Proceedings of the expedition to explore the northern coast of Africa, from Tripoly eastward

by Frederick William Beechey; H. W. Beechey

There is another building which stands in a conspicuous position on the same range of hills where the Doctor’s tower is situated, and to which it is difficult to assign any use, unless we suppose it to have been a sepulchral or other monument, built as a conspicuous object merely. It occupies a square of about twenty feet, and could have been little more at any time than a mass of solid stone and cement, the space which is left in the centre being not more than four or five feet square, and without any apparent communication with the exterior. The height of the whole building appears to have been about thirty feet, but little more than the basement upon which it has been raised now remains; and this estimation is made from a computation of the quantity of fallen materials, and from the probable proportion of the height with the breadth given. The basement itself is six feet in height, and composed of well-shaped stones, some of which are five feet long, and from twelve to sixteen inches in height and thickness: above this no more than three feet of the superstructure now remain in any part; but the base of a pilaster, which still appears in one of the angles, proves that the exterior at least has been constructed with some attention to architectural ornament. The outer part only of this structure is built, the whole of the interior, with the exception of the space mentioned in the centre, having been filled up with unshaped stones deeply bedded in cement, the proportion of which is much greater than that of the rubble thrown into it.

Were it not that the base of the remaining pilaster appears to be a Saracenic imitation of the Greek, we should be disposed to allow a greater antiquity to the building in question than it seems to us from this circumstance to possess: for the stones employed in it are of good size, very regularly placed, and well finished, and the cement which has been used is excellent. Attached to this tower, for such it may be called, although it never could have been employed for military purposes, are the remains of a subterranean storehouse for grain, the roof of which is raised about a foot from the ground above it and composed of cement: between this and the tower there is a sort of well, which appears to be the entrance to the storehouse, but which was too much encumbered with rubbish to allow of our descending into it. Some traces of walls attached to the roof of the storehouse may be seen in the ground-plan annexed, but we could not determine whether either these, or the souterrain itself, were originally attached to the building.

No architectural remains could be perceived among the fallen ruins of the tower by which we might have been enabled to fix the time of its erection with more precision; and the base of the pilaster which we have mentioned at the angle of the building, is the only evidence of this nature which we could obtain.

To us this structure appears to be Saracenic; but if others should be disposed to think differently, and to adopt it as the tower of Euphrantas, the circumstance of its having (at least in our opinion) been built as an object merely without any other apparent use, might perhaps be considered by some persons, to favour the idea; and we are a little surprised that Signor Della Cella did not adopt it in preference to the building which he has pointed out.

With regard to the columns with the illegible inscriptions, which the Doctor supposes to have been boundaries; we know of no other objects which will at all answer to his description but those at Hámed Garoosh; and our guides, as well as the Arabs of the place, were obstinate in persisting that there were no others of any kind.

The columns at this place are “tolerably high,” and they are also quadrangular, and have the advantage of a pedestal, as the Doctor has remarked of his boundary stones. But then they are not of sandstone, nor of any stone at all, that is, not of any blocks of stone, but merely of small irregular fragments of stone, put together with cement, with which they are cased, and which gives them the appearance at a little distance of being formed of a single piece. Then, instead of one, there are two upon one pedestal, and unless we suppose that the Doctor saw them in one direction only, when the two were in one, it is not easy to account for this difference between his description and the reality. The characters which are upon them do certainly coincide with those mentioned by Signor Della Cella, so far as the circumstance of their being wholly illegible is concerned; for they consist altogether of unmeaning scrawls, and of some of those marks which are used by the Arabs to distinguish their particular tribes[7], and have been scratched for the amusement of those who may from time to time have stopped to rest themselves in the shade which the pillars afforded.

It will be seen by the drawing of them, that these pillars are of different sizes, although they may, perhaps, have been once of equal height; and we will not venture to hazard any conjecture with regard to the purpose for which they may have been erected: they cannot be seen from the sea-shore, or the lower road, although they are but a short distance from both; for notwithstanding they are placed on a ridge of hills, they are so situated in the hollow in which they stand, as to be indistinguishable from below. In rejecting, however, the “torre sormontata da una cupola” as the boundary established in the time of the Ptolemies, we may, perhaps, at the same time, dispense with the columns which Signor Della Cella has imagined to regulate the division; and it will not in that case be of any great importance whether the square pillars at Hamed Garoosh be or be not the same as those which the Doctor has mentioned. For our own part we see no building whatever in this neighbourhood, which answers to our idea of the tower of Euphrantas, either with regard to its nature or position; and as we find other buildings to the eastward of Zaffran which seem to us better calculated for boundary towers, we are content to take a more extended sense of the term employed by Strabo (συνεχης) than Signor Della Cella thinks it prudent to adopt.

We cannot take our leave of Zaffran without noticing the very singular and formidable appearance of the beach at this place and its neighbourhood; and had we not ourselves beheld the extraordinary scene which it presented, we should scarcely have believed it possible that the force of the sea could, under any circumstances, have raised the large blocks of stone which are piled up on this part of the coast[8]. The occasional regularity in which these are heaped one above another, induced us, on the first view of them, to imagine that they had been intentionally placed there for the purpose of a breakwater; but the long extent of the ranges soon proved the improbability of this supposition and the idea was dismissed as heartily as it had been entertained. Heaps of sand and sea-weed are thrown up with these blocks of stone, and the roar and confusion which a moderate gale of wind here occasions, are such as in other places will seldom be found to accompany the most violent weather[9].

The general appearance of Zaffran is however by no means unpleasing, although it is destitute, like the rest of the Syrtis, of the advantages afforded by trees. The monotony of the flat and marshy surface, so predominant in other parts, is here broken by hills which are covered with verdure and overspread with a variety of flowers; some of the valleys are partially cultivated, and the flocks of sheep and goats which are scattered over the higher grounds, together with the tents of the Arabs who inhabit the place, give an appearance of cheerfulness and comfort to the scene which contrast renders doubly agreeable.

The water which is found here, and which is excellent and plentiful, contributes at the same time in no small degree to increase the attractions of the place; and though the claims of Zaffran might be humble, were it placed in a more favoured country, we may venture to affirm that no traveller who reaches it will ever be disposed to analyze too minutely its pretensions to actual beauty.