, 1885-11-12
oyEEN D-oa ) woNpEHFu oITy.



A Visit to A~aelent Carthage Marvel, in
Masonry Famous Aquednrt.
iccr. Boston Herald
The first important eyidence-aside
from the remnants of the old city walls
that we have arrived at the site of
ancient Carthage is the debris and
crumplcd masonry of what appears to
DO tho ruins o an old amphitheatre of
great size. Even these relics have nearly
disappeared below the surface of the
earth on which we stand, and the large
hollow excavation, in which are discern
ible broken masses Of masonry and
traces of crumbling arches and under
ground passages, bear n slight resem-
blance to the crater of an extinct vol
cano We go to the plains below where
evidences multiply that a great and i'm
portant city once stood here. Cropping
out Of the hillside that slopes away TO
the sea, and in isolated places on the
plains are remnants OF high arches and
walls, tumbled in chaotic confusion to
gether, as if originally they had been
rent and torn to pieces by successive
earthquakes.
On the plains and about a quarter Il
a mile from the sea, the dragoman took
mo to the famous cisterns which have
evidently beer discovered since the com
mencement of the present century. De
scending some rough i~mproyised steps
to a depth of about fifteen feet, we
come to a long excavated gallery or
passageway, on the right Of which are
built side by side the immense cisterns
twenty, or more, in. number, which
must be $50 feet in length, forty feet in
width, and as much in depth. cooking
through openings which each of them
had, / could see that they we're all con-
nected together by arches in the par
tition walls, so that water would flow
through them to the same height and
depth, thus forming n immense reser-
voir to supply the inhabitants in case of
siege or drought. With the exception
of two or three OF the cisterns, whose
arched roofs had partly fallen in, the
masonry OF all seemed to be as hard and
perfect as when first built over 1000
years ago.
In their construction, the thin bricks,
such as were manufactured by the
ancients for building purposes, were
used, being about n and one-half
inches thick, twelve or fourteen inches
long and six or eight inches wide. The
mortar, or cement, between the bricks
was as hard as flint, and | failed to dis
cover any signs of its crumbling or dis
placement by the wear of centuries.
The cisterns are partially filed with
water, but how it got there is a mystery
to all travellers, as the adueduct which
once fed it has been in ruins several
hundred years, and there is no other
p%erceptible source from whence they
could have got their present supply.
This aqueduct, in the days when Garth
age was in its glory, was one of the
wonders of the then known world, being
longer and built more massive and
grand than the famous aqueduct built
by the Romans at about the same period
of history to supply their city with
water. 1t was a work of enormous la
Dor and expense, being constructed en-
tirely above ground, and reaching a dis
lance of nearly seventy miles across the
country from the m%ooutains Of Zunghar
to the cisterns in Carthage.
From the cisterns We go down to the
sea shore, where we find large clusters
of ruins of greater magnitude than any
we have seen, and which must be the
remains of theatres or temples that
were of colossal size. Immense walls of
masonary, broken columns and pillars
and sections of arches are piled promis-
ouously together, Is if they had been
shattered to pieces by the earthquake.
The sea here has so far ~encroached
upon the original shore that ruins for
nearly half a mile in length and a quar-
ter of a mile in width are co cred with
water. The -dragoman tells me in his
broken English that boatmen rowing
along the beach can look down upon the
ruins of roofiess buildings, and can
trace out the courses of various streets.
Wandering over the plains, WI come
TO u spot where the dragoman calls my
attention to a deep excavation that re-
sembles somewhat the dismantled shaft
of a coal mine. Pointing down, he tells
me there are more ruins, and that it
was here where stood Queen Dido's pal
ace. Scrambling down as best we
could the rough passage way to the dis
lance Of twenty feet or more, We come
to a series of large, high, vaulted apart
ments that remind me of the excaya-
tons in Rome known as CAESARS palace.
The dragoman lights a candle that he
has with him and we inspect as hur-
riedly as possible the damp, subterran-
can rooms, but finding little to repay us
fsr our trouble.
There are traces in these c~avernous
apartments that indicate they were
built with royal magnifcence. The
vaulted arches and high walls show
where they we're covered with beautiful
mosaics, f~rescoes and other gorgeous
ornamentation, which despoilers have
carried away and the hand of time has
obliterated. The wealth of Carthage,
when it was in its glory, must have
been fabulous