Page:The lives of celebrated travellers (Volume 2).djvu/51

 to have remained quiet for several years, occasionally making excursions into the interior, and proceeding westward, in 1730, as far as the river Mulloviah. Having already travelled over the whole of these provinces, from the sea to the desert, when following the track of Leo Africanus, it will be unnecessary to pursue the footsteps of Dr. Shaw. He remarked, however, during his excursions among the ridges of Mount Atlas, an extraordinary race of mountaineers, with light complexions and yellow hair, which seems to have escaped the researches of Leo and all other travellers. These people he with great probability supposes to be descended from the Vandals, who, in the time of Procopius, were said to be dispersed among the native tribes, though it is more probable that they took possession of these fastnesses, of which the rude inhabitants were never able to dispossess them. In the city of Kosantina he observed a second Tarpeian rock, from which, since the foundation of the city, such criminals as might be condemned to capital punishment have been precipitated into the river Ampsaga, which dashes along at its base.

In his inquiries into the natural history of these countries, our traveller bestowed particular attention upon the palm and the lotus-tree, the latter of which, though greatly celebrated in ancient authors, is still comparatively little known. From the descriptions of Herodotus, Theophrastus, and Pliny, he infers the identity of the lotus of the ancients with the seedra of the Arabs, which is a shrub of common occurrence in the Jereed, and other parts of Barbary; and has, he observes, the leaves, prickles, flower, and fruit of the ziziphus or jubeb; except that in the lotus the fruit is round, smaller, and more luscious; while the branches, like those of the paliurus, are neither so crooked nor so much jointed. The lotus fruit, which greatly resembles gingerbread in taste, is still in great repute, and is sold in all the