Kosantina, around which, attracted by some peculiarity in the soil, innumerable tortoises were seen, which the women of the place believed to be demons in disguise, and accused of causing all the fevers and other diseases by which they might be attacked. A little farther towards the east, close to a fountain of singular coldness, was a marble structure adorned with hieroglyphics and enriched with statues, which in the eyes of the natives were so close a resemblance to life that, to account for the phenomenon, they invented a legend, according to which this building was formerly a school, both masters and pupils of which were turned into marble for their wickedness.
In his way from Kosantina to Tunis, he passed by two cities, or rather names of cities, the one immortalized by the prowess and enterprise of its children, the other by the casual mention of the loftiest of modern poets; I mean Carthage and Biserta. The former fills all ancient history with its glory; but the reader would probably never have heard of the latter but that its name is found in Paradise Lost:—
And all who since, baptized or infidel,
Jousted in Aspramont or Montalban,
Damasco, or Marocco, or Trebisond,
Or whom Biserta sent from Africk shore,
When Charlemagne with all his peerage fell
By Fontarabia.
Carthage, though fallen to the lowest depths of misery, still contained a small number of inhabitants, who concealed their wretchedness amid the ruins of triumphal arches, aqueducts, and fortifications. Proceeding westward from Tunis as far as the desert of Barca, and visiting all the principal towns, whether in the mountains or the plains, without meeting with any personal adventures which he thought worthy of describing, he returned to Fez, and prepared for his second journey to Timbuctoo and the other interior states of Africa.
