TUNIS OF TODAY 741 
the right is a fish market, where fish are 
auctioned off to the highest bidder, in 
lots of from one to seven pounds. 
Keeping on through another vaulted 
gateway, some Arab women are selling 
snails and bunches of lettuce and aspara- 
gus and large and small turtles, which 
are supposed to bring good luck. The 
poultry venders have a place for them- 
selves, where live chickens, ducks, and 
pigeons are to be bought, on one side of 
the arcade, and on the opposite side are 
the freshly plucked chickens, pigeons, 
and quantities of native quail, much 
smaller than ours in America. The vege- 
table booths have fresh beets, carrots, 
radishes, artichokes, cauliflowers, peas, 
onions, string beans, and other varieties 
of beans unknown in New England, new 
potatoes, and large squash cut into slices. 
The fruits for sale in April are dates, 
oranges of all varieties, mandarins, 
lemons, sweet lemons—a fruit greatly 
esteemed by the Arabs, very juicy, but 
insipid—and a curious pear-shaped blood 
orange, bananas of a small variety, but 
excellent in flavor. Nespolies of Japan 
are greatly liked and thrive in this soil. 
Later in the season come grapes, figs, 
melons, apricots, peaches, pears, and ap- 
ples, pomegranates, and strawberries; 
also almonds and pistache, which is used 
in great quantities in making bon-bons 
by the natives. A date stuffed with 
freshly prepared pistache is delicious. 
The natives eat the fruit of the prickly- 
pear cactus. Unfortunately, the new va- 
riety without thorns, lately developed by 
Mr. Burbank, has not been imported 
into Tunisia, and its cultivation might 
prove a failure, as the prickly-pear cacti 
are used almost entirely instead of 
fences. They only cost the labor, and 
once grown their sharp thorns, finer than 
a needle and irritating to the skin, keep 
out man and beast. The butcher-shops 
have beef, mutton, and pork, and there 
are two stalls at market where only 
horse-meat is sold. 
At the slaughter-house there are three 
separate divisions—one for the Euro- 
peans, one for the Jews, and a third for 
the Mohammedans, where the animal to 
be killed has to face toward Mecca. 
Arabs are extremely fond of fish, and 
the waters of the Mediterranean and the 
numerous salt lakes in Tunisia abound 
with many species unknown in Europe 
and America. Many fish thrown away 
or used as lobster bait on our Atlantic 
coast are considered excellent over here. 
For instance, none of us has ever thought 
of eating a “skate.” How our Glouces- 
ter fishermen despise them! Yet many 
of us who have lived in France have 
eaten them without knowing, thinking it 
was turbot. 
Tell an old Maine fisherman that you 
had eaten a dogfish and he would consider 
you almost as bad as a cannibal. Yet 
early this morning [| saw hundreds of 
dogfish, small sharks, and very large 
skates being eagerly bought at the mar- 
ket. Among the fish that I had seen be- 
fore were soles, mackerel, red mullet, 
tangfish weighing from 70 to 200 pounds, 
and merling, large and small, with their 
tails in their mouths. Why are fried 
merling always served that way in 
France? At an Arab fish-monger’s in 
the hall in the market reserved espec- 
ially for seafood, a large octopus was 
gracefully arranged, so that his body 
made a huge rosette; his tentacles formed 
long loops—a sort of gothic-arch effect ; 
above were light and airy arches of a 
species of soft-shell crab, still alive. 
Dangling from the loops mac* by the 
octopus were two large silvery fish with 
iridescent colors, their tails bent up like 
the figure six, their mouths wide open, 
holding featuery bunches of flowers. 
On the counter were quantities of 
squids and large shrimps, from three to 
four inches long, and langoustes (very 
like a lobster), and various kinds of fish, 
all arranged so that the colors harmo- 
nized; here and there a bunch of flowers 
to set off the color of the fish. Every- 
thing was spotlessly clean. 
In the days of Rome northern Africa 
(Tunisia) was called the “granary of 
the world,” for the Roman system of 
irrigation was marvelous and the soil 
