THE TOWER OF HUMAN HEADS,

IN THE ISLAND OF JERBI.

BY T. W. AVELING.

THE origin of this singular tower is generally ascribed to the fierce revenge by which the inhabitants of this island were incited, after they had obtained a victory over an army of the Spaniards, that, failing in reducing the city of Tripoli, against which it had been sent in 1561, made an attack upon Jerbi, and in the most wanton and cruel manner sacked the town and butchered the inhabitants. Scattered in various directions, and confident in their strength, they were suddenly surprised by a party of the islanders, who, rallying at a distance from the town, and led on by their chief, Yokdah, whose daughter had been brutally treated by one of the Spanish officers, massacred an immense number of the enemy. Most of those who escaped to the ships were taken by the Turkish fleet, which met them at a short distance from Jerbi, and succeeded in capturing all the Spanish vessels except five, which bore to their country the disastrous intelligence of the total failure of the expedition.

The heads of those who fell in the island were all collected, and cemented together, forming a tower, as represented in the accompanying plate. Through the lapse of time, and the

action of the sea, it is much diminished in its dimensions, although it is said still to be about twenty feet high, and ten feet in diameter.

THE day wore heavily, but when evening came
Light fairy clouds were floating in the sky,
Silver-like glittering; while with gorgeous vest
Of rainbow-coloured tints, the golden sun,
Bathing his radiant forehead in the waves,
Sunk to his nightly home.

There had been sounds

Of fearful import rolling o'er the sea;

And with the ceaseless roar of rushing streams,
The battle-shout of warriors helmed and plumed—
The stifled groan-the shrill expiring cry—
The clarion's brazen voice-and rolling drum
Mingled harsh dissonance. The eager sword
Flashed in the sunlight, and on mailed brow
And golden-chained cuirass rung fitfully.
The sun's last ray from broken arms was flung,
And shivered swords along the pebbled shore
In wild confusion lay. There, side by side,
Iberia's warrior, with his deadly foe,

Lay mute and breathless, with the blood-stained brow
Bared to the open heaven. The waves around,
Dyed with the life-stream that from thousand wounds
Oozed silently, in crimson rolled away.

The conflict o'er-the rage of battle past—
Revenge yet deeper still his soul inspired,
As the stern victor walked amid the slain.
And soon uprose to meet the flashing eye

A ghastly tower along the wave-worn beach,'
Where skulls were whitening in the howling blast,
And where the frighted seamew flapped her wing.
And still, though printed by the foot of time,
The lonely mariner, as o'er the waves

In his light bark he skims, directs the eye
To that dread tower, around whose shingled base
The refluent waves with hollow murmurs flow.

Oh, plume thy radiant wings, Religion mild!
Daughter of heaven! enrobed in purest white!
And o'er the earth, with holy gifts for men,
Speed in thy flight, and haste the promised hour
When peace shall wave o'er all her silver wing;
When happier scenes shall rise; and one glad voice-
From the lone dwellers in the desert wild,

Or in the sunny vales, or on the hills,
Around whose hoary brows the tempests cling,
Or in the emerald isles that gem the seas-
Shall wake the rapturous chorus of the skies:
"Earth is the Lord's, and they that dwell therein;
The kingdoms of this world are now become

The kingdom of our God and of his Christ."