xx INTRODUCTION. 



me to come on more, that he might have an opportunity of 

 fhewing me ftill more attention and politenefs. 



My mind being now full of more agreeable ideas than 

 what had for fome time paft occupied it, I failed in a fmall 

 veffel from Port Mahon, and, having a fair wind, in a fhort 

 time made the coaft of Africa, at a cape, or headland, called 

 Ras el Hamra *, and landed at Bona, a confiderable town, the 

 ancient Aphrodifium f, built from the ruins of Hippo Re- 

 gius (, from which it is only two miles diftant. It {lands on 

 a large plain, part of which feems to have been once over- 

 flowed by the fea. Its trade confifts now in the exporta- 

 tion of wheat, when, in plentiful years, that trade is per- 

 mitted by the government of Algiers. I had a delightful 

 voyage clofe down the coaft, and palled the fmall ifland 

 Tabarca §, lately a fortification of the Genoefe, now in the 

 hands of the regency of Tunis, who took it by furprife, and 

 made all the inhabitants flaves. The ifland is famous for 

 a coral fiiTiery, and along the coaft are immenfe forefts of 

 large beautiful oaks, more than fuflicient to fupply the ne- 

 ceflities of all the maritime powers in the Levant, if the qua- 

 lity of the wood be but equal to the fize and beauty of the 

 tree. 



From Tabarca I failed and anchored at Biferta, the Hippo- 

 zaritus || of antiquity, and thence went to pay a vifit to 

 Utica, out of refpect to the memory of Cato, without having 

 fanguine expectations of meeting any thing remarkable 



there, 



* Hippo. Reg. from Ptol. Geog. lib. iv. p. 109. -j- Hippo. Reg. id. ib. 



t Aphrodifium. id. ib. § Thabarca, id. ib. || Plin. Ep. xxxiii. 1, 9. 



