Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/213

 itself probably the work of man. In the middle of the Bahira a navigable way is to be formed by dredging to a depth of about 20 feet, which would suffice for the vessels now frequenting the port of Goletta. The future basin would have an area of about 25 acres. Fishing is very productive in the Bahira of Tunis, the thirty boats employed in this industry yielding a yearly supply valued at fifteen hundred tons. Some speculators have proposed to drain the Bahira; but in any case it will be necessary to empty the Sebkha of Seljum, which during the floods covers a space

of 6,250 acres south-east of the capital. Standing about 20 feet above sea-level, this malarious slough might easily be drained by a simple cutting south to the neighbouring gulf.

Tunis does not rank as a "learned town," and much will have to be done before it can again merit the praises bestowed upon it in the Middle Ages, when the title of El-Tunsi, or "the Tunisian," was synonymous with a man of science and letters.