Perhaps the most singular features of the most singular and interesting city of its time were the two great harbors, both artificial, which together covered an area of seventy acres. The outer, or commercial, harbor, a long quadrilateral in shape, had direct access to the sea, or rather to a sheltered bay, by a canal, the entrance to which was closed by enormous chains. From the commercial harbor another cutting led into the Cothon, or naval port, which was circular and fringed by 220 slips, each large enough to accommodate a war-galley. Flanking the entrances to these slips were massive Ionic columns, the effect produced being that of a vast circular arcade. In the center of the Cothon, connected with the shore by a narrow jetty, was a small round island, on which stood the Admiralty Palace, surmounted by a lofty lookout tower from which the grand admiral could obtain an unobstructed view of the harbors, the city, and the sea. At the back of the slips lay arsenals, storehouses, workshops, and the barracks of the marines and galley-slaves, the whole encircled by a wall so high that no inquisitive eye in the outer harbor or in the city could see what was going on within. In these two great harbors were respectively fitted out the argosies which made Carthage the greatest commercial power of her time and the armadas which threatened Rome with destruction. When, in the seventh century, Carthage was destroyed by the Arabs under Hassan, he filled up the harbors for fear the city should rise from its ruins to rival his capital at Tunis. In recent years, under the direction of French archæologists, they have been dug out, but only in part, so that to-day the sites, but not the size, of the original ports are indicated by two insignificant-looking ponds. [Illustration: THE CITY OF THE MOLE-MEN Far to the south, where the Tunisian Sahel runs down to meet the sands of the Sahara, is the Matmata Plateau, a lofty ridge of limestone rock honeycombed by the dwellings of a forgotten folk who have led a troglodyte existence since the world was young] A few paces to the west of the Cothon, between it and the Byrsa, lay the Agora, or Forum, within whose precincts the legionaries of Scipio bivouacked on the night preceding his final onslaught on the city. It was one of the most important public buildings of Carthage, frequented by orators, politicians, merchants, and bankers; a combination, as it were, of the House of Representatives, the New York City Hall, the Law Courts, and the Stock Exchange. In its spacious colonnaded courtyard were crucified the admirals and generals who, in accordance with Carthaginian custom, paid the price of defeat with their lives. From his lofty watch-tower in the Cothon the grand admiral could look down upon the scene, could see quite plainly the stark figure of his unfortunate predecessor gasping out his life upon the cross.