THE HOME OF THE TROGLODYTES. 429 
have been able to make some researches,) contains in its interior court 
fagades, completely provided with walls where deep vaulted chambers 
open on two elevations. The dwelling of the chief, the stables, and the 
eattle-sheds formerly occupied the ground floor. The souks or store- 
rooms were constructed in stories, to climb to which one clings to large 
stones jutting out from the wall. 
If the facade presents an ornamentation of stones, nothing is seen in 
the interior but calcareous rock and a sort of loam, still showing the 
ridges made by the irregular strokes of the pick-axe of the ancient 
builder. Neither stone, wood, nor iron appears, only the soil of a red- 
dish or yellowish gray, dry and hard, in which rare snail shells are found 
here and there. Ifa ring, upon which to hang a lamp or to which to 
fasten a horse’s halter is required, these shells are utilized, being placed 
in the most convenient and conspicuous point in the room or stable. 
Niches take the place of cupboards, and benches along the side wall 
serve as beds and chairs. 
These apartments, like all the others which we saw among the Troglo- 
dytes, are quite regularly vaulted, although the arches are keel-shaped, 
the sides being slightly curved and the extremities perceptibly drawn 
together. We ave reminded of an old boat, turned upside down, keel 
in air, lying upon the sea-shore, under which the poor gatherer or waif 
may find a shelter. 
In thus recognizing nautical forms in the most essential lines of the 
architecture of the Troglodytes, | suddenly recollect the rustic habi- 
tations (mapalia) of which Sallust speaks in the eighteenth chapter 
of his classical work on the Jugurthan war. In summing up the tra- 
ditions of the Province, which he governed, and which he must have 
thoroughly known, he mentions the death of Hercules, and the disper- 
sion of his army composed of various nations. Medes, Persians, Arme- 
nians crossed over to Africa in their ships and occupied the seacoast. 
The Persians are the most remote from the ocean, the most eastern, 
and consequently occupy that region adjoining Syria; and since they 
do not find building material upon this inhospitable shore, and the 
vastness of the sea and ignorance of the language of their neighbors 
deprive them of the means of procuring such material by purchase or 
exchange, they have built for themselves shelters out of the hulls of 
their ships; and Sallust adds that the buildings of their descendants, 
called mapalia, oblong constructions with curved sides, resemble the 
keels of ships, the abodes of their ancestors. 
Not so very long ago, when the ethnography of Africa was practi- 
cally unknown, an attempt was made to explain the survivals indicated 
by the Roman historian by likening the mapalia which he describes to 
the tents of the wandering tribes of the lofty tablelands of the Atlas. 
In history, as in government, the Berber and the Arab are confounded, 
to the great prejudice of our African policy, and in the same manner 
the commentators of Sallust ignored the essential differences which 
