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Douglas, Norman, 1868-1952

"Rambles Among the Oases of Tunisia"

And every day, as the sun passed over their
heads, they saluted him not as the Giver of Life or Lord of Earth, but
cursed him with imprecations long and loathsome, for his scorching fires.
Shaw, I believe, was the first to identify the Chotts with Lake Triton.
There were islands in this sea; the sacred isle of Phla, for instance,
which the Spartans were commanded by an oracle to colonize, and whereon
stood a temple to Aphrodite. There are islands to this day, great and
small; one of them is called Faraoun--evidently an Egyptian name, for
Egyptian influence was felt early in these regions; at Faraoun grows a
peculiar kind of date which, we are told, an Egyptian army had left there.
The waters of the pool touched Nefta, whose Kadi gave Tissot a description
of a buried vessel which, from its shape, could be nothing but a "galere
antique"--it was dismembered for fuel, and metal nails were found in its
framework.
Movers is probably correct in seeking at Nefta the Biblical Naphtuhim of
the generation of Noah: an Egyptian document speaks of it as the "land of
Napit." Arabs have another theory of its origin.


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