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The houses a great heap of sun-baked stones, surmounted here and there by minarets and countless little whitewashed domes; a few date-trees spread out their fan-like heads over these dull-looking buildings; long sands stretched away on either side, with low purple hills behind them; we could see specks of camels crawling over these yellow plains; and those persons who were about to land had the leisure to behold the sea-spray flashing over the sands, and over a heap of black rocks which lie before the entry to the town.
Abou Seti bowed low, and rejoined, "Now shall I sleep in peace, by the grace of Heaven, and all my people under my date-trees and all my people?" he added, with an upward look at the Mudir. "But the rentals of the two feddans of land these ten years thou hast eased thy soul by bringing the rentals thereof?" Abou Seti's glance fell and his hands twitched.
Toser is a miserable assemblage of mud and brick huts, of very small dimensions, the beams and the doors being all of date-wood. The gardens, however, under the date-trees are beautiful, and abundantly watered with copious streams, all of which are warm, and in one of which we bathed ourselves and felt new vigour run through our veins.
Riches are estimated by the number of date-trees. He has two brothers now returning from Soudan, bringing slaves and elephants' teeth for the markets of Algeria. The notorious Mohammed Sagheer, who slaughtered thirty Frenchmen in cold blood at Biscara, is now at Tozer, in Tunis. This flight of fugitives will continue as long as France is in North Africa. It is inevitable.
There were also numerous mounds, the work of termites, which are literally gigantic structures, and often wild date-trees were seen growing on them. The party looked exceedingly picturesque as, the ostrich feathers of the men waving in the air, they wound in a long line in and out among the mounds.
We took a walk in the gardens, and were surprised at the quantities of doves fluttering among the date-trees; they were the common blue or Barbary doves. In the environs of Mogador, these doves are the principal birds shot. Toser, or Touzer, the Tisurus of ancient geography, is a considerable town of about six thousand souls, with several villages in its neighbourhood.
At a greater distance, on advancing towards the west, we saw pyramids of great stones, as white as alabaster, towering one above another, which seemed to indicate the border of a bank, and above which very high date-trees grew up, of which the trunks were warped round even to the top. The palm trees, extended upon a mass of stones, by their length and colour, gave proof of their antiquity.
A large portion was lying waste; but there were fields of various sorts of corn, and even vineyards, though the grapes produced from them were not, I suppose, used for the manufacture of wine: indeed, I know that they are eaten both fresh and dried. Date-trees were, however, in great abundance, the fruit being one of the principal articles of food among the people.
Give me plenty of room to swing it in; let me swing it between two date-trees on an Arabian plain; or extend it diagonally from Moorish pillar to pillar, in the open marble Court of the Lions in Granada's Alhambra: let me swing it on a high bluff of the Mississippi one swing in the pure ether for every swing over the green grass; or let me oscillate in it beneath the cool dome of St.
I easily found a lodging, and was glad to see that my expectations of the site of this village were not disappointed: it consists of about thirty houses, built in gardens, and among date-trees, almost every house having its own little garden.
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