High Road from Graïba viâ (52 M.) Gabes to (101 M.) Médenine. Diligence to Gabes, in 9 hrs. (starting at 11.30 p.m., returning at 5.15 p.m.); thence to Médenine, in 8 hrs. Roads from Médenine to the two starting-points for the island of Djerba: one viâ (37½ M.) Zarzis to (52 M.) Marsa el-Kantara; the other viâ (17½ M.) Djorf Bou-Grara to (30 M.) Marsa el-Adjim.—Roads from El-Kantara (15½ M.) and El-Adjim (14 M.) to Houmt-Souk.
A motor-car should be hired from Sfax (p. [380]) to Médenine, or all the way to Marsa el-Kantara. Or we may drive thither from Graïba, by carr. previously ordered from Gabes. At Médenine it is advisable to telegraph to Houmt-Souk for a carr. to meet the traveller at El-Kantara (or El-Adjim, as the case may be).—Houmt-Souk is a steamboat-station between Tunis and Tripoli (comp. R. 64).
From Sfax to Graïba (39½ M.; railway in ca. 2 hrs.; fares 7 fr. 5, 5 fr. 35, 3 fr. 80 c.), see p. [383].
The Road leads to the S. from Graïba to (5½ M.) Archichina, a caravanserai on the W. side of the Sour Kenis Bay, where we join the main road from Sfax. It then traverses a desolate sandy waste on the W. side of the Gulf of Gabes (p. [405]), inland from the little seaport Skira (for the alfa trade).
On the (28 M.) Oued Akarit we enter the province of Arad. Between Jebel Roumana (564 ft.) and Jebel Dissa (p. [388]), offshoots of the hills around the shott region, extends the flat Isthmus of Gabes, 12½ M. broad, bridging the space between the bay and the Chott el-Fedjedj (76 ft. above sea-level), the E. continuation of the Chott Djérid (p. [386]). In 1873 Ferd. de Lesseps (p. [437]) suggested that, by cutting a canal through the isthmus, the whole of the shotts, as far as the Chott Melrir (p. [284]), might be converted into a great inland sea; but several of them lie much above the sea-level.
34 M. Domaine de Oued-Melah, an olive and palm oasis (10,000 palms), on a brook generally dry, is partly watered by the oldest artesian wells in Tunisia (1885).
To the right, a little off the road to Gafsa (p. [383]), lie the palm-oases of Oudref and El-Methouia, and to the left Ghennouch. Near the (49½ M.) poor oasis of Bou-Chemma we join the road from Kebilli (p. [388]).
Our road leads through the palm-oasis of Gabes (p. [390]) and past Djara (p. [390]) to (52 M.) Gabès-Port.
Gabes.—Arrival by Sea (comp. R. 64). The steamers anchor in the open roads (at low-tide over ½ M. from the fishing-boat harbour). Landing or embarking, especially in summer, in N.E. or E. wind, is often impossible.