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National Geographic : 1911 Aug
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TUNIS OF TODAY 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 I 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 mad, by the octopus were two large silvery fish with iridescent colors, their tails bent up like the figure six, their mouths wide open, holding feathery 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 741
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