_Chapter XIII_
_TO METLAOUI_
I should be sorry to say how long the train takes to crawl through the
thirty odd kilometres that separate Gafsa from Metlaoui. My companion on
the trip, M. Dufresnoy, tells me that the return journey is still slower,
because the line runs mostly uphill and the trucks, thirty or forty of
them, are loaded with minerals. Fortunately, the car in which we
travelled--each train has only a single passenger carriage--was
comfortable, being built after the fashion of the Swiss "Aussichtswagen,"
with seats on the exterior platform whence one can admire the view.
It gave me some idea of the goods traffic (phosphates) along this line
when he told me that during the past seven days 23,000 tons of mineral had
been conveyed to the port of Sfax alone, to say nothing of those that had
gone further on, to Sousse and Tunis. And not long ago, he said, the
company had an unpleasant surprise: sixteen new engines of a powerful
type, which they had ordered from Winterthur, were suddenly discovered to
be liable to a duty of 1000 francs apiece as "imported articles.
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