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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.
The duties of the "Bey of the Camp" is to visit with a "flying-camp," for the purpose of collecting tribute, the two circuits or divisions of the Regency. I now introduce to the reader the narrative of a Tour to the Jereed, extracted from the notebooks of the tourists, together with various observations of my own interspersed, and some additional account of Toser, Nefta, and Ghafsa.
Rode out of an evening; there was a large encampment of Arabs outside the town, thoroughly sun-burnt, hardy-looking fellows, some of them as black as negroes. Many people in Toser have sore eyes, and several with the loss of one eye, or nearly so; opthalmia, indeed, is the most prevalent disease in all Barbary.
The people stared at us Christians with open mouths; our dress apparently astonished them. At Toser, the Bey left his tent and entered his palace, so called in courtesy to his Highness, but a large barn of a house, without any pretensions. We had also a room allotted to us in this palace, which was the best to be found in the town, though a small dark affair.
We next marched to Byrlafee, about twenty miles, and ninety-one from Toser, where there are the ruins of an old town. The weather continued cold and most wintry. Here is a very ancient well still in use. Fragments of cornices and pillars are strewn about.
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.
Near us were put up about a dozen blue cranes, the only birds seen to-day. A gazelle was caught, and others chased. We particularly observed huge patches of ground covered with salt, which, at a distance, appeared just like water. Toser. The Bey's Palace. Blue Doves. The town described. Industry of the People. Sheikh Tahid imprisoned and punished. Leghorn. The Boo-habeeba. A Domestic Picture.
Sidi Mohammed. Plain of Manouba. Tunis. Tfeefleeah. The Bastinado. Turkish Infantry. Kairwan. Sidi Amour Abeda. Saints. A French Spy Administration of Justice. The Bey's presents. The Hobara. Ghafsa. Hot streams containing Fish. Snakes. Incantation. Moorish Village. Toser. The Bey's Palace. Blue Doves. The town described. Industry of the People. Sheikh Tahid imprisoned and punished. Leghorn.
On our return from Toser, we had an extensive view of the Sahara, an ocean as far as the eye could see, of what one would have taken his oath was water, the shores, inlets, and bays being clearly defined, but, in reality, nothing but salt scattered on the surface. Several islets were apparently breaking its watery expanse, but these also were only heaps of sand raised from the surrounding flat.
Behind the city was a forest of date-trees, and beyond these and all around, as far as the eye could wander, was an immeasurable waste an ocean of sand a great part of which we could have sworn was water, unless told to the contrary. We were met, before entering Toser, with some five or six hundred Arabs, who galloped before the Bey, and fired as usual.
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