T. Wemyss Reid

“ I say nothing of what has been done by the Englishmen of past generations to increase [310] the military and political value of Malta, though as one stands on the Barecca and surveys the splendid lines of fortification protecting the impregnable harbours in which our ironclads float in security, one cannot but feel grateful to the men who not only won this place for us, but who have guarded it since so well. Italy may feel that she has been outflanked by the seizure of Tunis; England, from the white heights of Malta, can watch the proceedings of the French with complete equanimity. ”

“ A very brief run brought us up to the station within the walls of Tunis. The throng of Arabs, Jews, and Jewesses, in their many-hued dresses, poured out of the carriages of the train, and passed from the shade of the station into the dazzling glare of the sunshine beyond in a brilliant cascade of colour. I parted from my new-found English friends, and set off with Afrigan to the hotel, a stout negro porter carrying my portmanteaus, travelling-rugs, and other impedimenta upon his back, in a fashion recalling the hammals of Stamboul. ”

“ It was a hot, a very hot drive of nearly two hours to Carthage. All the way our road lay across that sandy desert. The only things now growing upon it are the gnarled and twisted olive-trees, and enormous tangles of prickly pear, the leaves of which have attained so vast a size that if I were to venture upon figures I should no doubt have the eternal verities of Baron Munchausen flung at my head by the sceptical. But though the country through which we thus passed is so dreary just now, in the spring, when it is covered by a veil of living green, it must be wonderfully beautiful. ”

“ I had decided to return to Tunis with Afrigan by the Ville de Naples. It was disappointing, and even humiliating, to go back without having seen Kairwan; but there was no help for it. Susa, I must say, I was unreservedly glad to leave. Beautiful as is the situation in which it stands, and fair as is its outward appearance, it is, upon the whole, the most unpleasant place of temporary residence in which I ever found myself stranded. ”

“ Brilliant, indeed, it is; not only in the sunshine that lights up everything with an illumination the startling vividness of which no dweller beneath the murky skies of England can understand, but in the splendidly picturesque costumes and figures which go flitting past the house in an endless procession. There was not a single person in European costume to be seen in the street when I looked out this morning; but a hundred Arabs were going to and fro. ”

“ Then there are the great ranges of hill, sweeping away to where the jagged peaks of the Zaghouan Mountains intercept one’s view, and the lake immediately below me dotted with the white sails of the fishermen, and in the distance the amphitheatre where once stood Carthage, and the blue waters of the Gulf. The whole scene is bathed in the brilliant sunshine of Africa. One has no wish, after feasting one’s eyes upon it, to resume one’s study of the interior of the French camp. ”

“ It is not merely on the side of the French that curious intrigues are just now in full progress under one’s very eyes. The Bey, as I have said, is practically a prisoner in his palace at Goletta, utterly dejected and heartbroken, and so completely devoid of spirit that he has just conferred—need I say at whose bidding?—his highest decoration upon the French general commanding the troops in occupation of Tunis—an occupation which every Arab resents as an insult to his nationality and his creed. ”

“ Two days ago a French soldier, tempted by the bright eyes of a Bedouin girl, ventured into this village in pursuit of her. He has never been seen since; and no one doubts that he has paid with his life for his recklessness and folly. Unfortunately, it is not only the reckless or the foolish who are in danger. At any moment an Arab fanatic—and the whole race are seething with fanaticism just now—might take it into his head to secure a short cut to Paradise by means of despatching an infidel, and woe then to the first European whom he might encounter! ”

“ Very soon after leaving the Marina we found ourselves involved in the midst of a labyrinth of the narrowest, the most tortuous, the most tumble-down lanes and alleys that ever represented the streets of a great town. Very often the carriage grazed the walls on both sides as it passed along. At other times we found ourselves traversing long dark vaulted passages beneath the houses, which in Tunis, as I have already said, are often built over as well as at the side of the thoroughfares. On each side of us for almost the entire distance were shops and Arab coffee-houses. ”

“ To my right, beyond the palm-trees in the little garden, rose the fine Moorish gateway [225] which gives admission to the square of the Consulate. To-day, as on all days, it appeared the centre of the life of Tunis. A hundred vendors of cakes, sweetmeats, fruits, matches, trinkets, were pushing hither and thither, waving their feather brushes to drive away the clouds of flies, and filling the air with a clamour which reminded one of Whitechapel on a Saturday evening. ”

“ The country is much more fertile here than it is in the neighbourhood of Tunis; a rich belt of olive forest running along the seacoast, and many handsome Moorish villas and farm-houses nestling between the trees and the shore of the bay. Looking beyond the town inland, I saw ranges of sandhills of curious shape. Beyond these sandhills stretches a marshy desert reaching far into the interior. Riding at anchor in the harbour were two French ships of war, an Italian gunboat, and my old friend the Charles Quint! ”

“ Now, however, when I uttered these words, a rueful smile broke over his face. “Dear sir,” he said, “you see, I have a wife, and she—” “Yes, yes, Afrigan; I’ve heard that before. Well, good-bye, and God bless you!” “Good-bye, sir; and if ever you come to Tunis again you will find me waiting for you. There is no gentleman I would serve sooner than yourself.” And then he ran down the ladder, and waving his hand, and shouting his last words of farewell and thanks, he presently faded away into the glowing distance on the sunlit waters. ”

“ It is not the fashion here for a pair of lovers, even of the humblest class, to “walk out” together. Yet, even in Tunis, and in this dark and crowded ghetto, love asserts its rights, and women are true to their inborn nature. From a hundred grated windows bright black eyes flashed down upon me as I walked through the gloomy labyrinth of filthy lanes, and many faces dusky of hue yet beautiful of feature were to be seen ”

“ But it was not the remarkable completeness and elegance of the furnishings of this noble ship that occupied my attention this afternoon when, having at last said good-bye to my genial fellow-countryman, I lounged on the broad hurricane-deck awaiting the hour of our departure, which had been fixed for five o’clock. The starting of a steamboat is always an interesting spectacle, whether one witnesses it in a grimy Liverpool dock, a crowded harbour in the Levant, or here under the glaring sunshine of Southern France. But a special interest attaches to the Charles Quint on its present voyage. ”

“ Here again was the quarter occupied by the dealers in earthenware, whose gay stores of Arab pottery offered to the eye a mass of rich and varied colour. But after all it was in the numberless coffee-houses and barbers’ shops that I found the chief attraction; for here the Arabs were at home, and their infinite variety of costume, complexion, and attitude was almost bewildering. As our carriage moved slowly along through these narrow, crowded streets, we passed literally thousands of natives whom our driver warned of our approach by hoarse cries. ”

“ So my vivandière is not going to Tunis to sell wine, but to succour the wounded. I think of one of Ouida’s novels, and cry to myself, “Brava, Cigarette!” though all the time I wonder to what extent the Arabs are likely to respect that Red Cross. She is a brisk, comely woman of forty or thereabouts, with a sharp, shrewd eye, a pleasant smile, and a ready jest for everybody. ”

“ Once or twice when our carriage was stopped in some particularly narrow thoroughfare my companion showed signs of alarm, and one felt upon the whole glad that a revolver formed part of one’s equipment; but any risk that there might be was more than compensated by the strangeness and picturesqueness of the scenes that everywhere presented themselves in those winding and tortuous streets, with their quaint Moorish houses and their numberless specimens of all those races who are the followers of the Prophet.
I have varied my somewhat monotonous life by frequent visits to the bazaar. ”

“ It gives one a curious sensation, that of being locked in—even though you are locked into a city as big as Tunis. Outside lies the wild, open country, where no man’s life is safe; where bands of Arab marauders are constantly wandering from village to village, robbing, burning, slaying; and where, if any European were to be found after nightfall, his life would not be worth an hour’s purchase. ”

“ But really I have the strongest objection to being troubled by the adventures of other adventurous people. Like every other properly constituted tourist, I look down with a certain measure of contempt upon all others of my tribe, and am only anxious to give them the widest possible berth. Imagine, then, my feelings when, upon alighting at the Grand Hotel on my return, hot, hungry, dusty, and thirsty, from my trip to Carthage, I was coolly informed by the manager that he had been compelled to turn me out of my big, airy room, in order to make way for somebody else. ”

“ Strange indeed is the extent to which our sense of comfort is relative merely. When I sat down under the trees in front of the wretched Italian café of Goletta, I felt almost as much pleased as though I had found myself in the Grand Café at Paris. There were French officers all round me, smoking, gossiping, drinking coffee, and reading the latest number of Figaro, which was being hawked about by a bright little Jew. Presently up came my old friend the captain of the Aristides, the English steamer which was wrecked off Bizerta two days before I first landed in [199] Tunis. ”

“ Here a whole party of Arabs are engaged in building a wall round some native house that stands by the road-side, and even the bricklayers in this part of the world are picturesque. Then there are the carts, the mules, the camels without end which we meet upon the road. It is noticeable that no salutation is given as we roll past. A curious or sullen glance is the only intimation of the fact that we are seen by the wayfarers.
Up to this point we have been driving along the road which leads to Goletta, and the great lake has been glittering in the sunlight to our right. ”

“ I have done my duty when, as an eye-witness, I point out the extraordinary results of the Roustan policy up to the present moment. That policy has, in the first place, compelled France to enter upon a war on a large scale against a nation with whom it professedly has no quarrel; and, in the second place, it has entirely destroyed the security of life and property in Tunis, and has made one of the [279] most peaceful and harmless races in the world, the bitter enemies not merely of France, but of all the powers and peoples of Europe. ”

“ If you walk through the Arab quarter, averted faces and muttered curses meet you on every side; while the air is filled with rumours of an impending catastrophe. Twice during the present week the French troops in the city have been roused in the dead of night, and marched hurriedly to a central point, in order to resist a general rising of the Arabs, which everybody expected, and which it was believed had already begun. The imaginations of the non-Mussulman population, stimulated by all that they see around them, are still further excited by the horrible and, alas! ”

“ I find that in the important coast towns the favourite idea of the Italian residents is that Tripoli should be seized, in order to counterbalance the French acquisition of Tunis. But at Tripoli itself that idea finds no favour, even among the Italians; and the reason for this it is not difficult to discover. Neither from a financial, a military, nor a political point of view is Italy strong enough to secure Tripoli. Those who are on the spot are well aware of this, and they are most anxious to counteract the Chauvinist ideas of their fellow-countrymen at a distance. ”

“ In front is a wide, open space, in the middle of which a fountain is playing; whilst a row of rusty cannon, placed along the line of a dry ditch, are the ostensible defence of the palace. Driving along the road to the Bardo, which lies between two and three miles from Tunis, we encountered many trains of laden camels, and scores of Arabs cantering along on their mules. There were French patrols too passing up and down the road; for this is the route to Manouba, where the principal French camp and military hospital are situated. ”