[Illustration: At the Termid]
The music was not altogether original; it reminded me, with its mechanical
punctuations, of a concerto by Paderewski which contains an exquisite
movement between the piano and kettledrum--since the flute, which ought to
have supported the voice, was apparently dumb, although the artist puffed
out his cheeks as if his life depended upon it. Only after creeping quite
close to the performers could I discern certain wailful breathings; this
brave instrument, all splotched with variegated colours, gave forth a
succession of anguished and asthmatic whispers, the very phantom of a
song, like the wind sighing through the branches of trees.
_Chapter IV_
_STONES OF GAFSA_
There are interesting walks in the neighbourhood of Gafsa, but I can
imagine nothing more curious than the town itself; a place of some five
thousand inhabitants, about a thousand of whom are Jews, with a sprinkling
of Italian tradespeople and French officials and soldiers. Beyond naming
the streets and putting up a few lamps, the Government has left it in its
Arab condition; the roadways are unpaved, hardly a single wall is plumb;
the houses, mostly one-storied, lean this way and that, and, being built
of earthen-tinted sun-dried brick, have an air of crumbling to pieces
before one's very eyes.
Pages:
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41