Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/295

 nothing survives except a few inscriptions and shapeless blocks; but the line of railway, here constructed through a series of deep cuttings and the Fej-el-Moktha tunnel, across the hills and down the winding Seybouse Valley, is a remarkable monument of modern engineering skill.

The southern plateaux beyond the gorges of the Mejerda river abound in Roman remains, such as those of Tagura, now Taura, near Ain-Guettar; Mdaurush, the ancient Madaura, birthplace of the rhetorician Apulæus; Tifesh, the Roman Tipasa; and near the sources of the Mejerda, Khemissa, identified with Thubursicum Numidarum.

The northern slope of the mountains running north of Suk-Ahras to the Khumirian highlands give birth to several copious streams collected in the Mafrag

basin, which, although at present almost uninhabited, seems destined to become one of the most populous districts in Algeria. At present the only town in this region is La Calle, which lies beyond the Mafrag basin on a creek flowing to the Mediterranean, and separated from the interior by an amphitheatre of steep hills. This seaport, which is connected by a difficult route with Bona, was long a nest of corsairs; but a hundred and fifty years before the conquest, the rocky headland on which stood the old town had already become French territory. The trading station founded here in 1560 by Marseilles merchants was removed in 1694 to Mers-el-Kherraz, which became the port of La Calle, where a small colony, recruited chiefly from the French prisons, held its ground till the close of the eighteenth