"
And he gazed lovingly over the sea of glossy palm-tops, down yonder, on
our right. This, I thought, was a most unusual type of Frenchman; and yet
there was something in his language, or perhaps in his ideas, which was
already familiar to me.
"To be Sultan of Tozeur, for example--ha! I would bend them to my will; I
would lead them to battle and give them laws; I would have them about me
as slaves and companions--they should sing to me and tell me stories while
I go to sleep. This fair land seems like the realization of some old,
dimly remembered dream of mine. How does it all come about, I wonder?"
_Sultan of Tozeur_--that gave me the cue, and I hazarded the guess that he
had inherited his tastes from certain old rovers and conquerors of the
northern seaboard.
"True," he said, "our family comes from Normandy, though we have lived in
Paris for two generations. Now how on earth did you find that out?"
These are the men whom the Franco-Tunisian administration will do well to
encourage as officials and settlers in the wilder parts.
_Chapter XXI_
_OLD TISOUROS_
There is a daily recurring spectacle at Tozeur which enchanted me: the
camping ground at dawn.
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