Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/355

 up aloof from their kindred. Farther on the railway passes by Wed Fodda, some miles below which Orléansville, capital of the Lower Shelif Valley, was founded in 1843 on the site of El-Asnam. Here stood the church of the Oppidum Tingitei, dating from the fourth century, of which a crypt and mosaic pavement still remain.

Near the confluence of the Shelif and Wed Riu stands the large village of Inkermann, while the neighbouring Mount Guezzul (3,580 feet) is occupied by Tiaret (Tiharet, Tihert), which in 1843 succeeded as capital of the district to Takdemt, or New Tiaret, chosen by Abd-el-Kader in 1886 as the central stronghold

of his kingdom, and destroyed by the French in 1841. South-west of the two Tiarets, and in the same basin of the Mina, lies the Berber town of Frenda, east of which three northern spurs of the Jebel Akhdar, or "Green Hills," are surmounted by the so-called jedars, quadrangular structures some 60 feet high, terminating above in step pyramids. On the neighbouring cliffs are some prehistoric sculptures and colossal dolmens, one of whose blocks is said to be no less than 150 feet long.

Tiaret will coon be connected, by a railway already in progress, with the ancient town of Mostaganem, which stands near the coast on a cliff over 300 feet high, divided by a ravine into two quarters. To the east is the military town of