CHAPTER IV
SOUSSE
The country through which the train passed from Kairouan to Sousse was bare and desolate, with scarce scattered Bedouins’ tents now and again that seemed to blend with their surroundings like the nests of wild birds. A few grazing camels wandered near them, herded by ragged children who turned to stare at the train. The plains stretched as far as the eye could reach to the feet of distant hills. We passed one or two shallow lakes, obviously rainfall collected in depressions of the ground, that would dry up as some we had already seen which were now nothing but stretches of cracked and seamed mud, looking like jigsaw puzzles.
Sousse proved to be a picturesque little town on the sea, built about the base of the old Kasba or fort, whose walls stand on a hill above it, looking out over the flat-roofed white houses of the modern town to the waters of the Mediterranean. From the fort itself there was a magnificent view: on one side the curving coastline with its dotted white villages and the gentian sea fading to a pale mist in the distance, on the other, vistas of olive groves and orchards.
The great local industry is the cultivation of olives, and there are factories for the making of oil and soap on the outskirts of the town. The actual care of the trees is almost entirely in the hands of the Arabs, to whom the French owner usually sells the crop in bulk, unpicked. A tree in full bearing is worth three to four hundred francs a year, and an orchard may contain thousands of trees. The Arabs are so improvident that they often spend all the money they make during the harvest, in six months’ time, and then are forced to realise in advance on their next. Frequently they get into the hands of the Jews in transactions in which it is certainly not the latter who suffer.
Beyond the Kasba are the Christian catacombs, which are interesting, and cover a large area. Passage after passage is tunnelled out, with poor little skeletons neatly stowed away on either side as a careful housewife stocks her store cupboard with jam.
The Souks are not so picturesque nor as extensive as those of Kairouan and of Sfax, but the crowd was enthralling to watch. In the native cafés grave men in picturesque draperies were seated along the broad stone ledge on either side the room, sipping coffee or playing a kind of chess, whilst the owner bent over his charcoal fire at the far end, and the assistant sped about on bare feet carrying sheaves of the long-handled coffee holders, just big enough to fill each minute cup. To this is often added a drop of orange flower water or some sweet essence.