From 11a4 Muatapha to Ras-el-Mahmoor the coast is low and gene rally swampy, being formed by the Alluvial deposit brought down from the adjacent bills by numerous torrents. A tract of low and rocky coast extends from 1i.as-e1-31ahmoor to Ilammamet, and it is followed by a low sandy coast, which occupier, tho interior of the flay of Baseman:let, and terminates near Sun. There is a consider sWe lareon connected with the Ica near 'nerds. From Sesa to Ilea (Nipped', (the ancient Caput Veda), and thence to the town of tifallair. the shores are in general rocky, but not high; in a few place* they are low and sandy. Between Lambta and Tobulba is anther 'Atha,' or lagoon, which is not connected with the sea. It Is three miles long and half a mile wide. Salt is collected there to a large amount.
llarastased. which gives its name to the gulf, is a town of about 4000 inhabitants, the cleanest and neatest in the regency. It is the capital of an agricultural district of 15,000 souls. Not far from it stands liertia, the .11eraclea of the lower empire. ,seta was the ancient Adrettertest, and the capital of the rich and fertile region of Bysseium. With its battlements, castles, and mosques, Suer still preeenta from the sea a pleasing appearance, and is a place of consider able commerce, and one of the wealthy cities of the Tunisian state, being the chief mart for oil, linen, and soap: it has about 6000 inhabit ants. The ruins of the ancient harbour are clearly traceable under water, and at the present day it has a mole, and good anchorage in seven, nine, and ton fathoms, secure from all winds except the north coat The /maths appears to be kept in good order. :Maar, further along the gulf, which is a walled and fortified town, but has no safe anchorage, and the village of Ler/Ilea, the Leptis Parra of antiquity, now an insignificant place, and Cape Demas, the southern limit of the Gulf of liaminarnet here are the remains of the once large and powerful town of Thapsus, whose solid mole is yet partly in existence. Mohadeah, called also Africa by the moderns, and Tunis Hannibalis by the ancients, stands on a point of land about 9 miles to the southward of Cape Demas. It was a place of great strength and importance in the 16th century, when it was taken by Charles V., who demolished its fortifications, the remains of which show that they were of great solidity. The inner harbour, which was within the fortifications, is now quite dry. About 21 miles farther to the south, bounded by Cape Capoodia, the Caput Vada of Procopius, on the north, and the island of Gerbil on the south, opens the Gulf of Khaba, or Cabes (the Little Syrtis). Among the towns on its shores
is :lax, or Sfakkes, the ancient Tophrer, or Taphura, where there is a mole, and good anchorage, although the approach to it is intricate, by reason of the Karkenna Islands and innumerable low rocks which run for miles along this coast. It was formerly a great nest for pirates, but is now a mart for inland produce and European as well as Eastern merchandise, in which it carries on a brisk commerce; the inhabitants, amounting to 12,000, are a thriving and rich people. Farther to the south, on the bank of a small river, is the town and small port of Gabs, Ehabs, or Gabes, from which the gulf takes its modern name. The town stands about a mile from the sea. Gerba, or Jerbah, the Meninx of Strabo and Pliny, is a considerable, fertile, and populous inland. Its greatest curiosity is a tower constructed of human skulls, said to bo those of 1400 Christians who fell in battle here with the Turks in 1593. The inhabitants of Gerba manufacture shawls of brilliant colours, fabrics of a beautiful texture made of silk and fine wool, bornous, and a sort of woollen blanket.
The Gulf of Khalis seems to have undergone great changes, and by no meninx resembles the Minor Syrtis of the ancients. [Seeres.) The dangers of the Minor Syrtis arose from the variations and un certainty of the tides on a flat shelvy coast. From Caput Vada to the island of aerie' lie a number of little flat islands, banks of sand, oozy bottoms, and small depths of water, which make its navigation intricate and difficult to strangers, but easy to the natives who know its channels and innumerable windings. The gulf is not more than 75 mike is extent from its northern to its southern point, and it penetrates into the mainland about 00 miles. liennell is of opinion that the gulf at one time entered deeper into the land, and formed a junction with the Lake Lowdeab, called also the Lake of Marks, the Tritonis Value of the ancients. Shaw describes the land also to have gained and to be still gaining on the sea at Khabs, where the ancient town of Taape is left half a mile inland. Nothing appears more probable than that such a change should have taken place in a situa tion where the continued oporatiou of the sea is depositing sand on a that coast where there is no backwater to sweep it into the sea again. If the lake and the gulf were separated from each other by a bar of sand only, the perils of the Syrtis would naturally be deemed by the ancients greater than they are at present.