The land of the Bey

by T. Wemyss Reid

My ticket, I observed, was printed in English, whereas Afrigan’s was in Italian. At first I was disposed to attribute this difference to the fact well known twenty years ago in Germany, that only princes, Englishmen, and fools travelled first class. It turned out, however, that these first-class tickets were a relic of the time when this Goletta-Tunis railway was in the hands of an English Company. They were, in fact, part of the stock handed over when the Italians took possession of the line some years ago. Clearly, there is no very great demand for first-class railway accommodation in Northern Africa.

But as I was listening to this explanation on the station platform, a welcome sound fell upon my ear. It was a sound commonplace enough to stay-at-home people, but one which can never become altogether commonplace to those who are in the habit of travelling. In brief, it was the sound of the English language, spoken by unmistakable Englishmen. Only two or three days had passed since I had parted with a fellow-countryman at Marseilles; but already I was prepared to welcome any chance Englishman whom I might meet as a friend. The gentlemen whose voices attracted my notice at the Goletta railway-station this morning were three in number. They had already taken their seats in one of the shady compartments of the train, and I at once joined them and introduced myself. One of them was Captain P———, commanding the Bittern gunboat; another was the unfortunate commander of the Aristides, an English steamer which was wrecked two days ago near Bizerta, and the crew of which had been rescued by the Bittern at some risk and not a little trouble; whilst the third was an English gentleman residing at Goletta and carrying on business at Tunis, Mr. P———. The first demand of my new friends was for news from England. I produced last week’s Punch and World, and the Standard of Wednesday, and soon they were busily engaged in mastering their contents. Then I remembered one little item of news I had learned after leaving home, and told them of Parnell’s arrest. “What! is he caught at last?” cried the captain of the Bittern; “Hurrah!” and off went his hat in token of his approval of the new departure in the policy of the Government. I remembered how General A——— had thrown his hat up in the courtyard of the Grand Hotel at Paris when I told him the same piece of news, and smiled to myself at the evidence which was thus afforded of the general agreement of Englishmen all over the world upon that particular subject.

Outside the carriages on the railway, broad covered balconies run, upon which in hot weather the passenger can stand and enjoy the breeze, whilst he gets a full view of the country through which the line passes. Taking advantage of this arrangement, I enjoyed my short ride up to Tunis immensely. The day was exceedingly hot, but here under the balcony-roof one was sheltered from the rays of the sun. The line runs seemingly upon a dead level all the way from Goletta to the capital. On one side of it is the lake called by the natives El Bahira, or the Little Sea, which extends from Goletta almost to the very walls of Tunis. It is said that this lake is now little more than an enormous open cesspool, all the sewage of Tunis being poured into it. This may be the case, but at least it has this in common with some other unwholesome things, that it is very fair to look upon. Nothing could be more beautiful, indeed, than the aspect of this broad sheet of water as the train rolled in leisurely fashion past it this morning. Its waves were dancing and glittering in the brilliant sunshine, and the colour of the cloudless blue sky was reflected upon its surface. Little lateen-sailed fishing-boats were gliding hither and thither, suggesting strongly by their peculiar rig the pirate craft which in my earliest days I associated with the Gulf of Tunis; a strong fort, said to be of Spanish origin, stood out in the very middle of the lake, rising sheer from the water, after the manner of the Castle of Chillon; on the bank nearest to me the reeds grew in forests, enormous flocks of flamingoes and herons rising from them and sailing lazily away as the train passed; whilst on the further shore the waves broke against a splendid range of brown hills and dark grey crags, save where they seemed to wash against the gleaming white walls of Tunis itself.

It was a new revelation of beauty to me; and I wondered for a moment that in all that I had seen and read and heard of the picturesque spots of Europe, I had remained ignorant of the surpassing loveliness which now gladdened my eye. But I turned to the other side, and what I saw there served to remind me that I had passed out of the European range and of the circuit of the ordinary searchers after the picturesque. A vast yellow plain, on which not a blade of grass seemed to grow, but which was broken here and there by patches of olive-forest, the gnarled trunks and dull green leaves only serving to deepen the general impression of arid desolation which the plain produced: beyond the plain, ranges of low hills, with now and then a palm-tree raising its feathery crown against the deep, unbroken azure of the sky, and here and there a white house standing in the midst of a thicket of prickly pear. This was what I saw when I turned away from El Bahira, and looked westwards. I had seen nothing like this before in any part of the world. This yellow desert of sand, these groves of olives and palm, these tangles of cactus and prickly pear, and that marvellous sky with its infinite depth of blue, its fierce, relentless glare of light and heat, belonged not to Europe, but to Africa. And to one of the most famous parts of Africa withal; for this was once the Plain of Carthage, and the great city stretched hitherwards from the shore of the Gulf, until it almost reached to Tunis itself.

Alongside the railway straggles the broad, sandy road from Goletta and the Marsa to Tunis. There was no lack of life upon this road this morning. Just outside Goletta a French camp is pitched, and here some hundreds of soldiers were washing or cooking, or trying to shelter themselves from the cruel sun. All round the camp I noticed that sentries were placed at very short intervals, and there were other indications of the fact that the French army finds itself in an enemy’s country in Tunis. Then, when we got clear of the camp and the soldiers, what an infinite number of picturesque groups and “bits” that would have delighted an artist were scattered along the road! Here was a train of camels plodding along in that grave and clumsy fashion peculiar to their race. These African camels are not to be compared in size or beauty—for, strange as it may seem, even a camel can be beautiful—to those of Asia. Nothing can exceed the awkwardness of their gait, unless it be the stubbornness of their tempers. A “rogue” camel is, indeed, anything but a pleasant customer to encounter in a narrow street. He has a delightful habit of laying about him with his teeth after the fashion of that legendary animal the American “snapping turtle,” and with the most aristocratic unconsciousness of your presence he will squeeze you flat against the wall by means of the enormous boxes he carries slung like panniers over his back, and pass on without so much as glancing round to see what mischief he has done. But at a distance, and with this background of sandy plain, which harmonizes so well with the colour of his own hide, he adds not a little to the picturesqueness of the scene—especially when he is attended by a jet-black negro from the Soudan, clad in the gay and flaunting colours which are de rigueur in that quarter of the world.

Then we passed a couple of Arabs in loose jebbas of dark-green hue, bare legs, enormous turbans, and brilliant yellow slippers, cantering gaily along towards Tunis on a pair of fine mules. Poor mules! What a burden they had to bear. The lowest part of the load seemed to consist of enormous sacks stuffed with grain of some kind; then there were strings of pumpkins, nets filled with pomegranates, prickly pears, and red gherkins, baskets of unripe dates or olives, and bottles of oil dangling in a promiscuous way from all parts of the back; whilst on the top of all sat the owner plying his stick with vigour. The “seat” of an Arab on horse, mule, or donkey back, like the ways of the Heathen Chinee, is peculiar. He sits sideways, not as European ladies do with one leg drawn up in front of the other, but with both legs dangling side by side, exactly as though the animal he had mounted was a couch or a bench. The effect produced by this lazy and ungraceful mode of riding is very ludicrous; but, judging by all that I saw this morning, the seat is safe enough for those who are accustomed to it.

A little crowd of tawny Bedouin children, almost naked, flying across the plain towards the train, their black hair streaming behind them, and the savage dogs of their camp barking ferociously at their heels, came by way of welcome interlude to the long procession of quadrupeds. Then at the foot of a splendid palm-tree a group were seated, who looked as though they had stepped straight out of some picture of “The Repose in Egypt.” A woman with veiled features and graceful form, a man of swarthy complexion and splendid symmetry of figure, and a beautiful babe! A world-old group this; but clad in these garments and in the midst of such a scene, strangely suggestive of the family of Bethlehem. And there were scantily clad Arabs ploughing in the fields behind two stout heifers, their plough an instrument so primitive that it can hardly have been changed in shape since the days when the towers of Carthage dominated this same plain; and here and there a group of women—all with yashmaks hiding their faces from the eyes of the curious—were gathered round a well, in the midst of a little oasis of acacia and prickly pear; and occasionally a heavily-laden, roughly-built country cart trundled on towards the city, carrying its burden of vegetables, or passed in the other direction laden with bags of couscousoo, and gaily-coloured dishes and vessels of native pottery; and once, a richly dressed Moor, on a splendidly caparisoned Arab, which he rode in European fashion, galloped past with a speed like that of the wind. And over all this scene, so strange in all its details, so picturesque in its general effect, there was the wonderful dome of cloudless blue sky, like the cupola of some vast furnace.

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.

The first glimpse of Tunis from the railway station is somewhat disappointing. The place looks too modern and too European for its reputation. In front of the station there is a broad, unfinished street, running down to the point at which it is intersected at right angles by a shady boulevard, the Marina. There is little about either the street in which the station stands or the Marina to show that you have left Europe or Algeria behind you. Most of the houses in these two streets are of a modified French or Italian style of architecture; so that one wondered at the fact that this was actually Tunis, the city where “the grateful Turk” of one’s “Sandford and Merton” days was once Bey, where many another legendary hero of my boyhood was once a captive, and where Mussulman lust and cruelty, whether Turkish or Moorish, for centuries indulged in orgies which make the name of the place still infamous. I have already learned once more to correct my first impressions, and have found that the real Tunis surpasses one’s expectations so far as picturesqueness of appearance is concerned; but it is worth putting on record for the benefit of future travellers, the disappointment occasioned by my earliest glimpse at the city.

The Grand Hotel, which is within three minutes’ walk of the station, is a handsome new building, and, like all the other buildings I have yet seen in Tunis, it is constructed of white stone or stucco. Indeed, at the first glance this morning, I was struck by the painful glare of white pervading the whole place. White walls, white roads, even white trees, for the fine dust has coated the trunks and leaves thickly, make the outlook in all directions dazzling in the extreme. A flag was flying from one of the windows of the hotel; a couple of French sentries were walking up and down in front of it, and French officers or orderlies were passing in and out of the open door like bees round a hive. At a respectful distance a small knot of Arabs were gathered, watching what was going on with sullen faces; whilst additional liveliness was imparted to the scene by the constant altercations between the sentries and a dozen street-boys, in native costume, who seemed to have all the impudence and a great deal more than the picturesqueness of the city Arab of London. The French have now been installed in Tunis for some days. They entered it at the earliest hour of dawn last Tuesday morning, the inhabitants waking up to find themselves in the power of a Christian host. Intense excitement and indignation have since prevailed in the native quarters of the town, and rumours of an impending rising are commonly current. Many of the Europeans, I am told, live in a state of perpetual alarm; but others have confidence in the power of the French to put down any attempt to overpower the non-Mussulman population. The meaning of the appearance of the sentries in front of the Grand Hotel is, that it is the headquarters of General Japy, the French commander of the city.