The Spell of Algeria and Tunisia

Front Cover
L. C. Page, 1908 - 442 pages
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 81 - He. raises the forefinger of his right hand and repeats: " I affirm that there is no God but God and that Mohammed is the Apostle of God.
Page 192 - Around lie drifted sand-heaps upon which each puff of wind leaves its trace in solid waves, flayed rocks, the very skeletons of mountains, and hard, unbroken plains, over which he who rides is spurred by the idea that the bursting of a waterskin or the pricking of a camel's hoof would be a certain death of torture — a haggard land, infested with wild beasts and wilder men — a region whose very fountains murmur the warning words, "Drink and away!
Page 232 - Ou dans tout saison butinent les abeilles ? Ou rayonne et sourit comme un bienfait de Dieu, Un eternel printemps sous un ciel toujours bleu ? Helas ! que ne puis-je te suivre Vers ce rivage heureux d'oi1 le sort m'exila.
Page 30 - Trade between Algeria and France, mostly in wines and food stuffs on one side, and manufactured products on the other, approximates three hundred millions of francs in each direction. Algeria, " la belle Algerie," as the French fondly call it, is not a mere strip of mountain land and desert. It is one of the richest agricultural lands on earth, running eastward from the Moroccan frontier well over into Tunisia; and, for ages, it has been known as the granary of Europe. The Carthaginians and the Phoenicians...
Page 71 - Mediterranean shores ; and a variety of colour will come into the landscape of the fishermen's huts and the farmhouses which the artists of a former generation knew not of. Tunis is undergoing a great commercial development, and if the gold of Ophir is not some day found beneath its soil, many who have predicted its undeveloped riches will be surprised and disappointed. The railways of Tunisia are not at all adequate to the needs of the country, but they are growing rapidly. When the line is finally...
Page 49 - Souk-Ahras will be the distinct " foreign note " of the installation of its farming communities. Haystacks are plastered over with mud; carts are drawn by mules or horses hitched tandemwise, three, four or five on end, and the carts are mostly two-wheeled at that. There are no fences and no great barns for stocking fodder or sheltering cattle; the farmhouses are all of stone, bare or stucco-covered, and range in colour from sky-blue to pale pink and vivid yellow.
Page 31 - Arab farmer seeks the sunny side of the wall and basks there, watching things grow, smoking much tobacco and drinking much coffee each of these narcotics very black and very strong. Four months later his ample, or meagre, crop comes by chance. Then he flays it, not by means of a flail swung by hand, but by borrowing a little donkey from some neighbor, — if he hasn't one of his own, — and letting the donkey's hoofs trample it out. Now he takes it — or most likely sends it — to market, and...
Page 70 - ... upon. The red-tiled roof of convention may now be expected to give way to one of iridescent, dazzling green, if the industry goes on prospering ; and no more will the brick-yards of Marseilles sell their dull, conventional product throughout Tunisia; and no more will the steamship companies grow wealthy off this dead-weight freight. The Italian or Maltese balancelle. will deliver these magnificent...

Bibliographic information