of liberty; but nothing but fire and fword can force them to pay tribute.

The richeft and moft powerful Kabyles in this province, are the Zwowah, who occupy a large track of impenetrable fastnesses in the mountains, and have several mud villages, among which is the Church of the Ciftern, famous for the fepulchre of Sede Hamet ben Dreefe, and a college for the support of five hundred thalebs, or, men of learning. But their principal village is Koukou, where their fheik refides.

Among the mountains of Beni Abbefs is a narrow winding defile, which extends for nearly half a mile, between precipices of great elevation. At every turn the rock, which originally croffed the defile, is cut into the form of a doorcase, fix or feven feet wide, and these are called by the Turks the Gates of Iron. Few perfons can pass them without horror; and here a handful of men might oppofe a great army.

Two leagues to the fouth-weft is another dangerous pafs, called the Acaba, or Afcent. This is the reverfe of the former; for here the road extends along a narrow ridge, with precipices and deep valleys on each fide; and the flighteft deviation from the beaten path would be attended with inevitable deftruction. The common road, however, from Algiers to the eastward, lies through the above país, and over this ridge.

Seteef, the Sitipha of the ancients, and the metropolis of this part of Mauritania, appears to have been about a league in circuit; but the Arabs have committed fuch depredations on the monuments of antiquity, that there is fcarcely a veftige of them remaining, except a few infcriptions.

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To the north-east of Seteef are the ruins of Kas-baite, an old Roman city, which was built on a hill in the middle of other eminences. Among the other fragments of former times is part of a portico, of a finall Roman temple, which, from a mutilated infcription, appears to have been dedicated to one of the Roman empreffes. On the declivity of the hill are feveral fepulchral monuments and inscriptions, most of them adorned with baffo relievos, representing funeral rites.

Five leagues north-weftward of Conftantia is the city of Meelah, the ancient Milevum. It is furrounded with gardens, and well watered with fprings, one of which, iffuing in the centre of the city, is received into a large fquare bafon of Roman workmanship. From this place Conftantia is chiefly fupplied with herbs and fruit, the last of which is in great esteem over all the country.

Cirta, or Conftantia, as it is now called, lies forty-eight miles from the fea, and was one of the principal, as well as the ftrongeft, cities of Numidia. The greatest part of it has been built on a kind of peninfular promontory, inacceffible on all fides, except towards the fouth-weft. It appears to be about a mile in circuit, and terminates, to the northward, in a perpendicular precipice, at least one hundred fathoms deep. The landscape on this fide is moft beautiful, including a vaft variety of mountains, vales, and rivers to a great diftance. To the eastward the view is bounded by a range of rocks, that over-top the city. Towards the fouth-eaft the country is more open, and affords a profpect of the diftant hills. The eminence on which the city stands, on this fide is feparated from the neighbouring plains by VOL. XII.

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a deep narrow valley, almost perpendicular on both fides, through which the Rummel rolls its ftream. Over this vale a bridge of excellent workmanship was thrown; but it is now in ruins.

To the fouth-weft is a neck of land, about half a furlong broad, near which stood the principal gate of the city. This is entirely covered with a feries of broken walls, cifterns, and other ruins, that are continued quite down to the river, and mark the fite of the ancient Cirta. The present city, however, is entirely confined to the infulated promontory already mentioned.

Betides the general traces of a diversity of ruins fcattered over this place, near the centre of the city is a fet of cifterns which received the water brought thither by an aqueduct. They are about twenty in number, and form an area of fifty yards fquare. The aqueduct is in a very ruinous ftate, but ftill enough of it remains to evince the public fpirit of the Cirtesians in erecting fuch a ftupendous work.

On the brink of the precipice, to the north, are the remains of a large magnificent edifice, in which the Turkish garrison is now lodged. Four bafes of columns, with their pedestals, are yet standing, and feem to have belonged to a portico: they are of a black stone, little inferior to marble.

The fide pofts of the principal city gates are of a beautiful reddith stone, and are very neatly moulded and pannelled. The gate towards the fouth-east conducts to the bridge, which I have obferved was built over this part of the valley. This bridge must have been a master-piece of its kind. The gallery and the piers of the arches re adorned with cornices and feftoons, oxes' eads and garlands; and the keys of the arches

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are embellifhed with caducei and other ornaments.

Between the two principal arches is the figure of a woman treading on two elephants, with a. large fcallop-fhell for her canopy. This is executed in bold relief; the elephants ftand face to face, and twift their trunks together; and the female, who is dreffed in a close-bodied garment, like an English riding habit, raifes her vestments with the right hand, and casts a scornful look at the city.

Below the bridge, the river Rummel begins to wind to the northward, and continues that course through a fubterraneous paffage in the rocks. This feems to have been an extraordinary provifion of nature for the admiffion of the ftream, which must otherwise have formed a prodigious lake, and deluged a confiderable track of country, before it could have reached the fea.

Among the ruins, to the fouth-west of the bridge, on the narrow flip of land, is the greatest part of a triumphal arch, called the Caftle of the Giant. All the mouldings and friezes are curioufly embellished with figures of flowers, battleaxes, and other ornaments. Corinthian pilafters, in a fingular pannelled ftyle, are erected on each fide of the grand arch, which is fituated between two smaller ones.

At the distance of fome leagues, to the eastward of Conftantia, are the Silent, or Enchanted Baths. They iffue from a low ground, furrounded with mountains. Several of the fprings have an intenfe heat, and at a small diftance others are comparatively cold, near which are the ruins of fome houses, probably erected for the convenience of bathers.

The fleam of those springs is ftrongly fulphureous, and the heat is fo great as to boil a large piece of mutton very tender in fifteen minutes. The rocky ground, over which the water runs for the space of one hundred feet, is in a manner diffolved, or rather calcined by it. These rocks being originally foft and uniform, the water, by making equal impreffions on them all round, has left them in the fhape of cones and hemifpheres, which being fix feet high, and nearly of the fame diameter, the Arabs believe to have been the tents of fome of the aboriginal inhabitants, turned into stone.

Where these rocks contain a mixture of harder matter with their usual chalky substance, and confequently cannot be equally and uniformly diffolved, you are entertained with a confufion of traces and channels, diftinguished by the Arabs into camels, horfes, and fheep; men, women, and children, whom they fuppofe to have undergone fimilar transformations with their tents.

On riding over this place, it reverberates fuch a hollow found, that we were every moment apprehenfive of finking through it. The ground being thus evidently hollow, it is probable that air, pent up in thefe caverns, produces that mixture of fhrill murmuring, and deep founds, which, according to the direction of the winds and the agitation of the external air, iffue out along with the water. Thefe founds the Arabs affirm to be the music of the Jenoune, or Fairies, who are supposed to take a peculiar delight in this place, and to be the grand agents in all these remarkable appearances.

Many other natural curiofities may be feen here; for the chalky stone diffolving into a firm impalpable