Fountains in the Sand | Page 7

beginning of the tragedy, but never the
end, where, floundering in the street, the victims cover their silvery
scales with a coating of dust and expire ignominiously, as unlike live
fishes as if they came ready cooked out of the kitchen _panés et frits_.
Above this basin is another one, that of the women; and below it, at the
foot of a lurid stairway, a suite of subterranean (Roman) chambers, a
kind of Turkish bath for men, where the water hurries darkly through;
the place is reeking with a steamy heat, and objectionable beyond
words; it would not be easy to describe, in the language of polite
society, those features in which it is most repulsive to Europeans.
[Illustration: Entrance to the Termid]
How easily, as in former days, might now a health-giving wonder be
created out of these waters of Gafsa, that well up in a river of warmth
and purity, only to be hopelessly contaminated! The French tried the
experiment, but the natives objected, and they gave way: these are the
spots on the sunny ideal of "pacific penetration." Any other
nationality--while allowing the Arabs a fair share of the
element--would simply have rebuilt this termid and put it to a decent

use, in the name of cleanliness and civilization; the natives acquiescing,
as they always do when they recognize their masters. Or, if a display of
force was considered inadvisable, why not try the _suaviter in modo_?
Had a couple of local saints been judiciously approached, the
population would soon have discovered that the termid waters are
injurious to health and only fit for unbelievers. What is the use of a
marabout, if he cannot be bribed?
I am all for keeping up local colour, even when it entails, as it generally
does, a certain percentage of local smells; yet it seems a pity that such
glorious hot springs, a gift of the gods in a climate like this, should be
converted into a cloaca maxima, especially in Gafsa, which already
boasts of a superfluity of open drains.
But my friend the magistrate showed me a special bathing room which
has lately been built for the use of Europeans. We tried the door and
found it locked.
Where was the key?
At the _Ponts et Chaussées_.
Thither I went, and discovered an elderly official of ample proportions
dozing in a trim apartment--the chief of the staff. Great was this
gentleman's condescension; he bade me be seated, opened his eyes
wide, and enquired after my wants.
The key? The key of the _piscine?_ He regretted he could give me no
information as to its whereabouts--no information whatever. He had
never so much as seen the key in question; perhaps it had been lost,
perhaps it never existed. Several tourists, he added, had already come
on the same quest as myself; he also, on one occasion last year, thought
he would like to take a bath, but--what would you? There was no key!
If I liked to bathe, I might go to the tank at the gardens of Sidi Ahmed
Zarroung.
I gently insisted, pointing out that I did not care for a walk across the
wind-swept desert only to dip myself into a pool of lukewarm and
pestilentially sulphureous water. But "the key" was evidently a sore
subject.
"There is no key, Monsieur"; and he accompanied the words with a
portentous negative nod that blended the resigned solicitude of an old
and trusted friend with the firmness of a Bismarck. This closed the
discussion; with expressions of undying gratitude, and a few remarks as

to the palpable advantages to be derived from keeping a public
bathing-room permanently locked, I left him to his well-earned
slumbers....
It is hard to understand what the guide-books mean when they call the
market of Gafsa "rich and well-appointed": a five-pound note, I
calculate, would buy the entire exhibition. The produce, though varied,
is wretched; but the scenery fine. Over a dusty level, strewn with wares,
you look upon a stretch of waving palms, with the distant summit of
Jebel Orbata shining in the deep blue sky. Here are a few butchers and
open-air cooks who fry suspicious-looking bundles of animal intestines
for the epicurean Arabs; a little saddlery; half a camel-load of corn; a
broken cart-wheel and rickety furniture put up to auction; one or two
halfa-mats of admirable workmanship; grinding-stones; musty pressed
dates, onions, huge but insipid turnips and other green things, red
peppers----
Those peppers! An adult Arab will eat two pounds of them a day. I
have seen, native women devouring, alternately, a pepper, then a date,
then another pepper, then another date, and so on, for half an hour. An
infant at the breast, when tired of its natural nourishment, is often given
one of these fiery abominations to suck,