Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/156

 128 NOFl'II-WEST AFEICA. extinct about the beginning of this century. The baboon is no longer to be met with, except in that angle of Tunisia bordering on the southern shotts. Lions still exist in some of the hills on the frontier of Algeria, and more especially in Khumiria, amongst the Ushtetta tribes, and in the Jebel Bu-Ghanem. But they are not nearly so numerous as they were in the time of the Carthaginians, when they preyed upon peasants and travellers in the very outskirts of the towns, and when the roads wore lined with gibbets on which these animals were crucified. According to a popular legend, the BG-Ghanem territory still contained a few thousands of these ferocious beasts some few centuries ago, and the reigning sovereign gave the country to a certain tribe on the condition that they ate no other flesh than that of the lion. Elephants have disappeared with the forests which they devastated, but it is sjitisfactorily shown that they existed in this country in the early period of local liistory ; they were probably exterminated during the Roman sway. In Pliny's time elephants were already brought in. captivity " from beyond the solitudes of the Syrtes ; " but a Spanish writer states, on mere hearsay authority, that this pachyderm was seen in Tunis as late as the latter end of the sixteenth Century. More fortunate than the elephant, the buffalo has not been completely exterminated, a few herds still roaming round Lake Bizerta, and even in the island of Eshkel, in the middle of the lake of the same name ; but they are no longer found in any other part of the country. A few moufflons still survive in the southern hills of Tunis, but in no other part of the country. But, as in the rest of North-west Africa, the domestic fauna has boon enriched bj' the acquisition of that most valuable animal, the camel. According to Tissot, this animal has for at least fifteen centuries been indispensable as a beast of burden to the inhabitants of the Barbary States and Sudan. The reader is doubtless familiar with the accounts of the ancient authors concerning the struggle which the army of Regulus had to sustain on the borders of Bagrada against a serpent more than 116 feet long. But at the present day throughout the whole of Tunis there is not a snake which attains one-fifth of these proportions. The varieties of the ophidian family have also decreased in number, although tliore are probably still many species as yet undiscovered ; while, on the other hand, many of the reptiles which the ancient writers describe as sprung from the blood of the Gorgon, must be classed amongst the fabulous animals. One of the districts most infested by serpents is the mountain region which skirts the Tunisian Sahara ; the natives have even been compelled to quit the Jebel Telja, north-east of the Shott-el-Gharsa, on account of the multitude of snakes, of the tagarcja family, which swarm in this place. Farther east, towards Sfakes, the nomads of the steppes have a great dread of the zorre'ig [rchis cariiiafa), which twines itself round the branches of the tamarisk-trees growing near the springs, and thence darts down upon its prey. It is probably the same species as the j'aculus, or " winged serpent," of the Latin authors. A recent expedition, under the direc- tion of M. Doiimet Adanson, has resulted in the discovery of a " hooded " snake, called bii f'tira, the tiajn of naturalists. The scorpion, another reptile common in Tunis, is extremely dangerous, much more so than the Algerian or Marocco