The city of Tunis covers the eastern slope of a rocky hill which divides the less turbid lake El Bahira (or “the little sea”) from the more turbid lake Sebka-es-Sedjoumi (or “the shallows of salt”). A narrow canal at Goletta, seven miles as the crow flies to the east of Tunis, separates “the little sea” from the Mediterranean. The configuration of Tunis is strictly after the manner of most Moslem cities; the Kasbah, or citadel, occupies the crest of a hill, and a labyrinth of tortuous streets finds its way thence to the plain at its foot. The whole is, or rather was, surrounded by a wall, which traversed in its circuit a distance of seven miles. Twenty years ago the town wall was perfect, but about half a mile of the bastion has since gradually and almost imperceptibly disappeared in the Frankish quarter, and now forms the site of a street called appropriately La Rue des Remparts. The great eastern gate of Tunis (the Bab-el-Bhar) has therefore no longer any practical utility, having lost the support of the wall on either side of it; but outside the European _faubourg_ the mediæval defences of Tunis are still in a tolerable state of preservation. From one of the neighbouring hills an excellent bird’s-eye view of Tunis can be obtained. In the sun its essential feature is a dazzling and unrelieved whiteness, but its inhabitants perversely enough still call it El Háthra, or “the green.” Tunis possesses seven chief gates, besides several posterns. Each of these gates is protected by a fort having its cannon sometimes _en barbette_, but oftener mounted in embrasures. The walls of the lower town have no defence but these batteries, but towards the north and west the ramparts are bisected at intervals by towers. The principal gates of Tunis are the Bab-el-Bhar, on the lake side; the Bab- el-Háthra, the Bab Abdu Selam, and the Bab-es-Sadum towards the Bardo Palace and the Manouba; the Bab Sidi Abdallah, under the shadow of the citadel; the Bab Sidi Alewa, on the road to Zaghouán and Kairwán; and the Bab-es-Zira, on that leading to Susa and the coast. The whole of these gates (with the single exception of the Bab-el-Bhar) are closed at sunset, and as the keys are commonly supposed to remain till dawn under the pillow of the Ferik, or Arab Governor, the benighted traveller has no other resource than to avail himself of the scanty accommodation afforded by the guard-houses outside the walls.