilica Maiorum (p. [350]), to the Arrêt de la Briqueterie (p. [344]).
From La Malga we follow the road to the S.E., past the Croix de St. Cyprien, a memorial of the famous bishop (pp. [345], 346), along the course of the old ‘Conduit Souterrain’, to the Abbey Hill (171 ft.), often groundlessly called Colline de Junon, rising to the N.E. of the castle-hill. Here are situated the Monastère du Carmel, a Carmelite nunnery, and the Petit Séminaire, the original mission-house of the White Fathers, now an orphanage presided over by the Sœurs Missionnaires d’Afrique, a sisterhood also instituted by Card. Lavigerie. On the roadside, between these buildings, remains of Roman Houses and Cisterns have been excavated.
On the slope of the Odeon Plateau (181 ft.), the N.E. continuation of the abbey-hill, near the bridge of the electric tramway, and 3 min. to the left of the upper Carthage and Sidi Bou-Saïd road (p. [350]), are relics of the Roman Theatre, including several rows of the seats of the cavea (p. [293]) and parts of the stage-building. After the partial restoration of the theatre a grand performance took place here in 1908 and similar representations will be occasionally repeated.—A few paces to the S.W. of the stage we come to the foundations of a small Roman Temple Circulaire. To the N.E. of the theatre, on the S.E. slope of the plateau, are the more considerable remains of Roman Houses, but these have recently been threatened with demolition.
On the plateau itself, about a hundred paces above the theatre, in the midst of a Punic Necropolis (3rd cent. B.C.), are relics of pavement and several underground passages marking the site of the Odeon, a roofed theatre (theatrum tectum) for concerts, built under the proconsul Vigellius Saturninus (about 212 A.D.). Both the theatre and the odeon are said to have been destroyed by the Vandals in 439.
Outside the old town-wall (p. [345]), about 135 yds. to the N. of the Odeon, and 3 min. to the W. of station Ste. Monique (p. [344]), lies an extensive early-Christian cemetery, in the centre of which lie the ruins of Damous el-Karita (domus caritatis?), a great basilica. This church, 71 by 49 yds., was built at different periods. The oldest basilica with its ten aisles (4th cent.) was orientated to the S.E., and the second, with eight aisles, probably of the Vandal period, was turned towards the S.W. A third building, again with ten aisles, evidenced by its reduced size the decline of Carthage in the Byzantine period, as it consisted only of the old transept converted into a nave and of the four N.W. aisles of the second basilica. Within the oldest nave, in the axis of the first choir-recess, a new apse was erected. The ⟙-shaped building thus resulting, with its very short and many-aisled body, seems to have been the model on which Hassan ibn en-Nôman built the Kairwan mosque, as well as the source of much of its material (comp. pp. [374], 376).
Adjoining the basilica on the N.E. is a vast semicircular Atrium (see p. [316]), belonging to one of the two earlier churches, with remains of the fountain of purification and of a trefoil-shaped memorial-chapel (comp. p. [317]) built into the colonnade. On the S.W. side of the basilica lie the foundations of a Baptistery with an octagonal font.
On the outskirts of a small olive-grove, reached either across the fields from Damous el-Karita (in 8 min.) or to the W. from the Arrêt de la Briqueterie (2 min.; p. [344]), is the Basilica Maiorum, excavated in 1907. In the Vandal period this was the church of the Arian bishop. In the Confessio (10½ by 10¼ ft.), according to an inscription, the martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas (d. 203; see also below and p. [348]) were buried. In the contiguous early-Christian cemetery bishops’ tombs and a cistern have been discovered.
We conclude our visit with a glance at the ruins in the Plain by the sea.
On the slope of the Odeon plateau, between the two roads to Sidi Bou-Saïd, extends a large Punic Necropolis (Nécropole de Douïmès), containing many rock-tombs of the 7–5th centuries. Near it are remains of Punic Pottery Kilns and the foundations of the Basilica of Dermèche, a Byzantine church with double aisles and traces of a baptistery with its octagonal font. A few paces to the N. we come to a Roman Cistern, 85 ft. deep, and vestiges of an Early Christian Monastery (St. Stephen’s?).
Close by are the *Cisterns of Bordj el-Djedid, on a side-branch of the lower road, the largest in the ancient city after those of La Malga, whence they were supplied. They were restored in 1887 and utilized for the new waterworks of Tunis (p. [339]). The building, once dreaded by the natives as the ‘devil’s cavern’ (Douames ech-Chiatinn), forms a rectangle of 147 by 44 yds., with seventeen parallel barrel-vaults of 33 by 8 yds., two filtering basins, and broad side-passages (keeper ½ fr.).
Close to the sea, a little to the S.E., perhaps on the site of the harbour of Kambe (p. [345]), lie the shapeless ruins of the Thermes d’Antonin, or Baths of Dermèche, re-erected under Antoninus Pius about 145, once perhaps the largest at Carthage.
Between the baths and the ruinous Turkish fort Bordj el-Djedid (49 ft.) lie the foundations of the superb Roman Stairs (Escalier Monumental) which once ascended from the quay to the Platea Nova, one of the largest squares in Roman Carthage. Their marble blocks were used in the building of the cathedral in 1884.
An underground Roman building, with a flight of twenty-five steps, to the N.E. of the Bordj el-Djedid, formerly called Fanum Cereris, but now termed Carcer Castrensis, is said to have been the prison of the martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas (see above).—Near it is a Roman Tower resembling a bastion, half in the sea.
On the new road from Bordj el-Djedid to station Ste. Monique (p. [344]) is the ‘Kubba Bent el-Re‘, a number of underground chambers of unknown object, formerly called ‘Baths of Dido’.
A picturesque rock-path skirting the abrupt coast, besides the two roads named on p. [350], leads from Carthage to Sidi Bou-Saïd, about 2¼ M. from the Byrsa. This wealthy and highly picturesque village, almost entirely Mohammedan, with the bey’s summer residence, a fine beach for bathing, and the shrine of the local saint (much frequented on Fridays), lies at the E. end of Cape Carthage or Cartagena (423 ft.; Arabic Râs Sluguia), which has kept its Punic name throughout the ages. From the entrance to the village (station and cab-stand) we ascend straight to a small square with several Arab cafés, then by a path in steps to the left, again to the left, and lastly to the right, to the round lighthouse (Phare; ½–1 fr.). From the top we enjoy an exquisite *View, which is finest by morning light, of the site of Carthage, the whole of the bay stretching to Cape Farina (p. [129]), and Lake Bahira with its mountain background.
From the lighthouse a beautiful path leads past the Poste Optique and behind the vineyards of the Archiepiscopal Palace, to the Arrêt de la Corniche (p. [344]) and (½ hr.) La Marsa (Hôt. de la Régence), a village in the fertile plain between Cape Carthage and Jebel Khaoui (see below), with many country-houses and a bathing beach (dangerous currents). About halfway between the two stations (p. [343]) is the Palais du Bey, where the present prince (p. [323]) usually resides. (Adm. to the stables only, containing the state-carriages; fee 1 fr.)
To the N.W. of La Marsa extends Jebel Khaoui or Kraoui (345 ft.; ascent from La Marsa and back viâ Kamart ca. 2½ hrs.). On the top and the N. slope are many rock-tombs, remains of the Jewish Necropolis of Roman Carthage. Fine view, to the S. to Tunis, and to the N.W. over the Sebkha er-Riana to the Medjerda delta as far as Utica (p. [353]). On the N. side of the hill, on the reddish Cape Kamart, lies the picturesque, palm-girt village of Kamart, with the ruined Bordj Ben-Aïed.