Travels in the footsteps of Bruce in Algeria and Tunis

by Sir R. Lambert Playfair

The contract price was 7,800,000fr., but the work certainly cost the Bey nearly 13,000,000fr.; and, useful as it certainly is, there is no doubt that it was the commencement of his financial difficulties.

Plate X.

J. LEITCH &. C^o. Sc.

AQUEDUCT OF CARTHAGE

FAC SIMILE OF FINISHED DRAWING IN INDIAN INK BY BRUCE (AND BALUGANI?)

HENRY S. KING C^o. LONDON.

The original aqueduct started from two springs, those of Zaghouan and Djougar; and to within sixteen miles of the present city of Tunis—namely, to the south side of the plain of the Catada—it simply followed the general slope of the ground without being raised on arches. From this point, right across that plain—a distance of three Roman, or two-and-a-half English miles—with slight intermissions, owing to the rise in the ground, and so on to the terminal reservoir at the modern village of Mäalika, it was carried over a superb series of arches—sometimes, indeed, over a double tier. The total length of the aqueduct was sixty-one Roman miles, or 98,897 yards, including the branch from Mons Zuccharus, which measured twenty-two miles, or 36,803 yards; and it was estimated to have conveyed 32,000,000 litres (upwards of 7,000,000 gallons) of water a day, or eighty-one gallons per second, for the supply of Carthage and the intermediate country.

The greatest difference is perceptible in the style of construction, owing to the frequent restorations which have taken place. The oldest and most beautiful portions are of finely-cut stone, each course having a height of twenty inches; the stones are bossed, with a squared channel worked at the joints, and the voussoirs are single stones reaching quite to the bottom of the specus, in which there exist, at intervals all along its course, circular manholes, both to admit air and to permit the repair and cleansing of the channel.

Here and there on the faces of the piers may be seen stones projecting from the surface, which it was the custom of the Romans to leave, in order to support the scaffolding used in reparation. The impost of each arch is a course of masonry of the same height as the other courses, but rounded to a semicircular profile, and projecting half its diameter from the face of the pier; it is, in other words, a bead roll. The voussoirs are stepped on the extrados. The cut-stone masonry never extends higher than two courses above the voussoirs, the remaining height being of rubble masonry or concrete.