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another sacred edifice which I am inclined to believe was a Christian chapel. It faces the east, and its ruins show that it was richly decorated. Here are shafts of green and yellow marble, and very graceful Corinthian capitals. Within this citadel are likewise traces of Arab hovels, which were erected by those who fled to this part from the French conquerors of Algeria. During the occupation of this stronghold by the fugitive Moslems, they seemed to have exercised their skill in treasure-seeking, but with what success I am, of course, unable to say. In different parts I found traces of their labours, and in one place particularly the poor fellows have dug to a considerable depth.

To this morbid desire for gold, and to the foolish belief that wherever ruins are, there gold is likewise to be found, I ascribe much of the devastation, and havoc, which we meet with amidst these ancient cities. This unfortunate belief is not confined to the poor Arabs of the interior. It extends to those in high life, but who are equally low in point of education. At the very time I was rambling amidst these ruined cities, the prime minister, in whom all power, civil, political, and even ecclesiastical is concentrated, employed a number of men, in a different part of the country, in digging for treasure; but with what success remains yet to be seen, for the excavation is, I believe, still continued. Lead, copper, silver, and even gold mines are found in these territories, some of which I pointed out to that all-powerful individual, who has in his hands the destinies of two millions of people, whose autocrat, in the full sense of the word, he is; but instead of turning the natural resources of the country to account, he is influenced by Morockeen charmers, European charlatans, and a host of saints, or pious idiots. But what else can be expected from a Greek renegade, a Mamlook premier, and a Mamlook government?

The citadel was also supplied with cisterns and with a variety of buildings of which the shapeless ruins now alone remain.

West of the citadel, and in the direction of Tebessa, there is another very beautiful mausoleum of a heptagon form, and in excellent preservation. It stands on the edge of a stream, a tributary of the Waad Hydra, and near it are the remains of another bridge. The street which leads to, or rather passes this relic of antiquity (for it can be traced in the town also), is broad and well paved, and the stones, some five or six feet long, and about three broad, are disposed in the same manner as those in the streets of some of the Tuscan cities, of Pisa, for example. This street was flanked by graceful little columns of red marble, surmounted by Corinthian capitals. In the vicinity of the mausoleum, and in the bed of the stream, are found a number of octagon pilasters, which may have belonged to the bridge.

Besides these remains there are numerous other ruins at Hydra. To the N.W. of the large triumphal arch stood a theatre, of which, however, portions of the stage alone now exist. It was not very large, nor has it any traces of peculiar beauty. Near the large church we also meet other ruined edifices, and west of the citadel there are more. Indeed, a vast variety of friezes, capitals, shafts, and other ornamental architectural remains are dispersed over a circumference of some five miles, the extent which the city occupied.

Hydra is by Shaw supposed to be the Tynidrum, or Thunudronum of the ancients; but this it cannot be, for this town is only a few minutes west of Sicca, whereas Tynidrum was, according to Ptolemy, 2° westward of that city.

My own opinion is, that the Arabs have retained the original Phoenician, or Numidian, name of this town, which, during the Roman occupation of the country, had been supplanted by a Latin one. I believe that these ruins are those of Casa Nigra, better known in ecclesiastical history from its having been the bishopric of Donatus, by whose name the factious party which opposed the election of Felix to the bishopric of Carthage was called. At the Council of

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Carthage, convened principally on account of this schism, there were present no less than 286 bishops of the " orthodox" party, and 279 of the Donatists. St. Augustine was the leader on the side of the former, and Petilianus on that of the latter. The whole controversy was conducted under the presidency of Flavius Marcellinus, who represented the Emperor Honorius. The inscription No. 29, which I found among a heap of ruins to the west of the citadel, and not more than one hundred paces from the large church, has, I believe, reference to the result of that famous council.

This relic of African Christian antiquities, on which the name of the famous Numidian primate occurs, ought to justify the supposition that the ruins of Hydra are those of the city in which he exercised his more immediate episcopate -Casa Nigra. But I have, moreover, to observe that the modern name seems to be a translation of part of the Roman. Hydra, or more correctly Khydra, signifies "a dwelling," and so does Casa. This greatly confirms what may, after all, only be regarded as a well-grounded conjecture.

So complete was the extirpation of Christianity in Africa, by the Moslem conquerors, that, with the exception of some sepulchral lamps which I dug up at Carthage, and which bore the sign of the cross, the ruined churches of Hydra present the most important monuments of the terrible wreck which the religion of the Prophet of Nazareth sustained on these shores. But how insignificant even are they when we recollect that, according to the Notitia, there were at one time in North Africa no less than six hundred episcopal

sees!

There is only one more vestige of Christianity which, in a marvellous way, has been preserved by some of the Arab tribes-by the Cabyles, or Kabyles, who inhabit the range, and outskirts, of the Atlas, and by the Twaareg, who claim a great portion of the Sahara, or Sahra, for their inheritance, and of which they are the absolute masters. I allude to the

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