It Is A Turkish Term.

[32] This office answers vulgarly to our _Boots_ at English inns.

[33] Bismilla, Arabic for "In the name of God!" the Mohammedan grace before meat, and also drink.

[34] Shaw says. - "The hobara is of the bigness of a capon, it feeds upon the little grubs or insects, and frequents the confines of the Desert. The body is of a light dun or yellowish colour, and marked over with little brown touches, whilst the larger feathers of the wing are black, with each of them a white spot near the middle; those of the neck are whitish with black streaks, and are long and erected when the bird is attacked. The bill is flat like the starling's, nearly an inch and a half long, and the legs agree in shape and in the want of the hinder toe with the bustard's, but it is not, as Golins says, the bustard, that bird being twice as big as the hobara. Nothing can be more entertaining than to see this bird pursued by the hawk, and what a variety of flights and stratagems it makes use of to escape." The French call the hobara, a little bustard, _poule de Carthage_, or Carthage-fowl. They are frequently sold in the market of Tunis, as ordinary fowls, but eat something like pheasant, and their flesh is red.

[35] The most grandly beautiful view in Tunis is that from the Belvidere, about a mile north-west from the capital, looking immediately over the Marsa road. Here, on a hill of very moderate elevation, you have the most beautiful as well as the most magnificent panoramic view of sea and lake, mountain and plain, town and village, in the whole Regency, or perhaps in any other part of North Africa. There are besides many lovely walks around the capital, particularly among and around the craggy heights of the south-east. But these are little frequented by the European residents, the women especially, who are so stay-at-homeative that the greater part of them never walked round the suburbs once in their lives. Europeans generally prefer the Marina, lined on each side, not with pleasant trees, but dead animals, sending forth a most offensive smell.

[36] Shaw says: "The rhaad, or safsaf, is a granivorous and gregarious bird, which wanteth the hinder toe. There are two species, and both about and a little larger than the ordinary pullet. The belly of both is white, back and wings of a buff colour spotted with brown, tail lighter and marked all along with black transverse streaks, beak and legs stronger than the partridge. The name rhaad, "thunder," is given to it from the noise it makes on the ground when it rises, safsaf, from its beating the air, a sound imitating the motion."

[37] Ghafsa, whose name Bochart derives from the Hebrew "comprimere," is an ancient city, claiming as its august founder, the Libyan Hercules. It was one of the principal towns in the dominions of Jugurtha, and well-fortified, rendered secure by being placed in the midst of immense deserts, fabled to have been inhabited solely by snakes and serpents. Marius took it by a _coup-de-main_, and put all the inhabitants to the sword. The modern city is built on a gentle eminence, between two arid mountains, and, in a great part, with the materials of the ancient one. Ghafsa has no wall of _euceinte_, or rather a ruined wall surrounds it, and is defended by a kasbah, containing a small garrison. This place may be called the gate of the Tunisian Sahara; it is the limit of Blad-el-Jereed; the sands begin now to disappear, and the land becomes better, and more suited to the cultivation of corn. Three villages are situated in the environs, Sala, El-Kesir, and El-Ghetar. A fraction of the tribe of Hammand deposit their grain in Ghafsa. This town is famous for its manufactories of baraeans and blankets ornamented with pretty coloured flowers. There is also a nitre and powder-manufactory, the former obtained from the earth by a very rude process.

The environs are beautifully laid out in plantations of the fig, the pomegranate, and the orange, and especially the datepalm, and the olive-tree. The oil made here is of peculiarly good quality, and is exported to Tugurt, and other oases of the Desert.

[38] Kaemtz's Meteorology, p. 191.

[39] This is the national dish of Barbary, and is a preparation of wheat-flour granulated, boiled by the steam of meat. It is most nutritive, and is eaten with or without meat and vegetables. When the grains are large, it is called hamza.

[40] A camel-load is about five cantars, and a cantar is a hundred weight.

[Transcriber's Note: In this electronic edition, the footnotes were numbered and relocated to the end of the work. In ch. 3, "Mogrel-el-Aska" was corrected to "Mogrel-el-Aksa"; in ch. 4, "lattely" to "lately"; in ch. 7, "book" to "brook"; in ch. 9, "cirumstances" to "circumstances". Also, "Amabasis" was corrected to "Anabasis" in footnote 16.]

End of Travels in Morocco, Vol. 2., by James Richardson

Enter page number Go  Previous 
Page 52 of 52
Words from 52250 to 53114 of 53114