EL MELLAHA.
[p.190]following magnificent inscription, which is engraved upon the
rock, just over the sea, where the road turns southward:
IMP CAES M AVRELIVS ANTONINV S . PIVS . FELIX . AVGVSTVS PART . MAX .
BRIT . MAX . GERM . MAXIMVS PONTIFEX . MAXIMVS MONTIBVS INMINENTIBVS
LICO FLVMINI CAESIS VIAM DELATAVIT PER . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ANTONINIANAM SVAM
The last line but one has been purposely erazed. Below the frame in
which the above is engraved, is this figure.
Higher up in the road are several other places in the rock, where
inscriptions have been cut, but the following one only is legible:
INVICTIM ANTONIN FELIX AUG MV . . IS NISIM[In the year 1697 Maundrell
read this inscription as follows: Invicte Imp. Antonine P. Felix Aug.
multis annis impera. Ed.]
According to the opinion of M. Guys, the French consul at Tripoli, which
seems well founded, the Emperor mentioned in the above inscriptions is
not Antoninus Pius, but Caracalla; as the epithet Britannus cannot be
applied to the former, but very well to the latter. Opposite to the
bridge is an Arabic inscription, but for the greater part illegible.
The road continues for about half an hour through the rock over the sea,
above which it is no where higher than fifty feet. At the southern
extremity is a square basin hewn in the rock close by the sea, called El
Mellaha, in which the salt water is sometimes collected for the purpose
of obtaining salt by evaporation.
