Carthage^ 
669 
wreaking hereditary revenge. All com¬ 
munication is interrupted; agriculture 
perishes; and the peasant sallies forth at 
night to pillage liis enemy’s vine, and to 
cut down his olive-tree. The pacha re¬ 
turns the following year; he demands 
the' same tribute from a country whose 
population is diminished. In order to 
raise it, he is obliged to redouble his 
oppressions and to exterminate whole 
tribes. The desert gradually extends; 
nothing is to be seen but here and there 
habitations in ruins, and near them ce¬ 
meteries which keep continually increa¬ 
sing : each succeeding year witnesses 
the destruction of a house, the extinction 
of a family, and soon nothing is left but 
this cemetery to mark the spot where 
once stood a village. 
CARTHAGE. 
The ship in which I left Alexandria 
having arrived in the port of Tunis, we 
cast anchor opposite to the ruins ol Car¬ 
thage. I looked at them, but was unable 
to make out what they could be. I per¬ 
ceived a few Moorish huts, a Mahometan 
hermitage at the point of a projecting 
cape, sheep browzing among ruins; 
ruins, so far from striking, that I could 
scarcely distinguish them from the ground 
on which they lay. This was Carthage. 
Devictae Carthaginis arces 
Procubuere, jaccnt iiifausto in littore turres 
■Eversae. ^;)uantiim ilia met^s, quanttim ilia 
laborum 
Urbs Oedit insultans Latio et Laurentibus 
arvis ! 
Nunc passim vix reliquias,vix nomina sei vans, 
Obruitur propriis non agnoscenda ruinis. 
In order to discover these ruins, it is 
necessary to go methodically to work. I 
suppose then, that the reader sets out 
with me from the tort of the Goletta, 
Standing, as I have observed, npon the 
canal by which the lake ot I unis dis¬ 
charges ‘itself into the sea. Riding along 
the shore in an east-nov'li-east direction, 
you come, in about bait an houi, to some 
salt-pits, which extend toward the west, 
as fai’ as a fragment of wall, veiy neai to 
tile Great Reservoirs. Passing between 
these salt-pits and the sea, you begin to 
discover jetties running out to a consi¬ 
derable distance under water. 1 he sea 
and the jetties are on your right ; on 
your left you perceive a great quantity of 
ruins, upon eminences of unequal height; 
and below these ruins is a basin of a 
circular form, and of considerable de pth, 
which formerlv communicated with the 
sea hy means of a canal, traces of which 
are still to be seen. Tliis basin must be, 
in my opinion, the Cothon, or inner port 
of Carthage. The remains of the im¬ 
mense works discernible in the sea, 
would, in this case, indicate the site of 
the outer mole. If I am not mistaken, 
some piles of the dam constructed by 
Scipio, for the purpose of blocking up the 
port, may still be distinguished. I also 
observed a second inner canal, which 
shall be, if you please, the cut made by 
the Carthaginians when they opened a 
new passage for their fleet. 
We first find the remains of a very ex¬ 
tensive edifice, which seems to have 
formed part of a palace, or of a theatre. 
Above this edifice, ascending to the west, 
you come to the beautiful cisterns which 
are generally accounted the only relics 
of ancient Carthage: they were probably 
supplied with water by an aqueduct, 
some fragments of which may be seen in 
the plain. This aqueduct was fifty miles 
in length, commencing at the springs of 
Zawan and Zungar. There were temples 
above these springs. The largest arches 
of the aqueduct are seventy feet high, 
■ and the columns which support these 
arches, are sixteen feet square. The 
cisterns are prodigious; they form a 
series of vaults, communicating with each 
other, and are bordered throughout their 
whole length by a corridor. This is a 
truly magnificent work. 
From the summit ot Byrsa, the eye 
embraces the ruins of Carthage, which 
are more numerous than is generally ipia- 
gined: they resemble those of Sparta, 
having nothing left in tolerable preser¬ 
vation, but covering an extensive space. 
I saw them in the month of February; 
the fig, olive, and carob, trees were al¬ 
ready clothed with their young leaves; 
large angelicas and acanthuses formed 
verdant thickets among fragments of 
marble of every color. In tlie distance 
my eye wandered over the isthmus, the 
double sea, distant islands, a pleasing 
country, bluish lakes, and azure moun- , 
tains. I beheld forests, ships, aqueducts, 
Moorish villages, Mahometan iiermitages,^ 
minarets, and the white buildings of 
Tunis. Millions of starlings in Hocks, 
that looked like clouds, flew over my 
head. Surrounded by the grandest and 
the most moving recollections, I thought 
of Dido, of Sophonisba, of the noble 
wife of Asdrubal; I contemplated tlm 
vast plains which entomb the legions ot 
Hannibal, Scipio, and CiBsar, my eyes 
sought the site ot Ui’ca ; but, alas! the 
ruins of the palace of Tiberius still exist 
at Capri, and in vain you look for the 
4 U 2 ipot 
