With all submission to that learned university, I will not dispute the lion’s title to eating men; but, since it is not founded upon patent, no consideration will make me stifle the merit of Welled Sidi Boogannim, who have turned the chace upon the enemy. It is an historical fact; and I will not suffer the public to be misled by a misrepresentation of it; on the contrary, I do aver, in the face of these fantastic prejudices, that I have ate the flesh of lions, that is, part of three lions, in the tents of Welled Sidi Boogannim. The first was a he-lion, lean, tough, smelling violently of musk, and had the taste which, I imagine, old horse-flesh would have. The second was a lioness, which they said had that year been barren. She had a considerable quantity of fat within her; and, had it not been for the musky smell that the flesh had, though in a lesser degree than the former, and for our foolish prejudices against it, the meat, when broiled, would not have been very bad. The third was a lion’s whelp, six or seven months old; it tasted, upon the whole, the worst of the three. I confess I have no desire of being again served with such a morsel; but the Arabs, a brutish and ignorant folk, will, I fear, notwithstanding the disbelief of the university of Oxford, continue to eat lions as long as they exist.
From Hydra I passed to the ancient Tipasa[16], another Roman colony, going by the same name to this day. Here is a most extensive scene of ruins. There is a large temple, and a four-faced triumphal arch of the Corinthian order, in the very best taste; both of which are now in the collection of the King.
I here crossed the river Myskianah, which falls into the Bagrada, and continuing through one of the most beautiful and best-cultivated countries in the world, I entered the eastern province of Algiers, now called Constantina, anciently the Mauritania Cæsariensis, whose capital, Constantina, is the ancient metropolis of Syphax. It was called Cirta[17], and, after Julius Cæsar’s conquest, Cirta Sittianorum, from Caius Sittius who first took it. It is situated upon a high, gloomy, tremendous precipice. Part only of its aqueduct remains: the water, which once was carried into the town, now spills itself from the top of the cliff into a chasm, or narrow valley, above four hundred feet below. The view of it is in the King’s collection; a band of robbers, the figures which adorn it, is a composition from imagination; all the rest is perfectly real.