30 
TRAVELS IN NORTHERN AFRICA. 
CHAP. I. 
dark, except where here and there a small stone is pushed out to 
make way for the muzzle of a musket. From this floor is an ascent 
to one, two, or three stories, by means of pieces of stick placed in 
the walls. Each floor consists of branches of trees, most alarmingly 
elastic, and the door of entrance from one to the other is a small 
hole, through which a person has to force himself upwards. All 
these military buildings manifest a noble contempt of architectural 
skill, or neatness. On the side of a small hill near the village are 
caves of some magnitude, from which good millstones are procured. 
At this place we fared as we did the evening before, though the 
Chowse had a most vociferous conversation with the Sheikh before 
he could get any barley for the horses. We were well sheltered, 
and sufficiently warm, for we had a good fire in the centre of 
the hut, and slept at one end of it, while our people and the 
Chowse's mare occupied the other. It rained very hard all night. 
Thursday, February 1 1th. — At 7 A. M. we started, after making 
the Sheikh a present, and wound along amongst the mountains in 
the direction of the castle. Tekoot, bearing north three miles, we 
discovered a Roman building in the form of a tomb, or perhaps a 
very large altar ; it was about twelve feet square, standing on two 
or three broad steps, which seem to have had a neat cornice. 
From the present appearance of the ruins, the original building 
must have been ten or twelve feet in height. We could discern 
no inscription. Our road hence was once more over very dif- 
ficult passes, from which we expected to have had a delightful 
view, but the mountains, to our great regret, became obscured by a 
thick mist. 
These mountains separated into a deep romantic valley, which 
appeared to run immediately down to the desert. The tops were 
in a very superior state of cultivation ; figs, ohves, and vines 
flourishing on every spot which had sufficient earth to nourish 
