Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/199

 KASRIN. 161 repulsive appearance ; they have no strength for work, just as they hod no energy to resist the French. However, the town has a few industries, more esjKKjially muuufuctones of embroidered saddles, chased copjKT vases, and attar of roses ; its bazaars are amongst the Ix^st stocked in Tunis. But provisions of all kinds have to be brought from a great distance ; vegetables and cereals being imported from Hammamet, some 60 miles distant. There are no other towns in the district of Kairwan, and all that remains of the ancient Sabra, which stood about a mile to the south, are two pink columns, which •' shtnl blood " under the siiws of the workmen. The traveller pasHcs, without transi- tion, from the scenes of city to those of rural life. Alf the surrounding peoples are partially or completely nomads, either of Arab or Berber stock. Amongst the latter is the powerful Zlas tribe, south and west of Kairwan, who are said to number thirty thousand, and who occupy the western suburb of that place. The S&sa Arabs live to the east, around the depressions in which are collected the waters of the Sidi-cl-IIani sobkha, whence they extract large quantities of salt. This is piled up in great heaps, on the top of which they burn brushwood, in order by the fusion of the upi)er layers to form a solid crust, which prevents the suit from being dissolved by the rains. To the north-west are the camping-grounds of the Ulad Yuhiya, and to the west, near the sources of the rivers falling into lake Eelbia, those of the Majer tribe. The region now traversed by these semi- Arab Berber nomads is one of those most densely inhabited by settled communities some two thousand years ago. The upper basin of the Wed-el-Fekka, a watercourse which changes its name at each successive confluence, lies in a district of Tunis where Roman remains occur in the greatest abundance. The huge cities and their 8unii)tuous monuments have everj- where left ruins which, throughout eastern Maghreb, are called /irns/n'rs, a term equally applied to all lands under cultivation. Kmrin, the ancient Scyllium, whose remains cover several hills, still preserves a three-storied mausoleum with Corinthian pilasters, besides a triumphal arch and many other buildings, which have not been so well preserved. Near this spot the railway from Cabes to Tebessa will pass under two ancient triumphal arches. East of Kasrin the Sbeitla henshir, commanded by the Jebel of the same name, and traversed by the Wed Menasser, an affluent of the Fekka, has also preserved some magnificent monuments of the Roman jx^riod. When M. Guerin visited this henshir it was inhabited by a solitary priest, who, to the traveller's surprise, proved to be a Frenchman ! Several thermal springs which rise in a dried-up bed near Sbeitla, are sufiiciently copious to form a clear streamlet, as large in volume as the springs of Zaghwan. The water yielded by it suffices for a considerable ix)pulation, and everything, in fact, tends to prove that this now deserted region was very populous some two or three thousand years ago. The ancient Sujfefit/a, that is, in Carthaginian, " the town of the SufFetes," was an important city and the seat of the government of the province till the Arab invasions. The temples, colonnades, triumphal arches, ramparts, towers, and tombs with inscriptions have enabled archax)lpgi8t8 to discover the ground-plan of the town. An imposing temple, with