192 
JOURNEY FROM 
is a small sandy bay which the Arabs call a port, and which might in 
former days have served as a landing-place for boats. This Ras 
(or head land), with Ras Houeijah, forms a spacious bay, in which 
good anchorage might probably be found close up under the 
western shore. After passing Bengerwad the coast gets lower, and 
the road leads along an uninteresting flat between it and the hills. 
Five miles from the Ras, upon a sandy point, are the remains of a 
small fort, and about three-quarters of a mile inland of it are several 
large mounds of sand and rubbish, through which appear occasionally 
parts of the walls and ground' plans of houses. These are evidently 
the remains of an ancient town, and the houses have here been 
more concentrated than those of any town which we have observed 
in the Syrtis ; but they are now in so very incumbered a state, that 
we could form no correct idea either of their number or of their 
plans. It is probable also that excavation would here be uninte- 
resting, as the hand of time seems to have been fully as much con- 
cerned in the destruction of this place as that of its most inveterate 
enemies. Considerable traces of building may be observed all the 
w^ay from these remains to the wells at Hudea, and indeed all the 
way from BengerwAd ; and immediately about the wells the ground 
plans become more regular, as well as more numerous. There is no 
doubt that the greater part of this tract has been formerly inhabited, 
but the mounds which we have mentioned seem to us more charac- 
teristic of a town than any of the other remains ; and we will ven- 
ture to suggest them as those of Charax, described by Strabo as a 
trading frontier-town, resorted to by the people both of Carthage 
