this gulf, between Tunis and Tripoli, formed the outlet, since on this coast, for a space of near 200 miles, there is no high land between the Mediterranean and the Sahara, merely long ranges of drifting sand-hills, about 300 or 400 feet high, while between Tuggurt and Chott Melr❜hir the level of the land has been calculated to be as low as seventy feet below that of the

sea.

CHAPTER XVII.

HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF TUGGURT.

Doubtful Roman remains - Tuggurt the metropolis of the Wed R'hir -Allusions of Shaw and Leo Africanus -- Political constitution - A fortunate shepherd-Wars with Constantine - Capture by General Desvaux - Deposition of the Sultan-Mussulman Jews Jewellers - Massacre of the Beni M'zab-Ruined mosque - HorticultureTrade and commerce - Ancient artesian wells-Pestilential miasma - The Dour, or "Turn again" of invaders.

Or the history of Tuggurt nothing accurate was known before the French conquest of Biskra in 1848. Indeed it may be questioned whether any European, except perchance a captive, had ever visited the Wed R'hircertainly Dr. Shaw had not ;* and, copious and accurate as are his descriptions of many districts he had never

* It is evident that, though Dr. Shaw visited the whole sea-coast of Algeria and Tunis when accompanying the army of the Dey, yet he never penetrated far into the interior, and he never, throughout his work, asserts his personal knowledge of those regions. There are trifling mistakes in the copying of many of the inscriptions given in his Travels, especially of those from the interior of Tunis. Now there exists in Tunis a MS. account of the interior of that Regency in the Spanish language, apparently the work of some ecclesiastic. This volume descended to the late Dutch consul from his grandmother, the widow of a former consul. This old lady, it is traditionally stated in her family, was personally acquainted with Dr. Shaw, who remained for some time in her house. The MS. contains all the inscriptions from the interior given by Shaw, as well as many others, and the very inaccuracies in the Doctor's work are all to be found in it. Mr. Davis, in whose possession the MS. I believe now is, stated to me that there is internal evidence of its being of a date antecedent to Dr. Shaw. If this be so, we have here indisputably the source whence the worthy Doctor derived his information of those districts which he had not been able personally to explore.

seen, he dismisses the "Wadreag" in one short paragraph, merely mentioning the artesian wells, of which he had heard from Arab travellers. Yet the French antiquarians identify it with the Turaphylum of Ptolemy, and the Techort of Leo Africanus, who seems to have been intimate with its sheik.

There is one argument for its Roman origin which it is difficult to overcome. The kasbah is built of dressed stone, and is the only edifice so constructed in the whole Sahara. Whence came the stones? There are no traces of any quarries in the neighbourhood, and to hew and dress stone, when unburnt bricks would serve their purpose, is very unlike the character of the present race of inhabitants. It is maintained that the kasbah has been built from the Roman materials at hand; but, so far as I am aware, no coin, no inscription, no coffin, has yet been found to corroborate the hypothesis. M. Berbrugger, the first living antiquarian of Algeria, is decidedly of opinion that nothing but the most complaisant imagination can discover Roman remains in the Wed R'hir, but suggests the possibility of native chiefs having employed Roman artificers.

Tuggurt, with a population of somewhere about 8000, was long considered the chief of the twenty-five towns which dot the line of the Wed R'hir. Its monarch, called by the high-sounding title of Sultan, though absolute in his own city, had no more than a feudal superiority over the others in time of peace, so long as they rendered their accustomed tribute. He was assisted by a djemmâa or council of sheiks, presided over by his khalifat or prime minister. The authority was hereditary in the family of the Weled ben Djellat (Sons of the Flock), which, according to the legend, attained the throne by a chance which recalls the story of the arrangement of Darius and the Persian princes.

The old royal family had become extinct, and the inhabitants, exhausted by faction and internecine warfare, agreed unanimously, as the only mode of restoring peace, that the first stranger who should enter the city on a certain day should be saluted Sultan. A poor shepherd driving his flock from the desert was the first who, on that morning, entered the gate, and found himself a king. He seems, however, to have proved himself a good one; and doubtless the Rouar'a, as the inhabitants are called, were happier in their election than many greater states who have caballed for their President, or balloted their Emperor.

The last Sultan had a long minority, during which his mother, Leila Aïchouah, governed in his name, an exception certainly to ordinary Arab ideas; but Leila seems to have been altogether exceptional; headed cavalry and fought battles, and, in more ways than one, was a desert counterpart of Catherine of Russia. Her army consisted of about four thousand men, besides the Sultan's body-guard of fifty horsemen and five hundred infantry in constant attendance.

The principal military boast of Tuggurt is that, in A.D. 1789, it resisted for six months the besieging force which Salah Bey, Bey of Constantine, headed in person. Salah was induced to make the attempt by the proposals of a renegade relative of the Sultan's, who offered, if he would pay him 200 douros for each halt between Constantine and Tuggurt, to repay a thousandfold when established on his brother's throne. Salah Bey was not proof against this golden bait; but Tuggurt sustained a six months' siege; nor did it yield until all its palms had been cut down and the defenders exhausted by famine. It is a proof of the wealth of the place that the usurper was actually able to fulfil his pledge, and a yearly

tribute of 200,000 dollars was afterwards exacted.

But

Salah's successors were less formidable, and at the time of the French capture of Constantine the tribute of Tuggurt had fallen to 1000 douros.

In the year 1821 Ahmed, the Marabout Bey of Constantine, besieged Tuggurt, but his incursion was followed by a more rapid retreat from the fever which struck his army.

The French did not attempt to claim suzerainty until after the wars of Abd-el-Kader, to whose side the Sultan remained steadily attached. In December, 1854, General, then Colonel Desvaux, was sent out from Biskra with a small detachment to reconnoitre as far as Tuggurt, but with orders to abstain from any attack on the town. The Sultan was ill-advised enough to attempt to surround and cut off the little party. Colonel Desvaux put his men in position, and, after a few hours' fighting, completely routed the enemy, but had no intention of pushing his victory; when, during the night, the Sultan fled towards Tunis, where he now resides. Resistance was at an end, and the next morning the French quietly entered and took bloodless possession of the kasbah and the Sultan's treasures, consisting chiefly of silks and an enormous collection of umbrellas, in which he must have been a connoisseur, as he left upwards of a hundred behind him.

The victors installed Ali, son of the Sheik of Temaçin, who had been plundered and imprisoned by Abd-el-Kader, as native deputy, under the high-sounding title of Bey, and have since maintained a garrison consisting of one company of native infantry, commanded by the Hungarian sergeant, who combines the offices of governor, commander-in-chief, and physician, having the sole charge of the hospital.