Water is so abundant, that the adjoining plain might be easily irrigated, and planted with ten thousand palms and forests of olives. God is bountiful in the Desert, but man wilfully neglects these aqueous riches springing up eternally to repair the ravages of the burning simoum! In one of the groves we met a dervish, who immediately set about charming our Boab. He began by an incantation, then seized him round the middle, and, stooping a little, lifted him on his shoulders, continuing the while the incantation. He then put him on his feet again, and, after several attempts, appeared to succeed in bringing off his stomach something in the shape of leaden bullets, which he then, with an air of holy swagger, presented to the astonished guard of the Bey. The dervish next spat on his patient's hands, closed them in his own, then smoothed him down the back like a mountebank smooths his pony, and stroked also his head and beard; and, after further gentle and comely ceremonies of this sort, the charming of the charmer finished, and the Boab presented the holy man with his fee. We dined at the Kaëd's house; this functionary was a very venerable man, a perfect picture of a patriarch of the olden Scriptural times of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There was not a single article of furniture in the room, except a humble sofa, upon which he sat.
We inspected the old Kasbah at Ghafsa, which is in nearly a state of ruin, and looked as if it would soon be down about our ears. It is an irregular square, and built chiefly of the remains of ancient edifices. It was guarded by fifty Turks, whose broken-down appearance was in perfect harmony with the citadel they inhabited. The square in a building is the favourite form of the Moors and Mohammedans generally; the Kaaba of Mecca, the sanctum sanctorum, is a square. The Moors endeavour to imitate the sacred objects of their religion in every way, even in the commonest affairs of human existence, whilst likewise their troops of wives and concubines are only an earthly foretaste and an earnest of the celestial ladies they expect to meet hereafter.
We saw them making oil, which was in a very primitive fashion. The oil-makers were nearly all women. The olives were first ground between stones worked by the hands, until they became of the consistence of paste, which was then taken down to the stream and put into a wooden tub with water. On being stirred up, the oil rises to the top, which they skim off with their hands and put into skins or jars; when thus skimmed, they pass the grounds or refuse through a sieve, the water running off; the stones and pulp are then saved for firing. But in this way much of the oil is lost, as may be seen by the greasy surface of the water below where this rude process is going on. Among the oil-women, we noticed a girl who would have been very pretty and fascinating had she washed herself instead of the olives. We entered an Arab house inhabited by some twenty persons, chiefly women, who forthwith unceremoniously took off our caps, examined very minutely all our clothes with an excited curiosity, laughed heartily when we put our hands in our pockets, and wished to do the same, and then pulled our hair, looking under our faces with amorous glances. On the hill overlooking the town, we also met two women screaming frightfully and tearing their faces; we learned that one of them had lost her child. The women make the best blankets here with handlooms, and do the principal heavy work.
We saw some hobaras, also a bird called getah, smaller than a partridge, something like a ptarmigan, with its summer feathers, and head shaped like a quail. The Bey sent two live ones to R., besides a couple of large jerboahs of this part, called here, gundy. They are much like the guinea-pig, but of a sandy colour, and very soft and fine, like a young hare. The jerboahs in the neighbourhood of Tunis are certainly more like the rat. The other day, near the south-west gates, we fell in with a whole colony of them—which, however, were the lesser animal, or Jerd species—who occupied an entire eminence to themselves, the sovereignty of which seemed to have been conceded to them by the Bey of Tunis. They looked upon us as intruders, and came very near to us, as if asking us why we had the audacity to disturb the tranquillity of their republic. The ground here in many places was covered with a substance like the rime of a frosty morning; it tastes like salt, and from it they get nitre. Captain B. thinks it was salt. The water which we drank was brought from Ghafsa: the Bey drinks water brought from Tunis. We marched across a vast plain, covered with the salt just mentioned, which was congealed in shining heaps around bushes or tufts of grass, and among which also scampered a few hares. We encamped at a place called Ghorbatah. Close to the camp was a small shallow stream, on each side of which grew many canes; we bathed in the stream, and felt much refreshed. The evening was pleasantly cool, like a summer evening in England, and reminded us of the dear land of our birth. Numerous plains in North Africa are covered with saline and nitrous efflorescence; to the presence of these minerals is owing the inexhaustible fertility of the soil, which hardly ever receives any manure, only a little stubble being occasionally burnt.
We saw flights of the getah, and of another bird called the gedur, nearly the same, but rather lighter in colour. When they rise from the ground, they make a curious noise, something like a partridge. We were unusually surprised by a flight of locusts, not unlike grasshoppers, of about two inches long, and of a reddish colour. Saw also gazelles. Halted by the dry bed of a river, called Furfouwy. A pool supplied the camp: in the mountains, at a distance, there was, however, a delicious spring, a stream of liquid pearls in these thirsty lands! A bird called mokha appeared now and then; it is about the size of a nightingale, and of a white light-brown colour. We seldom heard such sweet notes as this bird possesses. Its flying is beautifully novel and curious; it runs on the ground, and now and then stops and rises about fifteen feet from the surface, giving, as it ascends, two or three short slow whistles, when it opens its graceful tail and darts down to the ground, uttering another series of melodious whistles, but much quicker than when it rises.
We continued our march over nearly the same sort of country, but all was now flat as far as the eye could see, the hills being left behind us. About eight miles from Furfouwy, we came to a large patch of date-trees, watered by many springs, but all of them hot. Under the grateful shade of the lofty palm were flowers and fruits in commingled sweetness and beauty. Here was the village of Dra-el-Hammah, surrounded, like all the towns of the Jereed, with date-groves and gardens. The houses were most humbly built of mud and bricks. After a scorching march, we encamped just beyond, having made only ten miles. Saw quantities of bright soft spar, called talc. Here also the ground was covered with a saline effloresence. Near us were put up about a dozen blue cranes, the only birds seen to-day. A gazelle was caught, and others chased. We particularly observed huge patches of ground covered with salt, which, at a distance, appeared just like water.
CHAPTER X.
Toser.—The Bey's Palace.—Blue Doves.—The town described.—Industry
of the People.—Sheikh Tahid imprisoned and punished.—Leghorn.—The
Boo-habeeba.—A Domestic Picture.—The Bey's Diversions.—The Bastinado.—
Concealed Treasure.—Nefta.—The Two Saints.—Departure of Santa Maria.—
Snake-charmers.—Wedyen.—Deer Stalking.—Splendid view of the Sahara.—
Revolting Acts.—Qhortabah.—Ghafsa.—Byrlafee.—Mortality among the
Camels—Aqueduct.—Remains of Udina.—Arrival at Tunis.—The Boab's
Wives.—Curiosities.—Tribute Collected.—Author takes leave of the
Governor of Mogador, and embarks for England.—Rough Weather.—Arrival
in London.
Leaving Dra-el-Hammah, after a hot march of five or six miles, we arrived at the top of a rising ground, at the base of which was situate the famous Toser, the head-quarters of the camp in the Jereed, and as far as it goes. Behind the city was a forest of date-trees, and beyond these and all around, as far as the eye could wander, was an immeasurable waste—an ocean of sand—a great part of which we could have sworn was water, unless told to the contrary. We were met, before entering Toser, with some five or six hundred Arabs, who galloped before the Bey, and fired as usual. The people stared at us Christians with open mouths; our dress apparently astonished them. At Toser, the Bey left his tent and entered his palace, so called in courtesy to his Highness, but a large barn of a house, without any pretensions. We had also a room allotted to us in this palace, which was the best to be found in the town, though a small dark affair. Toser is a miserable assemblage of mud and brick huts, of very small dimensions, the beams and the doors being all of date-wood. The gardens, however, under the date-trees are beautiful, and abundantly watered with copious streams, all of which are warm, and in one of which we bathed ourselves and felt new vigour run through our veins. We took a walk in the gardens, and were surprised at the quantities of doves fluttering among the date-trees; they were the common blue or Barbary doves. In the environs of Mogador, these doves are the principal birds shot.
Toser, or Touzer, the Tisurus of ancient geography, is a considerable town of about six thousand souls, with several villages in its neighbourhood.