I continued along the coast to Susa, through a fine country planted
with olive trees, and came again to Tunis, not only without
disagreeable accident, but without any interruption from sickness
or other cause. I then took leave of the Bey, and, with the
acknowledgments usual on such occasions, again set out from Tunis, on a
very serious journey indeed, over the desert to Tripoli, the first part
of which to Gabs was the same road by which I had so lately returned.
From Gabs I proceeded to the island of Gerba, the Meninx[39] Insula, or
Island of the Lotophagi.
Doctor Shaw says, the fruit he calls the Lotus is very frequent all
over that coast. I wish he had said what was this Lotus. To say it is
the fruit the most common on that coast is no description, for there is
there no sort of fruit whatever; no bush, no tree, nor verdure of any
kind, excepting the short grass that borders these countries before you
enter the moving sands of the desert. Doctor Shaw never was at Gerba,
and has taken this particular from some unfaithful story-teller. The
Wargumma and Noile, two great tribes of Arabs, are masters of these
deserts. Sidi Ismain, whose grandfather, the Bey of Tunis, had been
dethroned and strangled by the Algerines, and who was himself then
prisoner at Algiers, in great repute for valour, and in great intimacy
with me, did often use to say, that he accounted his having passed that
desert on horseback as the hardiest of all his undertakings.
with olive trees, and came again to Tunis, not only without
disagreeable accident, but without any interruption from sickness
or other cause. I then took leave of the Bey, and, with the
acknowledgments usual on such occasions, again set out from Tunis, on a
very serious journey indeed, over the desert to Tripoli, the first part
of which to Gabs was the same road by which I had so lately returned.
From Gabs I proceeded to the island of Gerba, the Meninx[39] Insula, or
Island of the Lotophagi.
Doctor Shaw says, the fruit he calls the Lotus is very frequent all
over that coast. I wish he had said what was this Lotus. To say it is
the fruit the most common on that coast is no description, for there is
there no sort of fruit whatever; no bush, no tree, nor verdure of any
kind, excepting the short grass that borders these countries before you
enter the moving sands of the desert. Doctor Shaw never was at Gerba,
and has taken this particular from some unfaithful story-teller. The
Wargumma and Noile, two great tribes of Arabs, are masters of these
deserts. Sidi Ismain, whose grandfather, the Bey of Tunis, had been
dethroned and strangled by the Algerines, and who was himself then
prisoner at Algiers, in great repute for valour, and in great intimacy
with me, did often use to say, that he accounted his having passed that
desert on horseback as the hardiest of all his undertakings.
