These hills are covered with countless numbers of the most interesting megalithic remains. Their variety is considerable, but the most ordinary type is that of a low circular structure, nearly level with the earth at the upper part of its base, and varying in height according to the slope of the hill on the opposite side, from three to eight feet, and containing from four to eight courses of rough dry masonry.
The walls are generally about six feet in thickness, the tombs from sixteen to thirty-three feet in diameter, containing a central chamber of irregular form covered by a large slab of stone. A very small number of these have been opened, but such as have been examined were found to contain human bones, and the body appears to have been doubled up by the disarticulation of the femur, so that the feet touched the skull. A few vessels of rude pottery have been found.
In some places the monuments are close together, in others they are separated by a number of tombs of the ordinary dolmenic type, as if the latter were intended for people of less consideration than those for whom the circular ones were constructed.
Below the south slope of Djebel Kharouba on the Oued el-Ahmer, or Red River, so called from the peculiar tint of the earth on its banks, is the village of Oum el-Ashera, or Mother of Ten, where we passed the night. The distance from Timegad is only nine-and-a-half miles, and occupied three hours.
It is a small and unimportant place, of the usual construction, situated at the mouth of a narrow gorge through which the stream breaks into the plain, but to the east of it is a pleasant turfy plateau, which seems as if it had been made by nature expressly as a camping-ground for those who may come to explore the neighbourhood.
On May 4 our journey also was a short but rather adventurous one. We purposed proceeding only as far as El-Wadhaha, a distance of seven-and-a-half miles, the most convenient place whence to ascend Djebel Chellia. The route was unusually mountainous, a constant succession of thickly wooded hills and valleys. When we left the weather was fine though somewhat showery, but we had not been many minutes on the road before the rain began to descend in torrents. The streams increased so rapidly that retreat was hopeless, and we were never sure that we should be able to continue our road. Si Bou Dhiaf who still accompanied us urged us onwards, but our beasts could not increase their pace. We floundered bravely through mud and water till we reached our halting-place, where fortunately the tents had been sent in advance, and pitched before the storm began. A fire was immediately lighted, not of little pieces of wood but with whole trees, so fierce and blazing, that it dried us even as we stood around it in the rain. All the evening it continued to pour and it was nightfall before our baggage arrived, and we could obtain a change of clothing. The Government mules are not well adapted for difficult mountain travelling. Being shod they are much more inclined to slip on bad stony roads than the native animals, and they have not the same marvellous instinct for picking their steps. There never was an animal so unjustly calumniated as a mule. I know none more sagacious, except perhaps the donkey. A horse may be forced to face anything, he has no self-reliance and trusts entirely to the superior intelligence of his rider; but no power on earth will force an Arab donkey or mule to take a single step in advance against its own conviction, and his instincts as to the safety of a road are always superior to his rider’s opinions. We went over some very difficult roads, but none of our animals left to his own sagacity ever came to grief.
El-Wadhaha is merely a place where the Chawia are in the habit of encamping. There is no village near and the only reason for selecting it is, that there is abundance of wood and water procurable, and it is a convenient place for commencing the ascent of Chellia, which we did early on the following morning. Fortunately the storm of the previous day had passed by, and the day was bright and cool.
Djebel Chellia is the highest peak in Algeria, but, rising as it does from very high ground, it is not nearly so imposing as Djurdjura. There was not a trace of pathway visible, but it was very easy and pleasant riding over its grassy slopes, bare of trees but carpeted with the most exquisite wild flowers, amongst which were yellow tulips, blue pansies, and forget-me-nots, and a lovely little white flower resembling a daisy. We saw many which we had never observed elsewhere, and we deeply regretted every hour of the journey that Dr. Hooker, who had originally intended to join the party, had been prevented from accompanying us.
Nearer the summit we passed through woods and clumps of cedars, in which there were more dead than living trees, some still erect, others torn up by their roots, bearing testimony to the violence of the storms which prevail here in winter. There was no great quantity of snow remaining; in sheltered places we saw banks four feet in depth, and the highest point was covered with it. This is accounted for by the previous rainy season having commenced late: very little snow fell before February, and it is only that of November and December which gets sufficiently frozen to last well into summer. We found the ascent by no means difficult, and hardly ever dismounted from our mules till within a few hundred yards of the top; but, had it been hedged about by all manner of dangers and difficulties, the beauty of the ride up and the glorious panorama from the top would have repaid us for them all.
It might almost be thought that Virgil, if he ever visited Africa at all, had this particular peak in view, when alluding to—