Fountains In The Sand Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia

that quite a number of persons have anticipated me in this amusement, and even written tom

rehistoric weapons near Sidi Mansur, which lies within half a mile of Gafsa, whence he has extracted-or rather retrieved, for

n: Gafsa and

f flint. What interests me most, are certain round throwing-stones; a few are flat on both sides, but others, evidently the more popular shape, are flat below and rise to a cone above. Of these latter, I have a series of various sizes; the largest are for men's hands, but there are smaller ones, not more than eleven centimetres round, for the use of ch

m of time at this spot, leaving no name or mark behind them, save these relics fashioned, by the merest of chances, out of a practically imper

anks by the floods. Walking here the other day with a miserable young Arab who, I verily believe, had attached himself to me out of sheer boredom (since he never asked for

om Gafsa. He collects those s

mateur, I

n they don't look nice he works at them with iron things; I've seen them! He

you kn

ed in at h

revelation. Maybe-who knows?-half the museums o

ys, what is more intelligible to the uninitiated, that a bed of hard conglomerate which crops up at Gafsa on either side of the Oued Baiesh, has been raised in days of yore; it was raised so slowly that the river found time to carve itself a bed through it during the process of elevation; n

sm of

s), and quite abandoned. His whole vocabulary could not have exceeded one hundred and fifty words; he had never heard of the Apostle of Allah or his sacred book; he could only run, and throw stones,

u done to-day

thi

yeste

y should I d

you eve

obody to

ys were gathered around, dabbling their hands into it and then rubbing them on their hair; those that possessed boots began by ornamenting them, and th

prehistoric imps of the throwing-disks, and

r part covers the human back and sides; the beast's head forms the hood; where the forefeet meet, the thing is tied

them up, like a silkworm in its cocoon-can anything more insane be imagined? Wrapped therein for nearly all their lives, the whole race grows round-shouldered; the gastric region, which ought to be protected in this climate of extreme

too troublesome, on cold days, to extricate their hands for the purpose of demanding alms! Man has been described as a tool-making animal, but the burnous effectually counteracts that wholesome tendency; it is a mummifying vesture, a step in the direction of fo

he epitome of Ar

down from his shoulders; one of the washerman's hands, therefore, is employed in holding it in its place; the other grasps a stick upon which he leans while stamping a war-dance with his feet upon the linen. This is only half the performance, for a friend, holding up his clo

as pleasing to the beholder as must have been the toga of the old Romans (which, by the way, was a purely ceremonial covering, to

d youths, peering from under its coquettish folds, remind one of third-rate actresses out for a spree. In motion, when some half-naked boy sits merrily upon a galloping stallion, his b

be procured, it will protect you from the cold and the stinging rays of the sun. But if a European wants a chill in the liver or any other portion o

sa. There is no heating these bare rooms with their icy walls and floorings: out of doors a blizzard is raging that would flay a rhinoceros. And the wind of Gafsa has this peculiarity, that it is equally bitter from whichever point of the compass it blows. Le

seem to be unk