This lively picture of the dangers of the situation, painted as it was in that quaint, gloomy, cavernous sitting-room in the strange Moorish house, was rather calculated to try the nerves of a new-comer, and as B——— depicted to me the dangers attending any wandering in even the most frequented parts of Tunis after nightfall, I began most fervently to wish myself safe again in the shelter of my hotel. Even as I was pondering upon the dark and intricate passages which I must traverse on my way to my sleeping-place, a sudden sound startled us both. It was the firing of a rifle in the street below us. We listened, breathless, for a few seconds; and then, hearing nothing further, stepped out upon the quaint curved iron balcony overhanging the doorway. Nothing was to be seen except a group of cloaked Arabs, moving stealthily away in the distance. B——— pressed me to remain at his house for the night, but I thought it better to return to my hotel; and as he sent his servant—a good-looking young Jew in Arab costume—to show me the way, the only difficulty I experienced in passing through the unlit streets was from my constant stumbling over bits of broken ground, or my occasional encounters with the savage dogs, which are only less numerous here than they are in Stamboul.
CHAPTER VI.
A DAY AT CARTHAGE.
The pious Æneas — A street scene — A nondescript vehicle — The road to Carthage — A wayside tragedy — Bedouin children — Delenda est Carthago — An Empire’s dust — Dido’s Palace — The cisterns of Carthage — A lovely situation — The College of St. Louis — English ladies in Tunis.
Tuesday, October 18th.—A trip to Carthage is an event which recalls one’s earliest memories of classic lore. How many years, I wonder, is it since I was tearfully engaged in construing the well-thumbed pages in which the adventures of the lovely Dido and the “pious” Æneas are recorded? And wherefore, I wonder, was Æneas pious? So far as schoolboys are concerned, that marvellous faculty of blubbering at will over his own misfortunes which this particular hero possessed has caused him to be generally regarded as something very like a milksop. But there has never been any doubt in the schoolboy’s mind regarding the beauty of Dido. Has he not had a due sense of it flogged into him in his very earliest struggles with the Latin tongue? I vow that when I got out of bed this morning and prepared myself for a trip to Carthage, a slight sensation of alarm troubled me. The names of Dido and Æneas recalled quite too painfully the memories of good Dr. Birch, and of the times when I was at the mercy of his stern assistants. Little did I dream in those days of ever seeing Carthage itself. Yet here I was, just on the point of starting for the place where the wonderful city once stood; and that being so, why should I not find my lovely Dido still sitting there, watching with tear-dimmed eyes the flying bark of her faithless lover? I had left the world of sober realities behind me at Marseilles, and had come into a sort of Arabian Nights’ country in which anything might happen, and in which it was one of my main duties to be astonished at nothing.
The big airy bedchamber was hot enough when I awoke, albeit the heavy wooden shutters were closed and the light excluded. A detestable mosquito had been buzzing about my ears all through the night, and now there were certain small swellings on my neck which told where he had feasted upon my blood. The faithful Afrigan appeared upon the scene with the welcome tub, a small cup of particularly bad coffee, and a roll that was supposed to represent the nearest approach to Parisian bread to be obtained in this quarter of the world. Happily, he spared me the sight and the smell of the garlic-drenched oily abomination which passes here for butter. A cigarette, however, put matters right, and before my not very elaborate toilette was completed, I found myself standing upon the balcony outside the window surveying the brilliant street below me. 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. There were men vending water, and fruit, and cakes; there were wonderful little shoeblacks, all aglow with scarlet garments; there were black mule-drivers trudging onwards with impassive faces, and scores of sleek Moors in ghostly white marching slowly up and down the broad road regardless of the terrible sun which was pouring its fiercest rays upon their turbaned heads. Now and then some camels went past heavily laden; then a beggar trudged along, in rags and sores, raising a cry for pity in the name of Allah; then a stout old Jewess and her handsome daughters waddled slowly past, the latter with strange unwieldy gait, but flashing eyes and rosy lips; and then our sweet European civilization made itself visible in the shape of a detachment of French infantry, briskly marching to the rub-a-dub of the drum.
But meanwhile Afrigan was awaiting me at the door of the hotel with a curious vehicle, not unlike a small four-post bedstead mounted upon wheels. Loose curtains hung all round the upper part of the framework, so that shelter could be obtained in any direction from the heat of the sun, whilst a pleasant draught of air could also at all times be admitted. A couple of good horses were attached to this nondescript conveyance, which was in the charge of a Maltese of most villainous aspect. Away we went, with much cracking of whips and jingling of bells, through the crowded streets of the native quarter; past the coffee-houses, each one of which, with its wonderful, sombre interior, and its group of dark and sullen faces peering out at us as we drove by, would have made a delightful picture; under the quaint arches of the great gateway, and so out into the open yellow plain beyond.
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. And even as it is there are picturesque sights in abundance to compensate for the barrenness of the soil. Here we pass a kitchen garden. Perhaps a few stunted vegetables are growing in it; more probably it only shows you a few sticks rising two or three inches from the soil. But a couple of Arabs are hard at work gardening, and mark the cunning care with which they are constructing little canals of the loose soil, by means of which the water which the ox is pumping out of yonder well may be carried in any desired direction. 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. Now, however, we turn into the direct road for Carthage. There are few people to be met with here. A chance shepherd tending his flock, or a Bedouin man and woman resting beneath some olive or palm-tree, alone break the solitude of the scene. My companion points out to me a stately date-palm, with magnificent feathered top, standing a little away from the sandy track which serves as a road. It marks the precise spot where a couple of weeks ago a foul murder was committed. The victim was one of the unfortunate Maltese coachmen of Tunis; the murderer a major in the service of the Bey. The major engaged the coachman to drive him to Carthage, and when opposite this palm-tree shot him through the heart. There were plenty of Arabs upon the road at the time, but none of them interfered. It was only a wretched infidel who had met with his deserts: why should they trouble themselves in the matter? So the assassin got clean off, and has not since been heard of; nor does anybody believe that he is likely to be punished. As for his motives, they were apparently, as in the case of most murderers, a little mixed. There was a good deal of religious fanaticism and political hatred at the bottom of the crime; but there was also one ugly fact in connexion with it which tends to deprive the murderer of the crown of glory to which he would be entitled in the eyes of his co-religionists if he had taken the man’s life out of a pure hatred of the abominable Christian. That is the fact that he had previously shown himself not above borrowing money from the aforesaid Christian, and that he had forgotten to repay that money. Such is the tale with which Afrigan beguiles the way, as my carriage rolls rapidly onwards towards the hill once crowned by the towers of Carthage, and now marked by the imposing pile of the College of St. Louis.