As this is the Mons Audus of Ptolemy, here too must be fixed his Lambesa[21], or Lambesentium Colonia, which, by a hundred Latin inscriptions remaining on the spot, it is attested to have been. It is now called Tezzoute: the ruins of the city are very extensive. There are seven of the gates still standing, and great pieces of the walls solidly built with square masonry without lime. The buildings remaining are of very different ages, from Adrian to Aurelian, nay even to Maximin. One building only, supported by columns of the Corinthian order, was in good taste; what its use was I know not. The drawing of this is in the King’s collection. It was certainly designed for some military purpose, by the size of the gates; I should suspect a stable for elephants, or a repository for catapulta, or other large military machines, though there are no traces left upon the walls indicating either. Upon the key-stone of the arch of the principal gate there is a basso-relievo of the standard of a legion, and upon it an inscription, Legio tertia Augusta, which legion, we know from history, was quartered here. Dr Shaw[22] says, that there is here a neat, round, Corinthian temple, called Cubb el Arrousah, the Cupola or Dome of the Bride or Spouse. Such a building does exist, but it is by no means of a good taste, nor of the Corinthian order; but of a long disproportioned Doric, of the time of Aurelian, and does not merit the attention of any architect. Dr Shaw never was so far south as Jibbel Aurez, so could only say this from report.
From Jibbel Aurez nothing occurred in the style of architecture that was material. Hydra remained on the left hand. I came to Cassareen, the ancient Colonia Scillitana[23], where I suffered something both from hunger and from fear. The country was more rugged and broken than any we had yet seen, and withal less fruitful and inhabited. The Moors of these parts are a rebellious tribe, called Nememshah, who had fled from their ordinary obligation of attending the Bey, and had declared themselves on the part of the rebel-moors, the Henneishah.
My intentions now were to reach Feriana, the Thala[24] of the ancients, where I expected considerable subjects for study; but in this I was disappointed, and being on the frontier, and in dangerous times, when several armies were in the field, I thought it better to steer my course eastward, and avoid the theatre of war.