Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/193

 to frequent attacks from foreign invaders. Vandals, Arabs, Spaniards, and French successively assaulted, destroyed, or bombarded it, and the ruins of different periods have thus been piled up in successive heaps. Blocks, and other remains, covered with carvings and inscriptions, have been used in building modern houses ; but there are no traces to bo found of the great edifices, such as the amphitheatre spoken of by the Arab authors of the Middle Ages. The Hajar Maklubah, or "Overturned Stone," once a magnificent tomple, is now a mere heap of rubbish, while the "cothon," or circular port of the Carthaginians, which was similar to those of Carthage and Utica, can be recognised only by the remains of its two extreme

sluice-gates — huge blocks of masonry which at a distance look like rocks. The greater part of these works has been pulled down and turned into an esplanade. As in nearly all the ancient towns of Tunis, the cisterns, more precious than all other structures, have been always either kept up or repaired under every change of Government. The necropoli of various periods form an almost complete circle round the town. The most ancient, in which sepulchral chambers are still to be seen hollowed out of the soft limestone, are similar in the internal arrangements of their galleries to the caves used as tombs in Phœnicia and Palestine. The city was supplied with water by a Roman cistern.