Tunis: the land and the people

Preface

Recent events in Africa have again directed the eyes of Europe to the small Oriental State, the description of which is the object of this book. As very few works have been written about Tunis, and none descriptive of the present most interesting state of affairs in the Regency, I have complied with repeated requests by publishing the result of my observations there. The archaeological curiosities, in which the country is so rich, I have touched upon very lightly, as they have been repeatedly described, but I have paid all the more attention to its present condition, its towns, districts, and people.

Besides my own experience last year, during a sojourn of several months in the Regency, I have profited largely by consular reports and other communications placed at my disposal by foreign representatives and by the Government of thr Bey.

vi PREFACE.

I trust that the interest of the subject, and my desire to meet what at the present time seems to be a public want, may to some extent excuse the shortcomings of the following pages.

CHAPTER XIV. The Inland Sea of Tunis . ... 298

TUNIS

THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE.

PART L CHAPTER I.

THE REGENCY.

THROUGHOUT the whole length of the northern coast of the Dark Continent there is scarcely a grander or more beautiful gulf than the one on whose shores lie the ruins of Carthage. Little isles with rocks towering high above the blue waves protect it against the raging storms oi the open sea yonder, and a chain of picturesque mountains surrounds the dark-blue surface of the water towards the east, whereas westward the banks slope gradually, and only show at a great distance the tops and peaks enveloped in a blue mist — the last spurs of the Atlas. The more our steamer, coming from lovely Sicily, penetrates south, the smoother get the waves before its sharp bow as we gradually approach the distant shores, until after a few hours the end of the gulf rests in a wide closed semicircle before our eyes. Tts character and aspect differ so little from the coasts of Italy and Spain that we can scarcely realise the idea of being at the gates of one of the oldest African empires, or in the neighbourhood of one of her oldest towns.

At last we can distinguish the details of the incomparable beauty of the coast -lines. In the background of the gulf, on one of the dark heights which rise gently before us, lies the old robbers' den, Tunis, the whitest of all African towns, the " Bornous of the Prophet," as the devout Arabian calls it. Already we see the mighty walls which surround it, the solemn menacing " Kasba," the fortified prison of the janizaries, and the numberless domes and minarets which rise from among a sea of white houses. At the foot of this romantic picture, on a flat sandbank dividing the lake of Bahireh from the gulf, lies the harbour of Tunis, Goletta, the limit of our travels for the present. On both sides the most charming residences cling to the coast for miles, and seen from afar these houses, which beam in the radiance of an African sun, appear like doves bathing in shallow water. Every corner, every projection of the broken and wild zigzag coast is occupied by one of these villas, to which are generally attached large pleasuregardens, orangeries, and olive groves. Here and there the high soaring date-tree — this truest token of Africa — hovers over all.

In the midst of this picturesque landscape on the coast rise two bare melancholy-looking mounds or tombs ; one marking the ruins of Carthage, the other the sepulchre of Saint Lewis, King of France. Carthage contended for the empire of the world with

THE REGENCY.

her mightiest contemporary — Rome — and after a series of bloody wars was conquered and destroyed. Lewis, and with him Christendom, shared the same fate on African soil in the struggle against Islam.

Tunis, grown out of the ashes of the Roman colony, received its autonomy only with Islam. In the year A.D. 644 Arabian tribes penetrated from the East and overran the whole of Western Africa, conquered the maritime territories of the Mediterranean, and even invaded and subdued Spain. These fanatics destroyed all evidences of Christian culture, overthrew their temples, and with the fragments built their own palaces and mosques. The land was then divided into smaller Mohammedan States, and in this way originated Kairwan, which had to pay tribute to the Caliphs of Bagdad, and of which Tunis was chosen capital. When at last, after many wars, Ferdinand the Catholic succeeded 400 hundred years ago in driving the Moors out of Spain, and even conquered them in Africa, they invoked the protection of the Turkish Empire, then in the zenith of its power — and from that time dates the supreme rule of the Sultan of Constantinople over Mohammedan Western Africa.

For centuries the history of Tunis has been an uninterrupted series of struggles, wars, palace intrigues, murderous deeds, and piratical cruises. From 1673, when the Dey Hadshi Mohamed Menteshali was deposed by the Bey of the Janizaries, until 1705 lasted the struggle between the princes nominated by the Turks — the Deys — and the military commanders or Beys, which ended finally in the sway of the latter. Within the period mentioned — that is to say, thirty-two years — no fewer than nineteen Deys were deposed, driven away, strangled, or decapitated. Only in 1705 did Hussein Ben Ali, the Bey of the victorious Janizaries, succeed in obtaining from the high Porte sovereign power over Tunis, and then only under the condition that he would keep the Deys at the head of the ministry as representatives of the Grand Turk. But in the course of time the Deys were deprived of even these subordinate positions, and long since ceased to take any part in the Government.

The Hussein Ben Ali above mentioned is the founder of the reigning dynasty of to-day ; but, whether under this sway or that of the former Deys, Tunis was always feared and hated in Europe on account of its piracy. From this same beautiful gulf which we just entered, issued in days gone by those cruel and fanatical corsairs, who traversed the seas and were the terror of merchantmen. Tunis became the receptacle of the booty of these robbers, where it was publicly sold in the market-place. Hence the fairy-like magnificence and proverbial riches of Tunis of the past ; hence those palaces, those lovely gardens, the harems abounding with gold, in which European women, often of noble birth, had to serve the voluptuousness of these Moorish robbers.

However, in the beginning of this century the European powers put a stop to this piratical state of affairs, and from that time dates the decay of the Regency, which increased more and more. It was booty, obtained from the foreigner, which enriched the

THE REGENCY.

country, not the thrift and industry of its inhabitants. So soon as treasures ceased to enter the land to nourish the love of pomp and the dissipation of the Moorish grandees, their old grandeur began to pale. The fairy -like castles fell into ruins ; the gardens, with their delightful flower-beds, their delicious groves, their magnificent kiosks and fountains, became desolate ; the harems, the brilliant festivities, the luxuries, all disappeared, leaving scarcely a trace behind. The princes of the land alone had the power to feed their languishing resources by extortion and robbery of their subjects, which only hastened the ruin of the people itself. The Tunis we visit to-day is scarcely a shadow of what it was at the beginning of this century. Only the people have remained the same, and they have preserved the primitive originality of their customs and usages from the constant hostility they live in with the surrounding tribes. In Tunis we still see, therefore, a part of the purely genuine Orient, a bulwark of the Middle Ages reaching dark and threatening into modern times. The French occupation has only now battered a breach, and her influence may in time succeed, perhaps, in bringing back to the Regency the old prosperity which it enjoyed many centuries ago when still a Roman province.

TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE.

CHAPTER II.

THE BORNOUS OF THE PROPHET.

" BORNOUS of the Prophet " is the name which the faithful give to the capital of Tunis. With a mind truly Eastern they fancy to see in the form of the town which gently rises towards a hill the shape of an extended bornous, of which Kasba, the citadel, situated on the top, is said to be the hood. As the Mohammedan connects everything with his religion and its founder, this bornous could only be the bornous of the Prophet.

The town extends on the east side of a narrow strip of land, which separates two large salt lakes. Of these latter the eastern one is El Bahireh (so rich in flamingoes and pelicans), which, near Goletta in the east, is directly connected with the Gulf of Carthage, and through this with the Mediterranean. The western lake, called Sebeha-el-Sedchum, is scarcely more than a morass, dry for several months of the year, while filled with salt water during winter, and it is surrounded to a great extent by high picturesque mountain -chains. To the north of this morass is situated the Manoubia, a town of villas,

THE BORNOUS OF THE PROPHET.

and the quarter of the Tunisian grandees, as well as the Bardo, the official residence of the Bey of Tunis.

The narrow space on the above-mentioned strip of land was the cause of the town not extending evenly on all sides, and of the two suburbs north and south only developing themselves under the walls of the old town, enclosing the " city " like two large semicircles.

These two suburbs, called Bab-el- Dehesira and Bab-el-Suika, were again surrounded by the Turks with high thick walls, so that double gates must be passed before an entry can be effected into the heart of Tunis. Only on the eastern side does the fortified wall of the inner town come into the same line as the outer wall, and here is the sea-gate, sOj.well known to the visitors of Tunis, before which the European quarter extends, and which is called Bab-el-Bahireh.

There are few Eastern towns which offer a truer or a more genuine picture of Mohammedan life than Tunis. The fanaticism of the inhabitants, the constant enmity in which the rulers lived with all the powers of the Mediterranean, the strict laws, and the contempt with which the faithful treated every " Christian dog," preserved the town until this day from intermixture with foreign elements ; and though a mighty respect for the European has long since taken the place of official intolerance of former times, still he prefers to take up his residence in one of the new streets before the sea -gate, which have originated in later years. This contributes to maintain pure the character of the old Moorish town.

But this does not become apparent to the visitor at the first blush when he arrives by railway from Goletta, the harbour. He will see at once, in the peculiar railway carriages, constructed with those Egyptian -like verandahs, Tunisian functionaries in European dress, very few turbans, and scarcely a bornous. The railway station where he arrives is European, an Italian carriage awaits him, and the streets through which he passes to his hotel look European too — just because the "Town of the Franks" is entirely separated from the Moorish part Only when the visitor leaves the street of

THE BORNOUS OF THE PROPHET. 9

his hotel, and turns into one of the little side streets, does he behold the Arabian town. The best way to do this is from the " Marina," a little place covered with Italian coffee-houses, and situated inside the above-mentioned sea -gate. From here the five principal streets branch out in all directions, but the widest of these is only just broad enough to let one carriage past, whereas the others are even too narrow for foot-passengers, of whom three can barely walk abreast. Still they are the most important medium of communication in Tunis, as through them the different parts of the town are reached, the quarters of the Franks, of the Arabs, and of the Jews, and finally of the Consuls near the Bahireh lake. We make our way through the narrowest and dirtiest of these streets, and a few steps take us into the Jews' quarter. Distinguished as the little Arabian streets are for dirt, they are considerably outdone by the Jewish. The streets are, after every fifty or a hundred steps, blocked by walls or houses, the latter having no .numbers, nor the streets names. But the inhabitants find their way notwithstanding, for they leave their houses rarely, and then only to go to the synagogue or to see a friend close by. There are others who do not leave their houses for years, who live and die where they have been born without ever entering the Arabian part or the Marina. After wandering about for a long time, and climbing up the highest houses compass in hand, I succeeded in committing to paper the confused net of narrow streets. It looks more like the much -entwined branches of a coral-tree than like the plan of a town.

io TUNIS: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE.

Imagine, now, this part of the town at night without a street lamp, without even a light from a shop — of which there are none — the streets lonely, without a creature to be seen ; and yet this is the most densely-populated quarter of Tunis.

Not much better is the adjoining Arabian suburb Bab-el-Suika. The streets here are a little broader and lighter ; the houses have not two or three floors, but only a ground floor, no windows, and firmly closed doors. Here and there you pass a mosque, of which Tunis is said to possess no less than five hundred ; you walk past crowded bazaars, barracks Arabian khans, in which heavily-packed camels and mules press against each other, then again through quiet, silent streets, where now and then a muffled-up woman slips by ; all at once you find yourself in noisy lanes, where you are either pushed about or carried forward, and where you are in danger of being run over by a laden mule, or of getting under the feet of a camel, which, with its bale of goods, takes up the whole breadth of the little street, while slowly and solemnly stalking towards you. There are everywhere corners, passages, side streets, and nooks and holes without name or designation. If the wanderer is without a guide he is soon completely lost in this maze, for rarely does a European or Maltese wend his way here whom he could ask for information. He might enter dozens of well-paved streets, which all get gradually narrower and darker, till at last they are closed by either some high house in ruins or by a high gate tightly bolted and barred ! In trying another street we come upon

THE BORNOUS OF THE PROPHET. n

a crowded bazaar, so full of life and commotion, of screams and shouts, that we are glad to leave it again. After having marched for half an hour, only to return again to the same place, we take yet another direction. We are tired at last, and sit down on a large stone in the street, but before having rested two minutes, thumps and blov/s and stones, thrown by wild-looking Arabs, drive us away again ; we had inadvertently sat down on the tombstone of a saint, and try to escape the rage of the fanatics as fast as possible. Rarely is an open door or window seen in the street ; some of the houses are bedaubed with the most primitive drawings of wild animals, plants, or houses, at which a wild fellow, half naked, works as we pass ; he jumps at us as if he were mad, and is only kept back with trouble by one of his co-religionists ; it was a saint, which in Tunis is equivalent to a fool. Walking on, we come to wide, open gates, through which we scan spacious courts, with rows of columns, but scarcely do we put our foot on the first step leading there than some Arabs, who linger about on the steps, drive us back with screams, for we have approached a mosque, inaccessible to Europeans. On the wide open spaces we see innumerable camels and horses ; it is marketday. At last we find temporary rest in one of the numerous Arabian coffee-houses ; these are small dark rooms, along the walls of which divans are running with turbaned Moors resting upon them. Their slippers stand before them on the floor. Some of these grave-looking figures drink coffee and smoke their " tshibuk," rarely " nargileh," which has almost disappeared from Tunis ; others crouch on the matting playing draughts or chess. Here we too may rest in peace. The host brings us coffee, hot but thick, and also excellent Tunisian tobacco for a cigarette, all this for three or four " karrubs " — one penny !

The farther we move from the centre of the town, the lonelier and the more monotonous get the streets, and the poorer also the inhabitants. Here live labourers, masons, and other workmen, and in houses fallen into ruin are encamped the Bedouin tribes, who visit the capital to attend its market ; this is also the quarter of the water-carriers, cake -sellers, and the numerous representatives of foreign tribes, the Biskris, the Barbars, etc. ; and here the caravans coming from the inland towns and from the oases find a place. The streets are unpaved, dusty, and at the time of rainfalls impassible, without lamps of any kind, and if they happened to be in Rome or Naples they would be a paradise for assassins and robbers. But here there is no danger of this kind ; rarely a crime of this sort is committed, and if it does happen, the guilt generally lies at the door of a Greek or a Maltese.

To the west of the great mosque Saituna, which is in the centre of the town, lies the fashionable part, between the Turkish fortress Kasba and the said mosque. Already the breadth and cleanliness of the streets leading to it tell us that somebody powerful must have a palace there, for it is a characteristic of Tunis that dirt is only then removed from its centres of traffic when the severe eye of a General, Minister, or Mufti might light upon it. To the

THE BORNOUS OF 7 HE PROPHET. 13

Oriental to take a walk is an unknown thing. The rich drive out in their carriages only to visit each other or to attend the audiences of the Bey, whereas merchants, owners of bazaars, and people in general only frequent the streets leading to the bazaars, and rarely deviate from the shortest way. When the day's work is done, they return to their houses, and do not appear till early the following morning. For this reason the municipality only cares to be agreeable to the great and the mighty ; sand is strewn on their ways, their pavement is kept in order, and the dirt is removed from their streets to be put down again in one of the more distant ones of a poorer quarter.

After the European quarter, the one where the Bey's palace, Dar-el-Bey, is situated is the finest of the town. To reach the latter after leaving the former we had to pass the narrow but always lively lanes of the bazaar, which gets finer and more elegant as we approach nearer to the Dar-el-Bey. After walking through the Suk-el-Bey (the bazaar of the Bey), we see through a high gate a large place of which the centre forms a well-kept garden, planted with almond and palm trees. Two sides of this square are taken up by the high stone arches of the new bazaar, Khereddin, over which a charming little mosque is raised, one of the prettiest in Tunis, covered with lovely marble sculptures, and an hexagonal minaret of yellow sand-stone. On the third side of the square we see the dark, imposing walls of the old prison fortress, the Kasba, dating from the reign of the Turks, and the fourth shows us the stately front of Dar-el-Bey, at the gate of which a couple of ragged infantry soldiers are idling about, occupied either with knitting or basket-making.

Though the Kasba is in ruins, you cannot enter it without an order from the Ministry. A division of soldiers still keeps guard at its gate, flanked by well-fortified towers. What for? If every ruin of Tunis was to have a military guard, a whole army would be required. The inside of this fortification, which was battered down in 1 8 1 1 , is only a large heap of ruins, and only a small mosque with pretty stucco-ornamented minaret is preserved amongst all these ruins, which might be considered the symbol of the Turks' sway in days gone by.

Looked at from the outer walls of the Kasba, proud even in their decay, the grand Moorish town looks majestic in a high degree. Often did I ask my dragoman to accompany me up there, when stretched on the ruins I used to follow the maze of the thousand lanes and passages of which this finest of Moorish towns is composed. Hundreds of snow-white or dark-green domes overlook the sea of houses gently sloping down towards El Bahireh, and slender minarets tower over it all. Here and there the wilderness of flat roofs is interrupted by a few palm-trees, and lower down near the marshy shores of the lake some foliage from the gardens of the Consuls terminates the precincts of the city. Only the north-eastern part of Tunis is uninterrupted in its uniformity by any minarets ; the houses here are smaller and closer together ; no domes of mosques or sepulchral monuments are to be seen, not even

THE BORNOUS OF THE PROPHET. 15

the top of a tree stands forth. It is the Jews' quarter of Tunis.

The grandest structures are, as already mentioned, in the upper part of the town, near the Dar-el-Bey. Here are still found the palaces of centuries ago, desolate indeed, but still magnificent. Towards the street bare and unsightly, we see their splendour only by entering their courts. I found many houses in which the colonnades were marble monoliths with splendid capitals, evidently taken from that great quarry which lies in the immediate neighbourhood, where the building stones are ready cut, and beautifully ornamented, and where there is no dearth of them — Carthage. This ancient town was such a fruitful field for the Tunisians that in every second house are found Roman stones with inscriptions or sculptures, parts of columns and capitals. If Tunis were destroyed her ruins would be the ruins of Carthage !

To describe the street-life of Tunis, to paint the forms and types which press against each other here, is perhaps the most difficult task which presents itself to the traveller. To depict amongst the thousands of wayfarers the different races, clans, occupations, and degrees ; to explain their tokens and characteristics, to describe their costumes and manners, would alone take up several chapters. Only after the study of weeks or even months does the attentive observer succeed in bringing method into this confusion of nations.

The majority are of course Moors, with white, sometimes yellow, flowered turbans, always carefully wound, with short embroidered jackets, and wide trousers full of folds, with a coloured sash round the body. Sometimes they throw a light cloak of thin silk round their shoulders ; their feet, covered with the whitest of stockings, are put into slippers of red or yellow leather ; their handkerchief, tied by a corner to their cloak, hangs in front ; a rose behind the right ear and a cane with silver button completes this dress.

Now and then you meet Moors with red turbans, the sign of the Hadchis or Mecca pilgrims ; or others with green turbans, the sign of the descendants of the Prophet, the so-called Shereefs ; others wear their white turbans in closer folds, the sign of the Kadis ; these latter often wear two or three pairs of shoes, in which they shuffle slowly along. The Jews are only distinguished from the Moors by their dark-blue or black turbans, and altogether by the darker colours of their dress, which used to be obligatory, and to which they kept after liberty of dress was granted them ; the Bedouin is wrapped up completely in his white but dirty bornous with its hood.

Women are rarely seen in the streets, except the Bedouin and Kabyle women, who are covered with blue shawls, and show themselves without veils ; the Jewesses, with their tight trousers, made of white linen, and their light-coloured chemises ; the Moorish women, enveloped entirely in white shawls ; negresses, women from Malta and Greece. It is a chaos of nations, costumes, grades, and classes, which can only be set out in proper colours in the following chapters. And all these, houses, mosques, populace, are inclosed by the " Bornous of the Prophet !" Shall we succeed in lifting this cloak ?

CHAPTER III.

MOHAMED ES SADOCK PASHA BEY.

THE BEY OF TUNIS

F course there is no doubt that until now the dynasty of the Husseinites has not shown itself either very liberal or very accessible to European influence. The Court history or memoirs which an African Dumas might write in future of the rulers of Tunis, will not differ much from the Memoirs of the Sanson Family. About two -thirds of the members of the dynasty have, during the two hundred years of their existence, perished by a violent death. Up to the beginning of this century one murdered the other, or persons who put themselves at the head of an insurrection lynched the Regent or the royal princes either from jealousy or to put themselves at the head of the Government. It was managed like the " pronunciamenti " for the last hundred years in Mexico.

Only since Mahmoud Bey ascended the throne in 1 8 14 — of course, also through the murder of his predecessor and his two sons — did the slaughter cease ; and though the series of interesting little Court stories did not cease with it, still everything was more quiet and respectable. It was for their own good that Mahmoud and his successor showed themselves more accessible to European influence. While the neighbouring Beys of Algiers and Constantine resisted the French steadily, and had their states confiscated, besides being driven out of their country for a punishment, the Beys of Tunis abstained, against the will of their subjects, from showing any open hostility towards the mighty conquerer, and while they accepted the reforms dictated by Europe they escaped the fate of their neighbours.

But in one respoct the Husseinites remained true to themselves and to the qualities of an Oriental ruler — namely, in the love of pomp, and in the lavishness of their hospitality and munificence. The unheard-of luxury displayed by Achmet Bey when visiting Louis

Philippe in 1846 is remembered in France to this day. Never did Paris behold before larger brilliants or costlier jewels of so many different kinds, and only the visit of the Shah of Persia and of the Sultan during the exhibition of 1867 dimmed to a certain extent the recollection of the first visit of an Oriental ruler in civilised Europe.

The liberal and high-minded Achmet was followed by his dissipated cousin Mohamed, who is only mentioned here because of a European innovation he introduced into his State — though not the most desirable one — namely, a national debt. He only reigned four years, but the people remember his exorbitant taxes and his avarice as well as if he had ruled half a century. He had a decided predilection for mechanics, for the fine arts and literature, but without ever importing a machine, or ever buying a properly-painted picture, and without allowing a printing press to be established for either book or newspaper. Roving literates, bad painters, etc., found with him the -most liberal support and highest honours ; but as the populace of Tunis does not consist entirely of literates and painters, his memory amongst the people is not the best.

The Bey reigning at present, Mohamed es Sadock, is the second son of Achmet Bey, who died in 1856. A fanatical priest, called Ismail Sufi, educated both him and his brother and predecessor. This priest hated European culture and civilisation most cordially, and resisted, therefore, with all his power the intentions of Achmet Bey, who wished to have his sons instructed in the French language, and in the history and geography of the European States. When, therefore, Mohamed es Sadock ascended the throne of Tunis on the 23d September 1859 not much was to be expected from his wisdom. However, he was not averse to European influences, and he kept up many arrangements copied from the households of European princes which had been introduced by Achmet Bey, especially those which related to externals, such as the way of living.

" Orient and Occident can no longer be separated." It is difficult here to find out where the Oriental ceases and where the European begins. The machinery of administration, the army and navy, the Court of the Bey itself, as far as it does not concern the female part, are in their aspect half European. With one single exception, the royal princes wear European dress, dark coats, light trousers, and black neckties. The only sign of distinction of the Oriental, or rather of the Mohamedan, is the " shachia," the red fez, without which none of the faithful can do as yet. The Bey himself wears the uniform of a Tunisian General, a dark coat with gold braid and heavy epaulets, red trousers with gold lace, the shachia, on which is fastened a clasp of gold set in jewels which represent the arms of the Husseinites ; and finally he carries, on golden hangings, a scimitar with a costly hilt set in splendid jewels. When in full dress — on the last day of the Rhamadan, for instance, or when he receives newly-accredited ambassadors — the Bey wears the decorations of about thirty grand crosses, especially the Golden Fleece, the English Order of the Bath, the Star of the Legion d'Honneur, the