Fountains In The Sand Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia

les beyond the railway station. It is one of several parasitic oases of Gafsa: a collect

ilway to Sfax has been cut. It is a sleepy hollow of palms, a place to dream away one's cares. The picturesque but old-fashioned well at this spot has just been replac

h was the overseer's

know, dear sir, wh

of their own, and the young girls are frolicsome as gazelles and far less timid. They have none of the pseudo-bashfulness of the townsfolk. For the rest, only the dessus du panier of womankind goes veiled hereabouts-a few portly dames of Gafsa, that is, who are none the worse, I suspect, for keeping their features hidden. Pe

of another kind, by the flint-artists. Among the relics of their occupatio

tion, and used to help her by keeping a look-out for him at the water-side; and when he appeared, she would return home and sing to herself (as if it were a snatch of some old ditty)-Leila, Leila, your lover comes! But the maiden understood, and swiftly, under pretence of fetchi

gave me the fo

er than submit to the extortions of the Sultan's officers. And among those who escaped in this fashion was a god-fearing widow and her children. Her name was Leila. She took up her abode near this fountain, which was then little freq

man of my acquaintance went there, provided with all the accoutrements of sport, not omitting a copiou

in good time

ntained a bundle of wild asparagus, for salad, and

me. "If the sport were not forbidden for seven months out of

n for frogs was officially set dow

nder the jurisdiction of the respective prefects. Hence the close-time, though officially fixed, varies according to the different provinces. In my departme

fearful wild-fowl nearer home-certain ornithological wrecks, I mean, that have been kept beyond the feather-adheri

eir frequency. Some talk of seventeen being shot in the course of two weeks' camping, others of three in a whole season. As a rule, they are not stalked, but driven, by an army of Arabs which the sheikh organizes for that purpose, towards certain openings in the hills where the sportsman takes up his stand. The desert lynx is sometimes met with, and hyenas, they say, occur as near to Gafsa as the

trotted in my direction, and only caught sight of me at a few yards' distance. I never saw a jackal more surprised in my life. When a camel expires in the plain near some nomads' tents, they sometimes set a spring-trap for jackals near the carcase-they ea

into the air. Its force is such that the jackal's leg is often cut clean off, and he hops away on the rem

just now, on account of the cold to which they are sensitive; although muffled in woollen garments they shiver pitifully. Of falconers, I have only met one riding to the

depth of six metres at the foot of the bare Rogib hill, they encountered an apparently unlimited supply of water, and here, where formerly nothing but a few scorched grasses and thorns

mpenetrable walls of spiky green. They also bring in a respectable revenue. In the district of Kairouan, for instance, many families draw their entire income from them. A few have been planted at

ding of the railway station so far outside the town he considered a disgraceful piece of jobbery, a crime which had permanently injured the prospects of the place. Merchants, he said, are

ion: The R

, but they leave next day. Nothing

ed, gentle graces of the Tunisian citizen class; much less the lily-like personal beauty of the blond Algerian Berbers. Apart from some men that possess, almost undiluted, the features of the savage Neanderthal brood that lived here in prehistoric times, the only pure race-type that survive

e language of the place up t

her's dogs; they even breed them for the market, though they dare not expose the meat publicly, any more than that of swine, which they eat with relish. But up to a few days ago they had never ventured to touch the dog of a foreigner. On Wednesday evening, however, a fox-terrier belonging to a French official was found in the street, dead, with its throat cut. A stream of

ity! The owner of the animal, on hearing the news, buckled on his revolver and repaired to the shop with the avowed intention of shooting his man,

equalizes these extremes)-whether all this has not had a numbing and stupefying influence on the character of the inhabitants. Would not a man, under such perennial vexations, end in bowing his head and letting t

an overland caravan which cost next to nothing; he slept in a zaouiah, where he also obtained a bath gratis; he spent on his food four sous a day, neither more nor less, and by way of amusement took coffee with his friends or strolled down to the harbour t

right-complexioned, thanks to the hygienic life and better food. As it is, I have noticed single individuals among the

fighting and pulling about. Their mothers' milk is still inside them; they have not yet succumbed to the ridiculous diet, clothing, and life-habits of their elders. But soon manhood descends

hey have not solved the problem of the simple life, these shivering, blear-eyed folk. Their daily routine is the height of discomfort; they are always ailing in health, often from that disease of which they plaintively declare that "whoever has not had it, cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven," and which, unlike ourselves, they contract by their patriarchal habit of eating and drin

friend." No doubt the plethoric Sicilian mason at the Leila fountain would thoroughly endorse this statement with his "Ah, signore-these Saracens!"... But one

lthier than the townsmen but for the agues, fevers a

with the over-arching foliage. The smooth sandy stretches at the outskirts of the gardens shine like water at re

can look through the naked branches of the fruit trees into its furthest reaches. Only the palm leaves overhead and the ground at one's feet are green; the middle space

ON: Olives

rom most African plantations. They are more artlessly furnished, with rough, park-like d

d of them. Beside their silvery-grey trunks you may see herds of the small but brightly-tinted oxen reposing; the ground is pied with daisies and

kind, I fear, in the careful