meditated America. Circumstances brought him over to Tunis, however, where he has succeeded in affairs, and where he has learned to look upon Mr. Payne as the very particular salt of the earth. A fourth guest was a German architect and antiquary, Mr. H—, a very accomplished and agreeable gentleman. He has built several palaces, and the residences of the consuls, and, I believe, some aqueduct improvements; but his chief distinction consists in his discoveries at Carthage, where he has excavated several important treasures; among them a vast gymnasium and temple; but as he was our cicerone next day, I will postpone this.

I think the history of our host, also, scarcely decreased the variety of character present. He has seen great varieties of life, and met with many distinguished people, of whom he is full of anecdote. It is much to be hoped that a plan he has had in idea (I am told), of presenting the world with some reminiscences of his life, may not be abandoned. He certainly might interest readers very strongly with some of the narratives which he sketched in conversation

with me. It is delightful to see a man, after years of toil and privation, retain so much enthusiasm, and generosity, and love of his kind. He is as young in heart and feeling as in the brightest summer day in life.

We sat at a comfortable dinner-table, and did justice to the cheer. In such company conversation could but be animated, and we were merry beyond my previous ideas of nuncios and friars of orders gray, in these degenerate days. We had songs and sentiments, like old-fashioned dinner-tables, and "Home! sweet Home!" was never more appropriately sung. Next day the author presented several of us with manuscripts of the verses enclosed in notes, which prove

the writer an accomplished master of the "eloquence du billet."

We adjourned to another apartment, to coffee and whist; and our indefatigable host produced a tray of coins found at Carthage, from which we were made to help ourselves, by way of antique dessert. They were chiefly Roman; but some Punic ones were among them, known as such by the horse's head; an emblem which, according to Virgil, and yet better authority, is derived from the discovery of the head of a horse in the excavations made by Dido's people for the found ations of the citadel. The omen was hailed with joy, and the mounted warriors of Carthage were nerved with great faith in their destiny.

We slept but little, owing to the intensity of the heat; and the windows being unwisely left open, the night air stole in, by no means so loaded with the perfumes of Araby the blest, as the atargul bazars promised. The cries of sundry benighted revellers also, under our windows, were by no means "musical as is Apollo's lute." I was ready at nine o'clock next morning, however, to enjoy an amusing scene on the terrace. The whole party were collected around two or three Hebrews in turbans and long beards, venders of atargul antiques, and African oddities of every description. Their wares were spread out, and we had an opportunity for a little ante-dejeuner shopping of the sweets of Barbary. They brought the precious atargul in heavy glass vases, curiously sealed. From one of the vases, with a little mouth tube, they drew out a few drops, and deposited them from the tube in the ordinary gilded vials. The price of a jar, containing not more than two gills, was about one hundred and twenty dollars. I think the great value must be a sort of

madness, like the famous tulip madness in Holland; as, for my part, I think the odour any thing but agreeable. These men, however, sell immense quantities, and Tunis is the great perfume market for the East.

EXPEDITION TO CARTHAGE.

287

Ar eleven o'clock we set off on our tour for Carthage. The Dey of Tunis is a very wise and ambitious prince, and, although an usurper by the murder of one or two of his cousins and uncles, he is universally much esteemed by his subjects, and has done more towards Europeanizing, and making them more comfortable, than most other Mahometan rulers. He lives chiefly in the country, in a very elegant palace, and judges crimes and penalties promptly at his palace gates in person. He drives in a handsome French carriage, escorted by a small life-guard; and at this busy moment, when expecting an attack from Tripoli, he is particularly active and industrious among his troops. Among many improvements, he has imported, or permitted to be imported from Malta, a number of cabs, or volantes peculiar to that island, of which we availed ourselves on our visit to Carthage; or, I should say, in which Mr. Payne packed us away for the purpose. He has a comfortable equipage of his own, with a crimson-capped Moor for charioteer, and a smartly dressed janizary as footman. In this, the seniors of the party led the cortège, and the rest of us followed in volantes, S and I occupying the second. We had been fellow-victims in the airy apartment the night before, and we had arranged to bear together whatever was to befall during the expedition. A volante of Malta is nothing more or less VOL. II.-B B

288

DRIVE AROUND THE LAKE.

than a glass coach, or coupé, on two wheels, the axletree of which is placed about two feet behind the centre of gravity (if that is the right expression) of the vehicle, thus throwing a tremendous weight upon the back of the horse; a very stupid arrangement for the comfort of the horse, but very comfortable for the fare. The coachman, or conductor, is not accommodated at all upon any part of the machine, unless, like a drayman at home, he chooses to sit upon one of the shafts. He is expected to trot alongside the vehicle; and I was amazed at the endurance of the fellows, never flagging for a moment, under the most broiling of suns, and in a quick trot over the sands for twelve or fifteen miles, rarely taking advantage of the shaft, and all the way cheerful and animated, pulling us sprigs of millet and plants, and laughing gayly as a merry companion "inside."

We passed in this style out the hospitable porte cochère, and driving through the Jews' quarter, with glimpses of pretty black eyes, and bewitching costumes, (not to speak of very awful street encumbrances of various sorts,) we arrived at the western gate of the city, and issued through sentinels, and so forth. Our route lay close along the western beach of the lake, whose excessively salt waters leave a creamy deposit on the pebbles and weed, and, I should think, must supply a wonderful deal of salt to the inhabitants. On the left, the country was a vast plain of rich vegetation, with swelling hills in the distance. The roadside views were trains of camels sometimes grouped at picturesque old wells and fountains, the drivers wild looking Moors, bivouacking in rude tent sheds on the burning beach, and disdaining the shelter of the lustering figs and olives which grow on the open plains.