TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 195 



Exj^editlon from the Lake Tchad to the Upper Nile. By Dr. G. Nachtigall. 



0)1 the Turcoman Frontier of Persia. By Capt. the Hon. G. Napier. 



Exploration of the Aures Mountains. 

 By Lieut. -Colonel E. L. Platfaie, H.B.M. Consul- General in Algeria. 



This part of Algeria lias probably never before been explored by an English 

 traveller, although lying close to the ordinary diligence-route between Constantino, 

 or rather between Batna and Bisla'a. 



Ptolemy places here his Audon. Procopius and other geographers speak of it as 

 Aurasion or 3Ions Aurasius ; but these hardly include the entire district now known 

 as the Aiu-es Mountains, which may roughly be said to occupy the space between 

 Batna and Biskra, eastwards towards the Tunisian frontier. 



The inhabitants of this region are called Chawi, and are a branch of the Berber 

 nation, to which the Kabyles also belong. 



Colonel Playfair here ti-aced the early history of this part of Numidia, and 

 showed how one war of conquest after another had passed over it, and always with 

 the same effect ; the conquerors in their turn became the conquered, and were 

 driven for safety to the mountains. Thus the Romans, when driven out by the 

 Vandals, the Vandals after their defeat by the Byzantines under Behsai-ius, and 

 the Byzantines when finally conquered by the Mahommedans — all sought and found 

 a refuge in the Aures Mountains, where they have left on the Chawi the imprint 

 of their physical and moral character which foui-teen centuries have not been able 

 to obliterate. Light hair and blue eyes are frequently met with, and the average 

 of female beauty is even higher than it is in England. 



They observe the 25th of December as a feast, under the name oiMoolid, or the 

 birth, and keep three days' festival at springtime and harvest. Their language is 

 full of Latin words ; and they use the ordinary solar instead of the Mohammedan 

 limar year, the names of the months being almost identical with our own. 



The Aures range is a series of mountains rxmning roughly parallel from N.E. to 

 S.W., between which flow considerable rivers, of which advantage is taken with 

 great skill to irrigate the valleys between them. 



The great body of the drainage is from the southern side, where the rivers, after 

 losing a part of their volume in irrigation, flow into the great marshy basin of 

 Melghir. 



The most important of these is the Oued Abdi, the hills on either side of which 

 terminate in the two highest peaks in Algeria, Djebel Chellia on the left and 

 Djebel Mahmel on the right ; the former 7611 feet high, the latter scarcely lower. 



In the_ plains and valleys considerable quantities of cereals are produced, and 

 fruit cultivated to a gi-eat extent. 



The inhabitants, unlike the Arabs, dwell in stone houses ; the villages are perched 

 high up on the sides of the hills, at short distances apart on both sides of the 

 river ; and the houses are generally so disposed that the roof of one is on a level 

 with the floor of that above it, to which it actually forms a terrace. 



The forests in the Am-es are very valuable, and have hardly yet been worked ; 

 they consist of cedar, oak, juniper, Aleppo pine, &c. ; but it is sail to obsen-e here, 

 as almost everywhere else in Algeria, the scarcity of young trees, which are de- 

 stEoyed by the sheep and goats almost as soon as the seed germinates, and the 

 destruction of the old ones by colonies of processional caterpillars, which estabhsh 

 their nests in the upper branches, and destroy all vegetable life as their ravages 

 descend. 



The mineral wealth of the Aures is also very gi-eat, though hardly as yet more 

 than suspected ; in some places abundant indices of copper, lead, and iron were 

 met with, and in one place what will no doubt prove a valuable mine of mercury 

 and lead. 



One can hardly ride a mile in the Aures without meeting Roman remains of 



