The reason, however, is so obvious, and the remedy so simple, that one cannot help wondering why the natives have never attempted it in their own interests. The district which I have already described as the ‘Country of Sand’ commences at Tabarca, and forms a range of sandhills right across the mouth of the valley, except at the one point where the rivers converge and fall into the sea. The valley is so flat that there is no natural drainage into the rivers which traverse it; the consequence is that rain water has no means of escaping to the sea, the land becomes a swamp, and remains so during a great portion of the year, till dried up by solar evaporation. While this operation is being carried on by nature, the inevitable result, malarious fever, is felt in an unusual degree.
When any great and sudden epidemic visits the country, it finds this district thoroughly prepared for its reception. The Abbé Poiret, who visited Tabarca just after Desfontaines in 1785, gives a harrowing account of the ravages committed by the plague during the previous year. Whole tribes were swept away, and the Turkish garrison perished, with the exception of five or six soldiers; the island was twice entirely depeopled, and the harvests were lost for want of labour to gather them in, while flocks of sheep and goats strayed all over the country without any owners to claim them.[234]
A few ditches, so cut as to direct the surface waters into the streams which traverse the plain, would soon remedy this evil, and convert the valley into what it ought to be, one of the finest and most salubrious districts in the Regency. It possesses every condition necessary to ensure prosperity, extensive corn and meadow land, capable of irrigation in summer; numerous flocks and herds; an unusually fine race of horses; an inexhaustible supply of the finest timber, especially oak; cork forests, and, above all, proximity to the sea, and an easy and secure anchorage, at least for small vessels.
There can be no doubt that the country is rich in minerals. A specimen of lead ore was picked up near Tabarca and brought to me. I submitted it for analysis to the English mining company at Ain Barbar, from which I have received a report that it contains 72·70 per cent. of lead, and that each ton of mineral contains 150 grammes, or 5 ounces of silver.
M. Peyssonnel (1724) mentions having visited a lead mine in this neighbourhood on his way from Cape Negro to Badja. He states: ‘We saw on our road, at about five leagues from Cape Negro, a mine of lead very abundant. The Moors, who worked it, stated that it had been opened by the ancient Christians. At the entrance to the quarry was a piece of marble, with a horse in bas-relief. We stopped at the place where they melted the lead. They mix the ore with wood in bad furnaces made with clay, and thus separate the metal very imperfectly.’[235]
The plain is covered with remains of Roman occupation. We observed no inscriptions, but Peyssonnel records four epitaphs[236] which existed in his time, and which are probably there still, so little has this district been visited by Europeans during the past century.
FOOTNOTES:
[231]Allusion is here made to a mausoleum at Suffetula and to one at Toelsen.
[232]Peyssonnel, ap. Dur. de la Malle, i. p. 258.
[233]Marmol, trad. d’Ablancourt, vol. i. p. 23.