[37] Ghafsa, whose name Bochart derives from the Hebrew “comprimere,” is an ancient city, claiming as its august founder, the Libyan Hercules.  It was one of the principal towns in the dominions of Jugurtha, and well-fortified, rendered secure by being placed in the midst of immense deserts, fabled to have been inhabited solely by snakes and serpents.  Marius took it by a coup-de-main, and put all the inhabitants to the sword.  The modern city is built on a gentle eminence, between two arid mountains, and, in a great part, with the materials of the ancient one.  Ghafsa has no wall of euceinte, or rather a ruined wall surrounds it, and is defended by a kasbah, containing a small garrison.  This place may be called the gate of the Tunisian Sahara; it is the limit of Blad-el-Jereed; the sands begin now to disappear, and the land becomes better, and more suited to the cultivation of corn.  Three villages are situated in the environs, Sala, El-Kesir, and El-Ghetar.  A fraction of the tribe of Hammand deposit their grain in Ghafsa.  This town is famous for its manufactories of baraeans and blankets ornamented with pretty coloured flowers.  There is also a nitre and powder-manufactory, the former obtained from the earth by a very rude process.

The environs are beautifully laid out in plantations of the fig, the pomegranate, and the orange, and especially the datepalm, and the olive-tree.  The oil made here is of peculiarly good quality, and is exported to Tugurt, and other oases of the Desert.

[38] Kaemtz’s Meteorology, p. 191.

[39] This is the national dish of Barbary, and is a preparation of wheat-flour granulated, boiled by the steam of meat.  It is most nutritive, and is eaten with or without meat and vegetables.  When the grains are large, it is called hamza.

[40] A camel-load is about five cantars, and a cantar is a hundred weight.

[Transcriber’s Note:  In this electronic edition, the footnotes were numbered and relocated to the end of the work.  In ch. 3, “Mogrel-el-Aska” was corrected to “Mogrel-el-Aksa”; in ch. 4, “lattely” to “lately”; in ch. 7, “book” to “brook”; in ch. 9, “cirumstances” to “circumstances”.  Also, “Amabasis” was corrected to “Anabasis” in footnote 16.]