The Edge of the Desert

by Ianthe M. Dunbar

From there I was going on to Tozeur, and the only train left at the dreadful hour of 5 a.m. Motors were non-existent, so I had to start for the station soon after 4 a.m. in a cross between a hearse and a bathing machine known as the hotel omnibus. I shared it with various muffled figures who emerged sleepily one by one from blank shuttered houses on the way. Usually they first had to be wakened by loud thumps on the door and shouts that we could not wait for them. It felt like a dream, and I wondered if perhaps I had got into some enchanted place which I could never leave again. Supposing we were to miss the train, how often might not this performance be repeated? I became aggressively English and determined. At the last stopping place I declared if I were kept waiting any longer I should complain to the Contrôle Civile. I was rather vague as to the power I was threatening to unleash, but the mere thought of it roused the driver and Yousuf to a frenzy of action. They rushed simultaneously upon the barred door and kicked and knocked to such purpose that the last traveller appeared blinking and still arranging his turban. And then when we got to the station, the train was late and we had half an hour to wait.

As I steamed away across the wide stretches of tawny plain with the dark blur of the oasis of Gafsa in the distance and the mountains already turning purple in the sickly dawn, the unreality of the place seemed to accentuate itself in my mind. Had I really been there? Really wandered through the oasis, and watched the troops of camels coming along the dried river bed? Really heard the call of the muezzin across the sleeping Arab town? Or had it all been a dream? I scarcely knew.

It was wet when I reached Tozeur, and I stumbled down sandy roads in a chill rain, to the hotel. It was more the oasis of one’s imagination than anything I had yet seen. Beyond the thick grove of palm and fruit trees and the little native town built of earth bricks there stretched a great waste of yellow sand, in which the modern station buildings stood absurdly by themselves. To the east there glistened the vast Shott, a kind of quicksand with a salty crust. There are safe tracks across it for camels and mules, but a step to right or left may engulf the unwary traveller. In the distance it looks like an immense lake, the salt surface shining like water, and after rain it does become a shallow lake in places. It has been a terror to travellers for many generations, and rumour exaggerated its dangers. One of the earliest accounts of it was written in the fourteenth century, by Abou Yaga Zakkaria, who told terrible stories of hundreds of camels being swallowed up and leaving no trace, through straying from the safe path. All round it stretches a sandy solitude, broken only by the dark palm groves of Tozeur, and far away, those of Nefta.

I. M. D.

Grain Market. Tozeur.

All this part is called the Djerid, and here one feels the intense solitude of the desert. It is on the edge of the Sahara. In summer the heat is terrific, and the air vibrates as above an oven. The small town is surrounded by a sea of sand; the streets are ankle deep in it, and it stretches as far as one can see. It is picturesque, the houses built of earthen bricks set in patterns and with arched and tunnelled passages. ‘Town’ is rather a misleading term; it is just a collection of buildings clustering round a market-place, the roads wandering off vaguely from it into the desert.

The oasis is beautiful, streams of blue-green water everywhere, and a tangle of fruit trees amongst the slender trunks of the palms. It is about 2,500 acres in extent, the dates being renowned for their flavour. Alas! all were exported, and as unprocurable as fresh fish at a seaside resort. A minaret near a door covered with green tiles caught the eye, but most of the buildings were low and only remarkable for the picturesque way in which the bricks were set, forming attractive designs. The grain market was held under a modern roof, but the rest was in the open air, and the wide space was covered with an immense crowd. The women dressed in dark blue cotton with one white stripe the length of it, and they held the head covering across their faces. There is a large admixture of negro blood, which has spoilt the Arab type.

The population is occupied almost entirely in the care of the date palms. When first planted the small tree is watered once a day and sheltered from cold winds. It begins to bear a little when 10 or 12 years old. From the age of 20 it produces an annual harvest of fruit and at 30 it is at its greatest vigour and continues in full bearing for another 30 years or so. Then its produce lessens by degrees and it is used for the extraction of palm wine or nagmi as it is called; but this is only practised on trees whose yield is poor, or which are already worn out.

Truly the palm is the Arab’s friend. The fruit is his staple food; its leaves are made into baskets and panniers, or serve as hedges, its stem for gate posts and the beams of houses; while the fibrous stuff that is near the root is made into rope, mattresses and a sort of cloth. Even the date stones are eaten by camels. The Arabs have a saying that were a camel to walk into a palm grove, he could come out completely equipped with bridle, saddle and panniers and even with the palm leaf stem as a whip. It is in a palm-leaf cradle that the desert Arab is rocked to sleep as a child; his life passes below its shade, and it is under boards of its wood that he takes his last rest.