Here, under the trees, the wind is scarce felt, though you can perceive it
by the fretful clashing of the palm branches overhead. And despite the
storm there is a strange hush in the air, the hush of things to come, a
sense of uneasiness; spring is upon us, buds are unfolding and waters draw
up forcefully from a soil which seems to heave under one's very feet. It
is a moment of throbbing intensity.
And the scirocco moans to these pangs of elemental gestation which man,
the creature of earth, still darkly feels within him.
The ground is cultivated with mathematical parsimoniousness and divided
into squares which made me think of the Roman _agrimensores_. But
concerning this point, a civilized old native told me the following
legend. Long ago, he said, these oases were wild jungles, and the few
human creatures who lived near them little better than beasts. Then came a
wise man who cut up and ploughed the watery district of Gafsa, Tozeur and
Nefta; he planted trees and all the other growths useful to mankind; he
divided the land into patches, led the water through them, and apportioned
them among certain families--in short, he gave these oases their present
shape, and did his work so well that up to this day no one has been able
to suggest any improvements or to quarrel with his arrangement.
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