FOOTNOTES:
[16]Procop., Wars of the Vandals, trans. Sir Henry Holcroft, book ii. c. vi.
[17]Carette, Algérie. L’Univers, 1856, p. 16.
CHAPTER IV.
BONE TO GUELMA — RUINS OF ANNOUNA — HAMMAM MESKOUTIN — ROKNIA — CAVE OF DJEBEL THAYA— MAHADJIBA — THE SOUMAH.
We left Bone on April 13, for Guelma. It is no part of my plan to take the reader over beaten paths and well-known ground—the guide-books will tell him all he wants to know regarding these—but I cannot resist asking him to accompany me in several excursions we made in parts of the country quite unknown to the English traveller, and of which he will find no trace in ‘Murray.’
Our first resting-place was Guelma, and here I must acknowledge with gratitude the extreme kindness I have ever received from General Chanzy, Governor-General of Algeria, during my numerous wanderings in the colony. His letters of recommendation to the civil and military authorities have always ensured me a most distinguished reception, and have enabled me to visit places, which would have been very difficult of access to the simple traveller. I have described Guelma on a former occasion;[18] the only object of interest, which I had not noticed before and which M. Daly seized upon with delight, was a Roman tombstone in the square facing the hotel. It was that of a young man twenty-five years of age, who too confidently hoped that his wife would have rested beside him. The work is rude in point of art, but extremely beautiful in conception. It is a monolith of rose-coloured marble, square in plan, consisting of a pedestal with cornice, plinth and base, supporting a crowning part rising on the same plan, terminating in an architectural feature which has now disappeared. On the principal façade the top piece bears a circular wreath enclosing two portrait busts, in relief, that of the man only being completed, the features of the woman are not chiselled. The plinth has a garland suspended from the cornice, below which the surface is divided vertically for two inscriptions; that of the man only is filled up.
Diis Manibus Sacrum.
Fl. Nævilla Vixit Annis viginti novem diebus quindecim.