intended to contain the pillar that supported the velum, which covered the spectators from the influence of the sun. It might have served for both purposes, but it seems to be too large for the latter, though I confess the more I have considered the size and construction of these amphitheatres, the less I have been able to form an idea concerning this velum, or the manner in which it served the people, how it was secured, and how it was removed. This was the last ancient building I visited in the kingdom of Tunis, and I believe I may confidently say, there is not, either in the territories of Algiers or Tunis, a fragment of good taste of which I have not brought a drawing to Britain.
I continued along the coast to Susa, through a fine country planted with olive trees, and came again to Tunis, not only without disagreeable accident, but without any interruption from sickness or other cause. I then took leave of the Bey, and, with the acknowledgments usual on such occasions, again set out from Tunis, on a very serious journey indeed, over the desert to Tripoli, the first part of which to Gabs was the same road by which I had so lately returned. From Gabs I proceeded to the island of Gerba, the Meninx[1] Insula, or Island of the Lotophagi.
Doctor Shaw says, the fruit he calls the Lotus is very frequent all over that coast. I wish he had said what was this Lotus. To say it is the fruit the most common on that coast is no description, for there is there no sort of fruitwhatever;
- ↑ Boch. Chan. lib. i. cap. 25. Shaw's Travels, cap. iv. p. 115.
