There are still many inscriptions scattered about; the most interesting are two milliary columns, erected during the reign of Aurelius; one is in the house of a ropemaker, and the other in the vestibule of the Djamäa el-Kebir. The former indicates a distance of LXIX and the latter LXXI miles from Carthage. They have been given by various travellers.[225]
I am not aware whether anything of unusual importance was going on at the capital during the time that we were travelling in the interior, but we found, almost invariably, that the head man was absent at Tunis, and it was his Khalifa, or representative, who received us. Here the Khalifa also was away, and there was no one in his place to offer us hospitality; we were not at all sorry to be thrown on our own resources, as supplies were readily obtainable, and we were permitted to purchase them in the open market and to lodge our animals in the public fonduk. The notables of the village received us on our entry, and informed us that the shop of the barber had been cleared out for our reception. They made many excuses for the poorness of the accommodation; every other place, they assured us, was swarming with fleas, and this was the only comparatively clean place in Testour. It might have been so we did not try any other; but we would gladly have compounded for any number of fleas, if thereby we could have secured exemption from the attacks of more voracious insects. To add to our other miseries, it commenced to rain hard almost immediately after our arrival, and continued without intermission all night; so there we lay in a miserable cell, 10 feet square, without even attempting to sleep, making periodical attacks upon the enemy, and oppressed with a horrid dread that after so much rain we should find the Medjerda too full to be fordable in the morning.
Testour is a squalid village, whose sole merit is to have wide and airy streets. The houses are built of a poor sort of rubble, consisting of half-burnt bricks and small stones, and roofed with tiles, only too ready to lend themselves to the prevailing inclination of the place to fall into ruin. Still it is not quite without remains of former grandeur; the minaret of the great mosque, though in a very dilapidated condition, is a good specimen of Moorish architecture, and has been tastefully decorated with coloured tiles. This was probably the work of the Andalusian Moors, by whom the village was peopled, on their expulsion from Spain.
Pelissier describes it as badly built, with a population of two or three thousand inhabitants.[226] Guérin says that it was in decadence during his visit, and contained two thousand souls, including a few hundred Jews.[227] Things have gone badly with it since then, as the population cannot now be more than one thousand, and the Jews are to be counted by the score instead of the hundred.
It is situated in an exceptionally favourable position, on the right bank of the Medjerda, almost dipping into the stream, and on the great highway between Tunis and Keff, and so on into Algeria. Its soil is extremely fertile, and its orchards, which fringe both banks of the river, supply all Tunis with fruit.
If, therefore, we have a right to expect anything like a prosperous village in the whole country, Testour is the place where it ought to exist. Long years of misgovernment, of rapacity in high quarters, of brigandage encouraged for private ends, and of Mohammedan intolerance for everything like progress and civilisation, have produced their natural results. No nation can remain stationary; if it does not progress, it must rapidly retrograde; and nowhere is the contrast between ancient magnificence and present decadence more plainly visible than in the Regency of Tunis.
It was very pleasant here to witness the treatment of a poor half-witted fellow, evidently the village imbecile. Instead of being pursued with hoots and jeers, or at best regarded with indifference or contempt, as might possibly happen in a Christian country, everyone had a kind word to say to him, most of the elderly men stopped and kissed him tenderly on the cheek, and all seemed thoroughly to understand, that exceptional kindness was due to one, whom God had seen fit to deprive of His most precious gift.
FOOTNOTES:
[219]Guérin, ii. p. 151.
[220]There are several other inscriptions given, but as they are copied in Guérin and other authors, I omit them.