Arrival by the sea
“Only rarely do you hear the shriek of the sea birds flying above or the distant roars of the camels along the coast. A sandy beach stretches out far before us, very far, a never-ending distance. On the shore is a row of white houses, to the right low and pale hills, warmed by the heat of the summer and with a small isolated church on top. To the left, in the distance, a transparent mountain rage, as if taken from a storybook, draws a wide arch along the horizon. That is how La Goulette and Tunis appeared before our eyes. We could still not see the latter clearly; in the cloudy distance, as if rising up from a swampy lagoon, we could observe the fragile silhouettes of a confusing sea of houses, appearing like the careless brushstrokes of a painter tired of his marvellous work. Despite the vagueness and monotony, this image fascinated my soul upon seeing it, marvellously weaving historical memories with new stimuli.”
Archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria, Tunis. Ein bild aus dem nordafrikanischen leben, Heinrich Mercy, Prague, 1870
