The desert hare is shot or coursed with muzzled greyhounds, _sloughis_,
who strike it down with their paws; unmuzzled, they rend it to pieces.
There are few of them in Gafsa just now, on account of the cold to which
they are sensitive; although muffled in woollen garments they shiver
pitifully. Of falconers, I have only met one riding to the chase. It was
the Kaid of Gafsa, a wealthy man of incalculable political influence both
here and in Tunis. It is even whispered--But no; one must not repeat all
one hears....
With the proprietor's permission I went over a young plantation of trees
and vegetables that has sprung up near the railway line, about halfway
between Gafsa and Leila. Excavating to a depth of six metres at the foot
of the bare Rogib hill, they encountered an apparently unlimited supply of
water, and here, where formerly nothing but a few scorched grasses and
thorns could be seen, is now a luxuriant little oasis. More might be done
with the place, but the owner seems to have lost interest in it; the
locusts, too, have been rather destructive of late.
He had planted quantities of prickly pears, he said, but the Bedouins'
cattle had devoured them.
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