_Chapter V_

_SIDI ARMED ZARROUNG_


Sidi Ahmed Zarroung--that is the name of the miniature oasis visible from
the Meda Hill, at the foot of those barren slopes. It is a pleasant
afternoon's walk from Gafsa.

The intervening plain is encrusted with stones--stones great and small.
Here and there are holes in the ground, where the natives have unearthed
some desert shrub for the sake of its roots which, burnt as fuel, exhale a
pungent odour of ammonia that almost suffocates you. Once the water-zone
of Gafsa is passed, every trace of cultivation vanishes. And yet, to judge
by the number of potsherds lying about, houses must have stood here in
days of old. An Arab geographer of the eleventh century says that there
are over two hundred flourishing villages in the neighbourhood of Gafsa;
and Edrisius, writing a century later, extols its prosperous suburbs, and
pleasure-houses.

Where are they now?

One of these villages, surely, must have lain near this fountain of Sidi
Ahmed Zarroung, which now irrigates a few palms and vegetables and then
loses itself in the sand; a second spring, sulphureous and medicinal, but
destructive to plants, rises near at hand. This is the one which the
gentleman of the _Ponts et Chaussees_ recommended me for bathing purposes.

But I saw no trace of ancient life here; there is only a muddy pond, full