Apropos of camels, a recent small coincidence involving desert lands:

Firstly: A couple of weeks ago, we discover that our apartment building is designated as an Ontario Heritage Property, a converted palatial home built in 1891 by a railway-and-steamboat tycoon named Tunis B. Griffith. I am intrigued by this fellow’s unusual name — the surname Griffith is Welsh, while Tunis is the capital city of Tunisia, the desert nation on the African Mediterranean. An odd juxtaposition.

Secondly: Last week, while browsing through shelves of translated French literature at the library (investigating E.M. Cioran and François La Rochefoucauld), André Gide’s Amyntas catches my eye. I open the book and find that it’s a short compilation of Gide’s travel journals, from 1896 to 1904, of his explorations in Algiers and Tunis.

I missed the white, serious, classical Tunis of that autumn, which reminded me, evenings, as I wandered through its grid of streets, of the Helen of the second part of Faust, or of Psyche, “the agate lamp within thy hand,” wandering down a lane of sepulchers. Trees are being planted in the broad streets and on the squares. Tunis will be more attractive because of them, but nothing could disfigure the city more.