Here I met, to my great astonishment, a tribe, who, if I cannot say they were fair like English, were of a shade lighter than that of the inhabitants of any country to the southward of Britain. Their hair also was red, and their eyes blue. They are a savage and independent people; it required address to approach them with safety, which, however, I accomplished, (the particulars would take too much room for this place), was well received, and at perfect liberty to do whatever I pleased. This tribe is called Neardie. Each of the tribe, in the middle between their eyes, has a Greek cross marked with antimony. They are Kabyles. Though living in tribes, they have among the mountains huts, built with mud and straw, which they call Dashkras, whereas the Arabs live in tents on the plains. I imagine these to be a remnant of Vandals. Procopius[20] mentions a defeat of an army of this nation here, after a desperate resistance, a remnant of which may be supposed to have maintained themselves in these mountains. They with great pleasure confessed their ancestors had been Christians, and seemed to rejoice much more in that relation than in any connection with the Moors, with whom they live in perpetual war: they pay no taxes to the Bey, but live in constant defiance of him.
As this is the Mons Audus of Ptolemy, here too must be fixed his Lambesa[21], or Lambesentium Colonia, which, by a hundred Latin inscriptions remaining on the spot, it is attested to have been. It is now called Tezzoute: the ruins of the city are very extensive. There are seven of the gates still standing, and great pieces of the walls solidly built with square masonry without lime. The buildings remaining are of very different ages, from Adrian to Aurelian, nay even to Maximin. One building only, supported by columns of the Corinthian order, was in good taste; what its use was I know not. The drawing of this is in the King’s collection. It was certainly designed for some military purpose, by the size of the gates; I should suspect a stable for elephants, or a repository for catapulta, or other large military machines, though there are no traces left upon the walls indicating either. Upon the key-stone of the arch of the principal gate there is a basso-relievo of the standard of a legion, and upon it an inscription, Legio tertia Augusta, which legion, we know from history, was quartered here. Dr Shaw[22] says, that there is here a neat, round, Corinthian temple, called Cubb el Arrousah, the Cupola or Dome of the Bride or Spouse. Such a building does exist, but it is by no means of a good taste, nor of the Corinthian order; but of a long disproportioned Doric, of the time of Aurelian, and does not merit the attention of any architect. Dr Shaw never was so far south as Jibbel Aurez, so could only say this from report.
From Jibbel Aurez nothing occurred in the style of architecture that was material. Hydra remained on the left hand. I came to Cassareen, the ancient Colonia Scillitana[23], where I suffered something both from hunger and from fear. The country was more rugged and broken than any we had yet seen, and withal less fruitful and inhabited. The Moors of these parts are a rebellious tribe, called Nememshah, who had fled from their ordinary obligation of attending the Bey, and had declared themselves on the part of the rebel-moors, the Henneishah.
My intentions now were to reach Feriana, the Thala[24] of the ancients, where I expected considerable subjects for study; but in this I was disappointed, and being on the frontier, and in dangerous times, when several armies were in the field, I thought it better to steer my course eastward, and avoid the theatre of war.
Journeying east, I came to Spaitla[25], and again got into the kingdom of Tunis. Spaitla is a corruption of Suffetula[26], which was probably its ancient name before it became a Roman colony; so called from Suffetes, a magistrature in all the countries dependent upon Carthage. Spaitla has many inscriptions, and very extensive and elegant remains. There are three temples, two of them Corinthian, and one of the Composite order; a great part of them is entire. A beautiful and perfect capital of the Composite order, the only perfect one that now exists, is designed, in all its parts, in a very large size; and, with the detail of the rest of the ruin, is a precious monument of what that order was, now in the collection of the King.
Doctor Shaw, struck with the magnificence of Spaitla, has attempted something like the three temples, in a stile much like what one would expect from an ordinary carpenter, or mason. I hope I have done them more justice, and I recommend the study of the Composite capital, as of the Corinthian capital at Dugga, to those who really wish to know the taste with which these two orders were executed in the time of the Antonines.
The Welled Omran, a lawless, plundering tribe, inquieted me much in the eight days I staid at Spaitla. It was a fair match between coward and coward. With my company, I was inclosed in a square in which the three temples stood, where there yet remained a precinct of high walls. These plunderers would have come in to me, but were afraid of my fire-arms; and I would have run away from them, had I not been afraid of meeting their horse in the plain. I was almost starved to death, when I was relieved by the arrival of Welled Hassan, and a friendly tribe of Dreeda, that came to my assistance, and brought me, at once, both safety and provision.
From Spaitla I went to Gilma, or Oppidum Chilmanense. There is here a large extent of rubbish and stones, but no distinct trace of any building whatever.
From Gilma I passed to Muchtar, corruptly now so called. Its ancient name is Tucca Terebinthina[27]. Dr Shaw[28] says its modern name is Sbeeba, but no such name is known here. I might have passed more directly from Spaitla southward, but a large chain of mountains, to whose inhabitants I had no recommendation, made me prefer the safer and plainer road by Gilma. At Tucca Terebinthina are two triumphal arches, the largest of which I suppose equal in taste, execution, and mass, to any thing now existing in the world. The lesser is more simple, but very elegant. They are both, with all the particulars of their parts, not yet engraved, but still in my collection.
From Muchtar, or Tucca Terebinthina, we came to Kisser[29], which Dr Shaw conjectures to have been the Colonia Assuras of the ancients, by this it should seem he had not been there; for there is an inscription upon a triumphal arch of very good taste, now standing, and many others to be met with up and down, which confirms beyond doubt his conjecture to be a just one. There is, besides this, a small square temple, upon which are carved several instruments of sacrifice, which are very curious, but the execution of these is much inferior to the design. It stands on the declivity of a hill, above a large fertile plain, still called the Plain of Surse, which is probably a corruption of its ancient name Assuras.