In May, 1866, a hole was drilled by an Artesian sound, which gave indications of an interior cavity, and shortly afterwards an opening was made from the exterior to the interior passage. Entering by this, both the central chamber and the regular door were easily found.
Below the false door, to the E., is a smaller one, giving access to a vaulted chamber, to the right of which was the door of the principal gallery. Above this are rudely sculptured the figures of a lion and a lioness.
From this passage a large gallery, about 6 ft. 7 in. in breadth, by 7 ft. 5 in. in height, is entered by a flight of steps. Along it are niches in the wall, intended to hold lamps. Its total length is 483 feet. This winds round in a spiral direction, gradually approaching the centre, where are two sepulchral vaulted chambers, one 12 ft. 4 in. by 9 ft. 3 in., and the other 12 ft. 4 in. by 9 ft. 7 in., separated from each other by a short passage, and shut off from the winding passage by stone doors, consisting of a single slab capable of being moved up and down by levers like a portcullis.
Julia Cæsarea itself, corresponding to the charming little French town of Cherchel, is situated further on, at a distance of 71 miles from Algiers, and twenty from the nearest station, El-Afroun.
Close to the twenty-second kilometric stone, counting from where the Cherchel road branches off from the main one to Miliana at Bou-Rekika, and at a distance of between six and seven miles from Cherchel, is the subject of Bruce’s second illustration ([Plate III.]), part of the aqueduct which led the waters of the Oued el-Hachem, and the copious springs of Djebel Chennoua into Julia Cæsarea. This consisted of two converging branches, following the contour of the hills as open channels or traversing projecting spurs by means of galleries. In only two places was it necessary to carry the water over valleys on arches; the first was at the place here illustrated, and the second about three miles further on, at the junction of the two branches, where the united waters were carried over the valley of the Oued Billah on a single series of arches, of which five are still entire.
Many piers of the others remain, and the high road now passes between two of them.
Bruce has, as usual, left no names or indication of locality on his drawings of this structure, but its condition at the present day is hardly different from what it was a century ago. And amongst his MSS. I discovered a small scrap of paper containing a memorandum in pencil, which would have removed all doubts on the subject, had any existed.
‘Shershell arches. View is that of the east side. River Hashem. Shenoa on the east. The mountain of Beni Habeeb that seen through the broken arch.’
At this spot a small stream winds through a deep and narrow valley. The aqueduct is carried over this on a triple series of arches, nearly all of which are still entire, with the exception of the gap exhibited in the illustration.
The lower and middle series consisted each of seven arches, of which five are complete, and the upper one had sixteen, of which thirteen remain.