I confess that, as a spectacle, I should have preferred that night's engagement to anything in modern warfare. It must have been a stupendous exhibition of the bête humaine.
The Khabyles meditated nothing short of a total extirpation of the Tripolitan stock; they sent to the mines of Redeyeff for auxiliaries of their nation, some of whom actually arrived in time for the slaughter; the rest were intercepted on the hill-paths by the police of Gafsa, who had been telegraphically summoned and despatched by special train. And soon afterwards, elated by success, the Khabyles fell foul of the Moroccans and sent word that they meant to fight them too for sheltering Tripolitan fugitives in their huts. The Moroccans were delighted at the prospect; but the management got wind of the project in good time, which was just as well, for the Moroccans are not only the most orderly of the native settlers at the mines, but also by far the strongest and fiercest, and it might have fared ill with the Khabyles. The Tripolitan village has now been moved to another site—a certain number of troops, too, are definitely stationed at Metlaoui.
"As usual," said Dufresnoy, "we came in for the blame. They say that we did not allow the real authors, the Khabyles, to be punished, because they are French citizens, and all the rest of it. Don't believe a word of that. If it had been the Tripolitans, we would have acted just the same; we cannot be bothered with decisions of civil courts, which would have satisfied nobody, besides depriving us, probably, of a number of good workmen. There was a little outcry about this, too: that none of the wounded were treated in our hospital, but carried down to the native funduk near the station. 'The hospital,' said our director, 'is for those who are injured in the performance of their duty, and not for bloodthirsty savages.' That's sound—that's military. One cannot afford to be sentimental in this country."
I asked what could possibly be the reason for such a ferocious outbreak of hostility.
"Long-standing animosities of race," he said, "and, as determining cause, cherchez la femme"
"But you said that there were no women on the place."
"Eh bien, cherchez toujours…."
And then it also occurred to me that among the mass of local literature and newspaper files I had perused in his house there was not a single criticism of this affair. I thought it strange, I said.
He smiled.
"Local politics, my friend! We are obliged to keep the Press well under control, you know. Don't compare Tunisian life with life in England; there is no public opinion here, no idea of fair play. These papers, if they were not subventioned, would print abominations such as no English journalist could conceive; they would alienate our best friends in the long run. The company must take account of things as they are, not as they should be—of Arab savagery, Franco-Tunisian malevolence; of journalistic venality and public credulity. Whoever is not for us is against us. That is why the only papers that dare to criticize our management are those which nobody reads; those, to put it bluntly, which are not worth bribing. For the rest, there is not a writer in the whole country capable of grasping either our aims or our methods; the poor fellows have not had the required education. They only want their mouths stopped."