perplexities increased every day. On his sending to Medjez for the usual supply of barley, a note was brought back from the general saying it was not to be touched. “I am only surprised,” wrote the general, “that you remain in a country where the French are waging war.” As the heir- apparent was powerless to do any good, and as his position from being humiliating had become ridiculous, I was not astonished at General Logerot’s surprise. As far as Sy Ali Bey was concerned, the campaign ended as soon as he turned his back on the Khamírs, and as no interest could attach to his perambulations under the paternal direction of French officials, I decided on the 4th May to return to Tunis. This step was also rendered advisable by a move of M. Roustan to get rid of a troublesome but impartial witness. When I wished Ali Bey good-bye, he said with tears in his eyes, that “it would have been better for him to have fought side by side with the Khamírs and have taken the inevitable consequences, than to suffer slights and insults which none of his race had ever borne before.” CHAPTER XIX. AT BIZERTA. The seaport of Bizerta, or Benzerta—the Hippo Dzarytus or Zarytus of the Romans—is, like Goletta, situated on the shores of the Mediterranean. It is built on a narrow tongue of land which divides the sea from two vast sheets of water of great extent and depth, once known as the Hipponitus Lacus and Sisaræ Palus, and now commonly called the lakes of Bizerta and Gebel Ishkel. The shallow canal which joins the Mediterranean to these land-locked seas divides Bizerta into two distinct portions. The one covers a small island formed by a bifurcation in the channel of the canal, and joined to the land on either side by bridges of great antiquity; the other rises on the slope of a hill and is surrounded, like most Tunisian towns, with a crenellated rampart, and crowned by a dilapidated _kasbah_ or citadel. A large part of the higher quarter of Bizerta has shared in the decay of its fortifications, but a series of marble fountains, surmounted by elegantly carved inscriptions, still testify to the existence of a past period of Moslem power. The fantastic windings of the house-bordered canal give to Bizerta the appearance of a miniature Venice in reduced circumstances. In making the circuit of the _enceinte_ wall, I remarked an inscription placed upside down in the bastion. Although much disfigured, the words YPPOS SARITOS were plainly discernible. The vaulted roofs of the magazines and shops in both parts of the town are supported almost invariably by Roman columns. The English janissary Haj Hamda took me to his corn-store to see what he termed “an inscribed pillar.” I read in bold characters:— IMP CAES MAVR IIIIVS ANTONINVS PIVS IIII X AVG PARTHICVS MAX