[108]Perhaps ‘Oppidum Abutucense’ of Pliny, and the ‘Aptucensis’ of Morcelli, Afr. Christ. i. p. 77.
[109]Shaw, p. 153.
[110]Cosmogr. p. 63.
[111]باب القوس
[112]Shaw, p. 185.
CHAPTER XVI.
ES-SABALA — THE MEDJERDA — DRAGONS OF THE ATLAS — BIZERTA — IMMENSE LAND-LOCKED HARBOUR — FISH IN LAKE — DJEBEL ISHKUL — WILD BUFFALOES.
As we had still two days to spare after our return from Zaghouan before we could have an audience with the Bey, we determined to utilise them by a visit to Bizerta. The distance is about the same as our last excursion, and though this journey also can be made in carriages, the road is extremely bad, and after much rain must be quite impracticable.
We left Tunis by the Bab el-Khadhera, passed under the Spanish aqueduct behind the Bardo, the ancient palace of the Beys, and the Kasr Saeed, the present sovereign’s favourite residence, and soon entered a vast olive wood. The trees are extremely ancient, contorted in every possible manner, and seemed actually to have been turned inside out, and cut up into fantastic fretwork. At eight miles from Tunis is a wayside fountain and Arab coffee-shop, called Es-Sabala, near a palace built by the celebrated Saheb et-Tabäa, under Hamouda Pacha, now the property of General Kheir-ed-din. This is the only place in all the Regency of Tunis where we ever saw a plantation of young olive or any other trees, and I examined them with peculiar interest, as I felt sure beforehand that in this country, as in Algeria, the principal cause of its decadence was the destruction of its ancient forests.