Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/194

 Like other towns of Eastern Tunis, modern Sûsa is surrounded by huge quadrilateral ramparts, flanked with towers, and commanded at one of its angles by a kasbah. Altogether, the city is about one mile in circumference; but outside the enclosure, comprising a network of winding streets, is a newly opened quarter in the north-cast, near the beach, which, however, lacks the picturesque appearance of the old town. Here are the depôts of the Jewish and European merchants, with their reservoirs of oil, which is exported to Marseilles for the manufacture of soap.

Olive-trees can be counted by the million in the Sahel of Sûsa, and the plantations could even be still farther increased, although in some places the sand is allowed to encroach on the cultivated districts. Till recently, the casks of oil

which the Sûsa merchants supplied to the vessels in the roadstead were floated, and towed down by flat boats in long convoys. On the return voyage the casks were thrown overboard, washed ashore by the surf, and recovered by their owners. Now, however, a small jetty receives the travellers and merchandise landed from the boats or rafts. Sicilian sloops fish for sardines off the coast of Sûsa, and the produce, as abundant as in the waters of Mahdiya, is exported to Greece and Dalmatia.

Italians and Maltese, always very numerous at Sûsa, till recently constituted nearly all the European population of the town; but the majority of the non-Mussulmans were Jews, who numbered some two thousand, and who enjoyed a monopoly of the inland trade. Hundreds of Negroes, the sons of former slaves, carry on the