The train crosses the Oued Tindja, the sinuous effluent of Lake Ichkeul, and rounds the marshy W. bank of Lake Bizerta. 55½ M. Sidi-Ahmed, opposite Djezira el-Kebira, the largest island in the lake.
59 M. La Pêcherie, on the Goulet, a narrow arm of the sea to the N., which, with the new harbour-canal (p. [353]), connects the dockyard with the open sea. On the small Baie Ponty, now used as a torpedo-boat station, rise the Arsenal de la Défense-Mobile and the handsome Amirauté.
A road leads to the S. from the station through olive-woods to (½ M.) the Barrage des Pêcheries, two fish-dams about 1000 yds. long, adjoining the S.W. end of the Goulet (here 55 yds. across), where the fish descending from the lakes to spawn in the sea are caught in great numbers. The yield, a few years ago ca. 580 tons, but now much reduced, is sent to Tunis and Marseilles.
We pass the Baie de Sebra, the inner harbour of Bizerta, as yet little used, and the Artillery Arsenal, intersect the new S. wall of the town and the garden-suburb of Bijouville, and reach the station of (61 M.) Bizerta, on the harbour-canal.
Bizerta.—Railway Restaurant.—Hotels (comp. p. [324]). *Grand-Hotel, Place d’Europe, in an open site near the station, R. 3–6, B. 1, déj. 3, D. 3½, pens. 10–12, omn. ½ fr.; Hôt. de la Paix, Hôt. de France, etc.—Cab. Drive 30, for 3 pers. 40, with pair 50 c.; hour 1–1¼ or 1½–2 fr.; ½ day (6 hrs.) 4, 5, or 7 fr.; whole day (12 hrs.) 6, 7, 12, or 14 fr.
British Vice-Consul, Hon. T. Bourke, Rue de Provence.
Bizerta, Fr. Bizerte, Arabic Bent-Zert (pop. 17,300, of whom 9500 are Moslems, 5100 Italians and Maltese), a town strongly garrisoned with 7000 men, the ancient Hippo Diarrhytus (Zarytus), was one of the earliest Phœnician settlements on the Tunisian coast. It lies on the W. shore of the Bay of Bizerta, between a range of hills on the N.W., culminating in Jebel Kebir (900 ft.), and a strip of land (once bounding the Bizerta Lake, and also fortified), to the S.E., beyond the harbour-canal.
The old town, to which many Moors flocked after the fall of Granada (p. [75]), and which was occupied for a short time by Charles V. on his way back from Tunis in 1535 (p. [323]) and was to a great extent destroyed by a Venetian fleet in 1785, rises on the hill-side between the ruined Kasba and the Fort d’Espagne, both originally built by the Spaniards. The Old Harbour, unimportant in ancient times, became in the 16th cent. a favourite haunt of pirates, but is now used by fishing-boats only. Of the Old Harbour Canal, completely choked up with the mud of centuries, the mouth alone now exists. The new town, with its busy market (Tues. and Thurs.), is still in embryo.
The Avant-Port, 215 acres in area, constructed by the Compagnie du Port de Bizerte in 1890–5, is sheltered by two piers, the Jetée du Nord (1337 yds. long) and the Jetée du Sud (1041 yds.), and by a new mole or breakwater (670 yds.). The commercial harbour consists of the New Harbour Canal, 1 M. long, 263 yds. broad, and 33 ft. deep, the entrance to the Goulet (p. [352]), and also of the Baie de Sebra (p. [352]). Two steam-ferries (bacs à vapeur; passage free) cross to the N.E. bank of the canal, where there are large coal-stores near the village of Zarzouna.
The High Road from Tunis to (37½ M.) Bizerta diverges to the N., between the Bardo (p. [339]) and Kassar-Saïd (p. [342]), from the road connecting Tebourba with Medjez el-Bab (p. [328]), intersects the Roman *Aqueduct of Carthage (p. [348]), which was here restored in the 16th cent., and ascends through olive-woods to the saddle (269 ft.) between the hills of Ariana (p. [338]), on the right, and Jebel Ahmar (1060 ft.), on the left.