It
looks best in the moonlight, when this childish cardboard effect is toned
down.
One of the two hot springs of Gafsa is enclosed within this Kasbah, while
the other rises near at hand and flows into the celebrated baths--the
_termid_, as the natives, using the old Greek word, still call it. It is a
large and deep stone basin, half full of warm water, in which small
fishes, snakes and tortoises disport themselves; the massive engirdling
walls demonstrate its Roman origin. Thick mists hang over the _termid_ in
the early mornings, when the air is chilly, but later on it becomes a
lively place, full of laughter and splashings. Here, for a sou, you may
get the boys to jump down from the parapet and wallow among the muddy ooze
at the bottom; the liquid, though transparent, is not colourless, but
rather of the blue-green tint of the aquamarine crystal; it flows rapidly,
and all impurities are carried away.
There are always elderly folk idling about these premises, and youngsters
with rods tempting the fish out of the water; day after day the game goes
on, the foolish creatures nibble at the bait and are drawn up on high;
their fellows see the 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 _panes et frits_.
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