The impression of Toser made upon our tourists agrees with that of the traveller, Desfontaines, who writes of it in 1784:—"The Bey pitched his tent on the right side of the city, if such can be called a mass of mud-houses." The description corresponds also with that of Dr. Shaw, who says that "the villages of the Jereed are built of mud-walls and rafters of palm-trees." Evidently, however, some improvement has been made of late years. The Arabs of Toser, on the contrary, and which very natural, protested to the French scientific commission that Toser was the finest city in El-Jereed. They pretend that it has an area as large as Algiers, surrounded with a mud wall, twelve or fifteen feet high, and crenated. In the centre is a vast open space, which serves for a market-place. Toser has mosques, schools, Moorish baths—a luxury rare on the confines of the Desert, fondouks or inns, &c. The houses have flat terraces, and are generally well-constructed, the greater part built from the ruins of a Roman town; but many are now dilapidated from the common superstitious cause of not repairing or rebuilding old houses. The choice material for building is brick, mostly unbaked or sun-dried.
Most of these houses stand detached.
Toser, situate in a plain, is commanded from the north-west by a little rocky mountain, whence an abundant spring takes its source, called Meshra, running along the walls of the city southward, divides itself afterwards in three branches, waters the gardens, and, after having irrigated the plantations of several other villages, loses itself in the sand at a short distance. The wells within the city of Toser are insufficient for the consumption of the inhabitants, who fetch water from Wad Meshra. The neighbouring villages are Belad-el-Ader, Zin, Abbus; and the sacred villages are Zaouweeat, of Tounseea, Sidi Ali Bou Lifu, and Taliraouee. The Arabs of the open country, and who deposit their grain in and trade with these villages, are Oulad Sidi Sheikh, Oulad Sidi Abeed, and Hammania. The dates of Toser are esteemed of the finest quality.
Walked about the town; several of the inhabitants are very wealthy. The dead saints are, however, here, and perhaps everywhere else in Tunis, more decently lodged, and their marabets are real "whitewashed sepulchres." They make many burnouses at Toser, and every house presents the industrious sight of the needle or shuttle quickly moving. We tasted the leghma, or "tears of the date," for the first time, and rather liked it. On going to shoot doves, we, to our astonishment, put up a snipe. The weather was very hot; went to shoot doves in the cool of the evening. The Bey administers justice, morning and evening, whilst in the Jereed. An Arab made a present of a fine young ostrich to the Bey, which his Highness, after his arrival in Tunis, sent to R. The great man here is the Sheikh Tahid, who was imprisoned for not having the tribute ready for the Bey. The tax imposed is equivalent to two bunches for each date-tree. The Sheikh has to collect them, paying a certain yearly sum when the Bey arrives, a species of farming-out. It was said that he is very rich, and could well find the money. The dates are almost the only food here, and the streets are literally gravelled with their stones. Santa Maria again returned his horse to the Bey, and got another in its stead. He is certainly a man of delicate feeling. This gentleman carried his impudence so far that he even threatened some of the Bey's officers with the supreme wrath of the French Government, unless they attended better to his orders. A new Sheikh was installed, a good thing for the Bey's officers, as many of them got presents on the occasion.
We blessed our stars that a roof was over our heads to shield us from the burning sun. We blew an ostrich-egg, had the contents cooked, and found it very good eating. They are sold for fourpence each, and it is pretended that one makes an ample meal for twelve persons. We are supplied with leghma every morning; it tastes not unlike cocoa-nut milk, but with more body and flavour. R. very unwell, attributed it to his taking copious draughts of the leghma. Rode out of an evening; there was a large encampment of Arabs outside the town, thoroughly sun-burnt, hardy-looking fellows, some of them as black as negroes. Many people in Toser have sore eyes, and several with the loss of one eye, or nearly so; opthalmia, indeed, is the most prevalent disease in all Barbary. The neighbourhood of the Desert, where the greater part of the year the air is filled with hot particles of sand, is very unfavourable to the sight; the dazzling whiteness of the whitewashed houses also greatly injures the eyes. But the Moors pretend that lime-washing is necessary to the preservation of the houses from the weather, as well as from filth of all sorts. We think really it is useful, by preventing dirty people in many cases from being eaten up by their own filth and vermin, particularly the Jews, the Tunisian Jews being the dirtiest persons in the Regency. The lime-wash is the grand sanitary instrument in North Africa.
There are little birds that frequent the houses, that might be called Jereed sparrows, and which the Arabs name boo-habeeba, or "friend of my father;" but their dress and language are very different, having reddish breasts, being of a small size, and singing prettily. Shaw mentions them under the name of the Capsa-sparrow, but he is quite wrong in making them as large as the common house-sparrow. He adds: "It is all over of a lark-colour, excepting the breast, which is somewhat lighter, and shineth like that of a pigeon. The boo-habeeba has a note infinitely preferable to that of the canary, or nightingale." He says that all attempts to preserve them alive out of the districts of the Jereed have failed. R. has brought several home from that country, which were alive whilst I was in Tunis. There are also many at the Bardo in cages, that live in this way as long as other birds.
Went to see the houses of the inhabitants: they were nearly all the same, the furniture consisting of a burnouse-loom, a couple of millstones, and a quantity of basins, plates, and dishes, hung upon the walls for effect, seldom being used; there were also some skins of grain. The beams across the rooms, which are very high, are hung with onions, dates, and pomegranates; the houses are nearly all of one story. Some of the women are pretty, with large long black eyes and lashes; they colour the lower lid black, which does not add to their beauty, though it shows the bewitching orb more fully and boldly. They were exceedingly dirty and ragged, wearing, nevertheless, a profusion of ear-rings, armlets, anclets, bracelets, and all sorts of lets, with a thousand talismanic charms hanging from their necks upon their ample bosoms, which latter, from the habit of not wearing stays, reach as low down as their waists. They wrap up the children in swaddling-clothes, and carry them behind their backs when they go out.
Two men were bastinadoed for stealing a horse, and not telling where they put him; every morning they were to be flogged until they divulged their hiding-place.
A man brought in about a foot of horse's skin, on which was the Bey's mark, for which he received another horse. This is always done when any animal dies belonging to the Beys, the man in whose hands the animal is, receiving a new one on producing the part of the skin marked. The Bey and his ministers and mamelukes amused themselves with shooting at a mark. The Bey made some good hits.
The Bey and his mamelukes also took diversion in spoiling the appearance of a very nice young horse; they daubed hieroglyphics upon his shoulders and loins, and dyed the back where the saddle is placed, and the three legs below the knee with henna, making the other leg look as white as possible. Another grey horse, a very fine one, was also cribbed. We may remark here, that there were very few fine horses to be met with, all the animals looking poor and miserable, whilst these few fine ones fell into the hands of the Bey. It is probable, however, that the Arabs kept their best and most beautiful horses out of the way, while the camp was moving among them.