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NORTH AFRICA AND THE DESERT SCENES AND MOODS BY GEORGE E. WOODBERRY NEW YORK CHABLES SCRIBNERS SONS 1914 COPYBIGHT, 1914, BT CHARLES SCRIBNEBS SONS Published April, 1914 SETH LOW LONG AIT FRIEND AND ONCE MT A STATESMAN INTERESTED IN ALL THAT PERTAINS TO HUMAN WELFARE I DEDICATE CONFIDENT OP HIS SYMPATHY THIS BOOK OF THE ARAB WORLD CONTENTS PAGE I. TUNISIAN DAYS 1 II TLEMCEN 51 III. FIGUIG 103 IV. TOUGOURT 147 V. SCENES AND VISIONS 195 VI. ON THE MAT 245 VII. DJEKBA 287 VIII. TRIPOLI 313 TUNISIAN DAYS I TUNISIAN DAYS I WAS fortunate in my first landfall at Tunis. It was a fine sea picture framed in that chill November dawn. On my left, over the rippling watery gold to the few pink clouds eastward, lay the great blue mountain head land, stretching far behind. In front, a little to the right, was Goletta, the port, hard by and ranging off northward the line of the ocean beach ran stern and solemn, with the light house above. That rise, there, was the hill of Carthage. Westward over the hollow space of waters swept the crescent horizon inland, low and misty, centred a little to the south by the obscure white of far Tunis. Carthage is the first thought of the traveller his instant mem ory is of Phoenician ships, and his imagination is of Scipio and Regulus these are the sights they saw. 3 4 NORTH AFRICA AND THE DESERT The steamer plied up the long canal that makes the shallow, broad lake navigable to the docks some miles beyond flamingoes flew to the right and left over the level lapping waters, Iresh in the raw, damp, almost rainy air and gradually Tunis drew in sight, like a great white flower on the bosom of the sloping uplands, strange, solitary, unexpected, with minarets and the islandlook of a Moslem city. n BAREEN enough was my first acquaintance with the land side, weary, cheerless, desolate, like windy prairies in autumn, uninhabited, un inhabitable and I was chilled to the bone when I came back to the hotel, then in the bud of its first season. It, is more sober now, but then it had a near cousinship to Monte Carlo it was delightfully irresponsible, vivacious, gay. One passed to the picturesque bar and the caf6, thick with interesting groups or with equal ease to the little horses with their ever-dissolving banks of faces, a covey of all nations, round the bell-timed play, and to the vaudeville stage with gymnasts, French acting, fat Jewess dancers, and a world lightly enjoying itself, as it looked from railed low boxes on the spacious floor