Nefta itself, built of soft loam, would crumble away in
briefest time if left unrepaired. The acute Guerin was not more successful
than myself at Zafrana, nor was Maltzan.
This being the most exposed corner of the oasis, the _tabias_ have grown
to a fine size; I climbed over the inner one, which must be ten yards high
and at least twenty in breadth. From its summit one perceives distant
forms of ruinous buildings rising up in the Tozeur direction, on the slope
which inclines to the Chott. Was this, perhaps, Zafrana?
No. Riding up to them, I found they were merely turret-like eminences of
hard bluish clay, the carapace of the desert, which the wind has carved
into quaint semblances of human dwellings. In the evening light they catch
the last rays of the sun and shine like diaphanous spectres upon the
darkened ground, but at sunrise, when the yellow sands sparkle with light,
they tower up grim and menacing: a mournful, ghoul-haunted region, like
those veritable townships of the past, Dougga, Timgad and the rest of
them, standing all forlorn in their African desolation.
Whoever has visited such sites will understand the impression they
conveyed to men of simpler ages.
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