Malaga is prettily well fortifyed for fear of surprise from the Moors; it hath two Castles—one upon the side of a hill, and the other at the bottom of it on the East side of the Town; and there is a communication between them both, made by two walls reaching from one to the other; but there appears a higher place, which, if it was possest and planted with canon, could command them both. There is also an Arsenal, but what store of armes and warlike provisions were in either this or them I know not, for we were told we should not be permitted to se them, and therefore never attempted it. It is a part where most vessels going to or coming from the Levant put in. There is a great trade driven there; it is famous for Almonds, Raisins, Oile, great olives, and rich Sack. The grapes which make the Raisin are very fat and fleshy, affording nothing near so much juyce as those that make the Sack, and therefore they are the sooner dry’d by the Sun. We tasted their old wines in many places, and to my palate they seem’d all much more fulsome and sweet than our old Malagas in England, which have had the advantage of the Sea to refine and harden them. We brought good store of the best we could find on board, with plenty of all sorts of fruits and fresh provisions.
That night, Saturday, Oct. 15, about 11 o’clock, we weigh’d Anchor, and Capt. Pool, in another man of warre, came out of port with us. I think he was in the Guernsey frigot. Next day the Admiral, Vice-Admiral, and several Commanders came on board and din’d with us.
Oct. 27 we dined on board the Martin, and our Admiral gave us new orders in case we should be engaged to fight with any Enemies, and that evening we discouered thre ships with white ensigns, which proved French, of Monsieur Martells Squadron, lying about Tunis and Tripoly. The French Admiral himself was in one.
Oct. 29, Saturday, we lay on the South end of Sardinia, with Epulo[197] N.E. b. N., 10 or 12 miles distant from us. The Admiral that Evening call’d a Council of all our Commanders, and told them he had orders from the Duke of York to go to Tunis and stay some time there; That he had a letter for the King of Tunis from our King about continuing our league and peace with him, For at that time we had peace with Tunis, but war with Argieres; the French on the contrary had peace with Argieres and war with Tunis, and we had a current report that Sir Tho. Allen and Monsieur Martel, the French Admiral, had agreed to let English ships of Merchandize go freely into Tunis, and French Merchant Ships into Argieres, provided they caryed no provisions, or ammunition, or stores for war. We had met thre French men of war, and we understood two more lay near Tunis to block up that Port. From all this arose a grand dispute amongst the commanders, whether it was safe for us to go into Tunis or not. Whether we should hazard such a prize as all our Merchant ships were. It was urged that there might be more French ships there than we knew of, and it was uncertain what they might do with us. That the Tunesas might break with us upon such an opportunity as this, and seize our ships and Merchandize. Some dowbted that the Admiral had no such order, and it was thought when we dined on board the Martin (who was bound for Tunis) that the Captain of her contracted with our Admiral to se him safe in, and so all was mere pretence and fiction. Some question’d whether the Admiral could command us to attend him; others, whether by their Charter party with the Turkey company they were not obliged to ply their voyage and accompany the convoy no farther than it consisted with their safety. It was asked who could justify the agreement between Sir Tho. Allen and Monsieur Martel? and many such quæres and difficulties were banded to and fro; but at last the Admiral positively resolved to stand by his order, and our Capt. and all the Commanders of our Turkey ships agreed to go in with him except Capt. Partridge, who was as stifly set against it; and, returning on board his own ship, he divulged the whole businesse amongst his passengers, adding all the aggravations of our danger, and suggesting all the arguments of Fear he could to them. Presently came many on board us sorely frighted, and zealously opposed our going in, insomuch as the two new Treasurers of the Turkey Company (then going out, one to Smyrna, and the other to Aleppo) threatened to enter into a protestation with Capt. Partridge against the Admiral’s proceedings, and courted us to joyn with them. We civilly denyed it, telling them that we trusted in the known prudence and careful conduct of our own Captain, and should cheerfully go along with him wherever he caryed us. However, all this while these disputes were kept, as much as possible, from the common seamen, for fear there should have arose a Faction among them likewise; yet secretly all commanders were thinking of some preparation against the worst, and that night we shaped our course for Tunis, steering S.E. ½ S. Next morning, Oct. 30, about nine o’clock, we spied the two Frenchmen of war, just upon the Coast of Africk, as we thought, setting out of Porto Farina; they stood towards us a little, then went westerly, and never came near us by 7 or 8 leagues. We bore away directly for Tunis, and upon this all the rest of our ships in company went along with us; and that afternoon at 2 o’clock we got under Cape Carthage, where all the Commanders went on board the Admiral, and soon were agreed and well pleased; and at 3 we came all to anchor before Tunis castle, in 4 and 5 fathom water, the Cape lying N.N.E., the Castle W. b. S.
Capt. 5.—Our Stay at Tunis and Carthage.
That night we went on shoar for water, but were not then permitted to have any; yet we might freely ramble upon the shoare. The Castle seems very strong to the Sea. We were not suffer’d to view the other side to the Land. By the Castle they have several pools or ponds of standing water, one of which (as we were told) can, at pleasure, have communication with the sea. These are full of fish. We bought good store of Mullet, and there we had one true Bream, large and very fat. We had them very cheap, as we thought, but our Interpreter counted them dear. There were several sorts of fruit brought to us—excellent melons, Pomegranates, Limes, and salating herbes, with which we stock’t ourselves, and so came again on board. Next morning (Oct. 31) we went on shoar at the watering-place, where were come down many country people with Eggs, Hens, Sheep, Goats, Bullocks, milk, Pompions, Fish, Pigeons, citrons, Dates, Oranges, Lemons, and Limes (which are a sort of hedge or crab Lemmons), with whose juice our Seamen make their punch. There was also store of bread to be bought. They make some of it of pure good wheat, most of it of millet, some of what we call Turkish wheat (maize), much of barley flour, and lighten it with leaven of salt and sower’d honey and oil, which give it a brackish taste, yet it is not unpleasant whilst it is new. They bake it flat, with a rising in the middle like a coppled[198] cake. Every ship stored themselves from hence with what they wanted of sea provisions. Our Capt. caried a net on shoar, which by all our Seamen was called a Sain (I suppose from σαγλιόν, Sagena, Math. xiii, 47). It was a sort of drag net. Having obtained leave, we turned it twice or thrice in the sea, but we catch’t few fish, and those very small ones. They wer Mullet, Barboni, and our common plaice, and a little sort of what we call Maids. I hang’d a little Barboni up in my cabin, and it gave forth a little thin light, like that of rotten wood, for many nights together; and by degrees, as it grew dryer, it at last vanish’t. I did not then take notice of the change of colour in them (whilst they are dying) which Pliny[199] mentions, and for admiring of which Seneca[200] rebukes and flouts at some Romish gluttons.
Some of our Captaines and Passengers with me hired a couple of their Janisaryes, or rather souldjers, to be our Guides, and away we went together to see the Ruines of Carthage, which reach quite from the watering-place near the Castle up beyond Cape Carthage, agreable to what we read in Polybius,[201] near upon ten miles as we guest, but the guides said it was fifteen, which may seem probable enough, for Strabo[202] makes the old City only to have been in compasse thre hundred and sixty stadia, which is five and fourty miles, at eight stadia to a mile; yet Livy[203] makes it not much above half as much. And the ground lay in hills and dales, so as we could by no means make any tolerable judgement. Of from the shore, for a mile together, the Land was then sown with Barley, but all that ground is so full of small rubbish as a man can hardly set his foot upon cleer Earth; Jam seges est ubi magna stetit Carthago. We went first by the sea side, where they make Salt by letting in the Sea Water in Summer into broad shallow flats, and, after the Sun hath exhaled the moisture, the Salt remains in great panes behind. We saw great quantities of it here and there heapt up, which they told us was for the Grand Signor. Whether they have the art to refine it, or whether they send this coarse (bay) salt (as we call it) to him, I did not think to enquire. However, I find in Pliny[204] that, of old, the Africans made great quantities of salt upon this coast, about Utica, now call’d Biserta, which is not above thirty miles from hence to the west, just on the other side the River Bograda. These men may as well now be said to make Hills of salt as those were then, and I believe it is altogether as dry and hard as that was. Perhaps some of that which we cal’d common salt at Constantinople came from hence. We were informed by our Guides, who spoke broken Italian and lingua Franca (which is bastard Spanish, mixt with words of most trading nations), that from Cape Carthage to the Castle was once Terra firma, full of rubbish as the rest now is, but by an Earthquake it sunk down. It is very likely, or perhaps the foundations of the city were laid in the Sea, for we saw from the shore many broken pieces of walls and ruines of buildings under water; and our Seamen, in Haling the sain, found the bottome very foul ground a good way from the Shore into the Sea. Along by the sea side remain at land many, many Vaults, some cover’d in part, some all over, some quite open. In summer, people come down from several places, and keep shop here. The hardnesse of the mortar in these and other remains is very remarkable; a stone will very hardly break it, yet it is not fine, but the sand, or red earth, intermixt, is very grosse, and full of small pebbles. One Vault, a little distant from the shore, seem’d to go far under the ground. We could see in about a furlong, but did not go in far because we wanted lights. It was crosse-arched to a row of pillars in the middle. I fancy’d it might have been part of the stables underground for Elephants, which Strabo[205] saies went in the neck, or Isthmus, from Sea to Sea, sixty stadia, or about seven miles. We found, now, great quantities of bones of Foules and other little creatures in it, and it smelt strong, so as we believed it now to be a receptacle or den for foxes or wolves, or such beasts of prey.
We went thence up from the sea towards the middle of the Ruines. All the way there remaines pieces of walls and buildings, but not one pillar or stone of any note. There lye heaps of rubbish so thick that it is impossible to plough in that part, unlesse they removed it, which would be at most as tedious a piece of work as to rebuild it. There was amongst the rubbish much Alabaster, Marble of all sorts (white, Black, Red, streaked red and white, white and black, and the like), a sort of red stone, porish, but much harder then brick. We observed not one Flint, no sort of Free-stone, very little brick, onely in one side going up to Cape Carthage all was brick, and nothing else, but not one whole one nor half one was to be found. The earth at a distance shews red with the crumbled and scatter’d pieces. There was also much white brick, extream hard. In one place we found small pieces of Porphyry, and some thin flat bits (like broken pavements) of blackish marble spotted with green, like a sort of what we call serpentine stone. I am more particular in this point, that we may from hence have some guesse at the Beauty and Majesty of this City when it was standing in its Glory, for if our houses in London shew so well, being all built with plain brick, what would they have done had they been all of various Marble?
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