MAJOR TEMPLE'S EXCURSIONS IN ALGIERS AND TUNIS.

APPARENTLY tired of mere Continental travelling, Sir GREN;• VII.LE TEMPLE deteimined to adventure on a more dangerous field, and visit the ancient Numidia. At Naples, he chartered a brig for himself, his family, his friends, and an artist ; and after escaping the dangers of the deep, arrived at Algiers. here he was received by the Duke of Rovicip with much distinction and hospitality, and was enabled to inspect every thing worth notice within the pale occupied by the French troops; but the sights beyond their outposts seemed to a family man scarcely equal to the - risk of reaching them. From the new French colony—which does not appear to be worth its cost of men and money — our i'oyager proceeded to Tunis; which he reached in safety, though he was put under an arrest on board his own brig, by a French commandant at Bona, for not calling upon him when he landed, and though a pirate, or what they thought such, per- sisted in keeping them company for a short time, and caused the gallant Major to be called up in the night. The Tunisian ruler is known to be a kind of African Liberal ; and be not only gave Sir GRENVILLE full authority to visit every part of his dominions, but allowed him a cicerone, who having been employed in arresting state criminals, knew how to extract good things of all kinds from the refractory or sullen, and deemed that non-existing antiquities might be found by the bastinado. With his guide upon the shore, his bark upon the sea, our au- thor pretty well threaded the territory of Tunis; and on returning to its capital, some such thoughts as these appear to have passed through his mind. " I certainly did not set out with the inten- tion of writing a book ; but when I call to mind the things I have done and suffiired, the inscriptions I have copied, the barba- rians I have encountered, ' The antres vast and deserts idle,

Rough quarries, rocks, and hills, whose heads touch heaven, It was my fate to see.'

I flatter myself the volumes I can indite will have their uses ; especially as a trip to Algiers within the lines, and the whole of Tunis, may soon be expected to be embraced in the grand tour. Had I originally intended to publish, I could easily have made a better book ; but this (sotto voce) will not be altogether bad."

And the unexpressed feeling of the Major was true. He does not seem a scientific traveller or a profound antiquarian ; but he has the classical reading of a gentleman, and the professional know- ledge of an officer, both of which find ample scope in a region full of antiquities, and peopled as it were by soldiers, from the well- appointed army of France down to the Bedouins of the desert. He is also a pleasant, unaffected person, who describes what he sees in a clear and lively manner,—though lie is somewhat addicted to fine writing when on such themes as Carthage and Utica. He appears to have had another qualification for a traveller in these countries—a knowledge of the language ; so that, with the ad- vantage of a subject not hacknied, the product of these combi- nations is a pleasant and entertaining pair of volumes.

Our few extracts shall be confined to the present, leaving the reader to the book for the speculations on the past. With this limitation, we take pretty much as we find, beginning with ALGIERS AS SHE rs.

Algiers is daily assuming a more European aspect : hats are nearly as ofteu. seen as turbans, cigars have replaced the long pipes, and the Moorish bazaars give way to the glazed windows of French shops. Upwards of fifty merchants have established counting-houses ; and a considerable number of mechanics and tradesmen, including of course a full proportion of modistes, couturii,res, and perruquiers, are thickly scattered about. Eleven grand caEs with billiard- tables, four grand hotels (which are, however, execrable), three restaurateurs, one hundred eating-houses, two cabinets litteraires, one circus, a cosmorama, &c. have already been established, and cabriolets and omnibuses were shortly to ply from the Bab hazoon to Mustafa Pasha, and front Bab el haout to the Dey's country villa. The Kazbah is a little town in itself, containing the late Dey's palace, and several other houses and gardens. The palace has suffered much from the French soldiery ; who, on first occupying it, pulled up the pavement, tore down the glazed tile coating of the rooms, and otherwise committed great injury in their eager search after treasure. The marble flooring, the arched galleries, supported by marble pillars of fantastic but graceful forms, which surrounded the open courts, the elegant fountains which scattered coolness around, and the latticed shah- nesheens, still, however, remain to pay the fatigue and trouble of the visitor's ascent. The corps-de-9arde, with the gate, and the sycamores, banana .trees, and vines, which surround it, together with the mixture of French uniforms and Moorish costumes, formed altogether a beautiful little picture ; as did also a wine-shop, shaded by a vine-covered pergola, under which were seated groups of soldiers playing at cards, drinking, flirting with some piquantes French brunettes, or teaching " Trompette," the chief& du rt:giment, a vat iety of tricks.

THE TOWEK Ot SKULLS.

They took us to see a most rental kettle edifier. called !Smiler lba.1.; which, as its name implies, is a tower entirely Ir1111%trUlliqt of human skulls. reposing in regular rows, on intervening layets of the I s of tie appettaining bodies. 'Phis curious tower stands close to the sea, at a little distatwe frino the Ant, or Bodes-Souk, and is at present twent) fret itt height, and sr it. base tell feet in diameter, but tattering to its summit: with these data, knowing what spare is occupied by a skull, a calculae might easilt b' made of the number of men which were required to build it ; though thew ,Ippears It doolit that it was formerly, as the natives assert, natelt widet and higher. No tradition is pre- served of its origin, except that the skulls are those of isti u.s." ° • To preserve it, it is occasuntally (-ovoid with a 1'0 at of lumina ; huti when I saw it, a great part of this had fallen down, anti exposed to view the gbast i -grinning -skulls.

MOORisil CA rA lii t.cri Es.

At the Mersa and at (Blame' t, as I heroic observed. are si•veral agreeable

couutry-houses and gardens; and near the latter alV malty extensive oval ii', whose grapes have a very agreeable flat m,,, and the wilt,- made from them ii good, especially if kept for two or three yells ; hut the Tuoi•PCII., 1% II" ;kink copiously of it, commence using it At a 1111111th OF Will:, after it is made.

The 3loors are certainly the hardest drinkets I ever licort of; t% hiell I think

-will be proved by the two folioeviog 111'441111-a, liiith whid, 0,-eittled uietriitg my residence in the country. 'flue laved of Jet In 11 di ,tilt 4111■• Vt•1111.4 at sup- per, entirely unassisted, four hordes of lam, tt hie!, did not 'nevem his tt diking

about immediately after ; and one of the set emits of die It alter

having swallowed within an hoar a demi jeanne 'till ii }I, tWLIII1, -twit

bottles, asked for some tutu.

BARnAcK-BVILDING AT TUN LS.

On speaking to the architect and engineers, and askiog tia in to shou. nte their plans, they at first did not guile hl.0111 t11 uuutI, rstiiid ivhar ;1 1,0 in Mt,. when it irds explained to them, they tleelatt II thi.y itul tealiMg of the ,411t, and that, in fact, the 3 lams never made an) pieviotts 1.1 ce.enie.initig it building ; Lot that they built by the eye a ell t..iti h•tigill of wall, a!ol !LA wlan Its hol heel, sulliciently prolonged, another was built at right angles to it atal s-, on. IVItat is raill name remarkable, titeir etches ale :11,0 eonsttneted entirely by die eye,

and have no frame • work to support them during the proerss; is :Is tal- Inick, presenting its broad surlitee to vi-w, is pl teed ii it it its edge

oa the buttiess, where Ii lul carbine:tee the spi Mg of the :itch ; another is inade te, adhere to it by ineatis of a very srlong cement made I f a 14,,oseni tire vicinity of Tunis, whirl, inscintly hardcns; lilt (Lk III irk L!11)11111' in 111: sante manner, and thus thi v ivoveed till the iirch is completed. I saw a

vault myself thus made in less that an le-ttr and a These at elles and

vaults, when finished, are very vo.aa.tfol IttiolsiTti,Ils. and nothing can equal their strei12.171 mitt si.lidity, Iii liteme,e e ans. ,e; It :Lille about seven feet love, atol as broad as the wall is inti lid..al hi.. rial...d no the foundations, and tl'ical tilled with niortar and piece-, of stone it a few -minutes the ft-ante is removed, and itlaced in eat.tionatioit of the line. This method appears to have been aditpted in the construction o:

The pay if at chiteets aml labourers is hot Cli taioly ; for

the fiirtner receive flout eiAltteen tu, farry-eight kiiroale, it :hi,. l'ront 01112,1111111,g tO tWO alld tiglit-penet-1, and the 'fear td six, or Iran threepence to foto pence, from witiell two are dedneted for I ati--ns, The cum tract price for finishing a calitum with its cecit •l, is fifteen pieetres ; and it

must he borne in mind that the stone is a hard, coarse nalrole, breseia, found beteyeeu I lainiumiti I•Enf and suleyman.

TRAINING Volt A (WIPE. Both the Mandoolis and 1

.ampas have fru:pent opportni.ities of gaining CIM- siderablo sums of money ; for whenever they are sent into the interior to art est any person aud bring hint to the Ilardo, they make their rrisoner purchase gaud treatment front them at a very hug It price. Nly 31andook told me he had Once received from one man a thousand piastres, or ids:nit forty•,:x tuis. It their prisoners will not open 661 purses, they are made to suffer a number of little vexations, such as matching on foot with the hands tightly hound to the stir- rups, the Illantlook occasionally putting his horse to a gallop ; sleeping in the open air ; receiving only a small pot tion of bad food ; and on one occasion, in friend fold me, that during the gleat heats of the day, when they halted for two or three hours, lie used to picket his ptistmer with his back to the pound, and the face turned up to the sun, and well smeared with honey or date paste to attract the flies. This and other similar little expedients at last made the poor man count out his money, when a horse was immediately seized for his use and lie entered the gates of the Bard° mote like a per.yetful chief at the head of his auite than as a prisoner.

In an appendix, Major TEMPLE has published a great number of inscriptions and some specimens of Barbary writing. There are also several illustrative maps, awl some lithographic sketches of costume and antiquities.