Deep down in the gorge itself winds and climbs the _chemin des touristes_, a narrow foot-path consisting for the most part of an interminable series of steep stone staircases or creaking iron bridges bolted to the face of the rock. Countless giddy steps, slippery with moss and dampness, lead down, down, down to the dark waters of the Rummel, which race madly between the grim, forbidding walls or swirl in seething caldrons as though stirred by a titanic unseen spoon. Turning up-stream, the way leads beneath four natural arches, none of them less than 400 feet in height (the celebrated Natural Bridge in Virginia is only 215); through dim and awesome caverns, strongly reminiscent of the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, where the water forms black pools on the rocky floor and great bats flap overhead; and so into the deepest part of the gorge, where the walls rise sheer for a thousand feet on either hand. From here the sky is but a narrow jagged strip of vivid blue, infinitely remote; the girders of the great iron bridge which the French have thrown across the chasm at a point called El Kantara seem no larger than gossamer strands; of the city itself no sign is to be seen. Continuing to work our way around the base of the tremendous rock on which the city perches, we emerge at length, after two hours of arduous walking and climbing, into a gradually expanding valley, its steep, stone-strewn slopes dotted with stunted palms, aloes, and crimson poppies, and bathed in blinding sunshine. * * * * * The history of Constantine is in large measure the history of all North Africa. Originally called Cirta (the Phenician word for city), it was in ancient times the capital of Numidia and the seat of the Massylian kings, who first fought for Rome against Carthage and later for themselves against Rome. It attained its greatest prosperity about two centuries before the beginning of the Christian era, when it was able to place in the field an army of thirty thousand men, though no traces are now left of the splendid palace of Syphax, or of the stately buildings erected by his successful rival, Masinissa—whose wife, Sophonisba, it will be remembered, committed suicide shortly after her marriage rather than fall into the hands of the Romans; by Masinissa’s son, Micipisa; and by his grandson, Jugurtha, who led the Numidians in a revolt against Rome, was defeated, was led in chains behind the chariot of his conqueror, Marius, and died in “the bath of ice” in the subterranean prison beneath the Capitol. Roman rule left a deeper impress on the ancient city; but, barring the remains of the old bridge, dating from the time of the Emperor Constantine, the five remaining arches of the aqueduct built during the reign of Justinian, and numerous fragments of sculptures and inscriptions, little is left of the flourishing colony, founded by Julius Cæsar, which the Romans called Cirta Sittianorum.