The land of the Bey

by T. Wemyss Reid

Risks outside the walls — A tantalizing prospect — The gates of Tunis — The Belvedere hill — The French camp — Typhus — A fine prospect — A visit to the Marsa — Mr. Reade’s country-house — A country drive — Taib Bey — The fall of Kairwan — The Bardo — The suzerainty of the Caliph — A quaint custom.

Monday, October 24th.—I have spoken of the country outside Tunis, and of its general characteristics. Excursions to various places of interest in the neighbourhood of the city have given me a thorough acquaintance with so much of the locality as it is possible at present to visit without being exposed to the most serious risk. To go more than a short distance outside the walls is at this moment sheer madness. Nothing is more tantalizing than to see open country roads stretching away into the interior, and to know that they are absolutely barred against one’s passage by an enemy, invisible, but still always present, and always ready to take advantage of the slightest rashness on the part of the stranger. There is a particular farm-house standing high up on the hills amid a grove of prickly pear and cactus, some three miles from the white walls of the city which has often attracted my attention, and which has exercised an almost uncontrollable fascination over me. If I were once up at that point I should not only see what life in a Tunisian farm-house is like, but I should be able to get a far finer view of the country than it is possible to obtain anywhere nearer to the town. The longing to visit the place became so intense the other day that I was on the point of gratifying it, when word was brought to me that this very farm-house, nestling so peacefully in a gentle indentation of the great upland slope that rises behind Tunis, had been visited the previous day by Arab marauders, who had pillaged the house and carried off the occupants. What the fate of any European who chanced to go there just now would be, is more easily imagined than described; but it is quite certain that my curiosity as to the country life of the Tunisians must remain for the present unsatisfied. Still there are one or two favourite drives which I have taken on several occasions. The one that I like best is that to the Belvedere Hill, lying between Tunis and Carthage, where a French camp is established.

The whole scene on the road to this camp is wonderfully picturesque. As you pass out of the arched gateway of the city, you find yourself in a wide open space caused by the meeting of several roads from different parts of the country. There is a well here, and around it may always be seen clustered a large group of horses, mules, and camels. The soldiers from the camp on the hill, the white tents of which are plainly visible from the city walls, come down here with their horses to give them water; or a fatigue party will arrive for the purpose of carrying the precious liquid up to the camp. Ragged and wayworn Bedouins from the interior are lounging about the fountain, or reclining against the huge pillars of the city gateway, whilst their mules or camels are enjoying a brief respite from labour, in the midst of the white and dusty highway. Women and children are begging alms, or are taking those deep draughts of water from the well which only the dwellers in “a thirsty land” are able to appreciate. Occasionally a gaily bedizened Moor, with brilliant turban, flowing burnous, and glittering array of knives and pistols, gallops up, scattering the crowd before him, and urging his splendidly caparisoned horse to the brink of the well. The city guards meanwhile, with their burnt faces, ragged uniforms, and deplorable old rifles, are on duty at the gate, and eye the passing European with vindictive sullenness of expression. Is there any other spot within so short a distance of Paris or London, where scenes like these are to be met with; where one can find one’s self not only in the midst of an actual campaign, but surrounded by the typical sights and incidents of a purely Oriental life?

Our carriage soon leaves this wonderful gathering-place outside the city walls behind, and after a sharp tug uphill we find ourselves nearing the French camp. Here, again, there are picturesque sights in abundance, though of a different order. No Arabs are to be seen near the encampment, but the Jews, who in dress so closely resemble them, abound. Many of them have brought trays of fruit or sweetmeats to the spot, and are conducting a languid trade with the soldiers. Then there are French hucksters, whose stock-in-trade seems to be a barrel of wine or a few bottles of beer or absinthe. They have constructed a rude shelter for themselves from the sun beneath the wide-spreading olive-trees, and you may always depend upon finding a few gentlemen in blue trousers sharing the hospitalities they have to dispense. The sobriety of the French soldier is evidently not incompatible with a very plentiful consumption of wine and bad spirits. A sentry now bars our way. He will listen to no explanation; he will take no message to the commander of the camp, and when one of us shows a slight disposition to walk past him, unheeding his stern “Il est défendu, monsieur!” his rifle is instantaneously brought down to a horizontal position, and his bayonet gleams in unpleasant proximity to the offender’s breast. But I have a good field-glass with me, and standing on the little entrenchment thrown up for the defence of the camp, I can distinctly see every portion of it. Truth to tell, there is not much to be seen. There are lines of tents—most of them bell-tents, though here and there the wretched little tente d’abri is to be seen, and there are long rows of soldiers stretched in the shade, sleeping peacefully. Here and there an orderly may be observed, or a fatigue party armed with water-buckets, or an officer, carelessly dressed, striding about with shiftless gait. You can see, too, that the camp is not a delectable place of residence—far from it. Pheugh! As I look there comes to me, borne on the breeze, an indescribable odour. I have experienced something like it before, frequently in a travelling menagerie; but only once before did I actually encounter this horrible and insufferable stench. That was more than ten years ago, in the gardens at Versailles, when my evil genius prompted me to look over the balustrades into the Orangerie below, where the captured Communists were herded together like caged wild beasts. It is not an odour to be forgotten. It seems to print the word “Typhus” in big legible letters upon the luminous atmosphere.

I turn away from the camp, and survey the lovely country which is spread out at my feet like a map—for it is not without reason that this hill is called the Belvedere. There lies the white city, with its multitudinous flat roofs, its labyrinth of narrow streets, its quaint ungainly towers, and its Kasbah, on which flies the French flag. Beyond it you see the semicircle of forts which at once defend it and command it. On these also flies the tricolour. Then there are the great ranges of hill, sweeping away to where the jagged peaks of the Zaghouan Mountains intercept one’s view, and the lake immediately below me dotted with the white sails of the fishermen, and in the distance the amphitheatre where once stood Carthage, and the blue waters of the Gulf. The whole scene is bathed in the brilliant sunshine of Africa. One has no wish, after feasting one’s eyes upon it, to resume one’s study of the interior of the French camp.

One day—that ought to be marked with a red letter in this discursive journal—I accepted an invitation from Mr. Reade to go with him to his country house at the Marsa. We travelled together by the mid-day train from Tunis, B——— and P——— accompanying us. After leaving Goletta the line turns to the west, and runs forward to the Arab town of Sidi bou Said. But before we reached the terminus the whistle sounded, and the train suddenly stopped. I looked out. We were in the middle of a beautiful and trimly kept garden. There was a platform of gravel, and in the centre of it a neat summer-house, but no other sign to indicate that this was an ordinary station. It was, in fact, the private station alloted to Mr. Reade, and it was his garden in which we had stopped. We descended from the train and were met by four or five bright English lads—the sons of Mr. Reade and of one of my companions. How strangely their talk, the talk of English schoolboys, sounded amid these unfamiliar scenes! We strolled up a beautiful avenue of cypress, date-palms, and cactus, to the house. It is a Moorish villa of noble architecture. Ascending a broad sweep of marble stairs in front, we found ourselves upon a splendid verandah, with screen of exquisite Moorish arches, and tiled walls and floor. This lovely covered terrace was cool and airy in spite of the intense heat of the day; and even without regarding the fine view which was to be had from it, one could understand how in the nine months’ summer of Tunis it was the favourite sitting-room and place of assembly of the family. A door opening from this verandah gave admittance to a vast and lofty hall, the walls of which were also lined with tiles; whilst beyond were suites of large rooms, furnished rather in the Moorish than the European style. Of the warm and graceful hospitality with which I was received by the lady of the house this is not the place in which to speak. It may not, however, be out of place to mention that I now for the first time had the opportunity of tasting couscousoo, the national dish of the Arabs. Most excellent it is, though it has perhaps the fault of satisfying one’s appetite rather too quickly. It is a preparation of semolina, meat, and herbs, and has all the characteristics of a very fine curry with added excellences that are peculiar to itself. Perhaps the nearest approach to the dish is the pilaff which you get in Turkey; but between couscousoo and either curry or pilaff there is one great difference. That is, that in the Arab dish rice is not an ingredient, semolina, or whole grains of wheat, prepared in some peculiar fashion, taking its place. My introduction to couscousoo was of such a character that I became straightway desirous to renew the acquaintance at the earliest possible moment.

After our mid-day meal—which formed in all respects a delightful contrast to the dismal and painful experiences in the gastronomic line which I had been hitherto passing through in Tunis—I went for a drive with Mr. Reade. In the course of this drive we got a splendid view of the Gulf and the surrounding country, including the entire site of Carthage. The dusty lanes lined on either side with hedges of cactus, prickly pear, and other tropical plants, presented a strange contrast to the scenery amid which the ordinary afternoon drive of an Englishman is enjoyed. We passed great numbers of Arabs. None of them took the slightest notice of Mr. Reade, though all must have known him, and must have been aware that he had proved himself to be in many ways their benefactor and protector. Returning to the house, we lounged on the verandah smoking, chatting, and watching the boys at their play—the garden ringing with their shouts and laughter. Then, after a delightful cup of English tea, we started for the little garden station. It was broad daylight when we left the house; but before Mr. Reade and I had strolled the length of the avenue it was almost dark, so swiftly does night fall in these latitudes. I noticed in the garden a lamp burning amid the thick boughs of a large tree or shrub, and inquired the meaning of its appearance there. It seems that the tree on which the lamp is hung is sacred in the estimation of the Arabs, who believe that a saint of peculiar holiness is buried beneath it. Accordingly this lamp is lighted every Thursday night in honour of the pious man, and devout Mohammedans come and pray beneath the shade of the tree. It is on the whole well for them that an Englishman happens to be the occupant of this house and the master of the beautiful garden. The kindliness which leads Mr. Reade to respect the shrine of which he has thus accidentally become the possessor, and not only to respect it, but to allow free access to it on the part of the people of the country, is somewhat different from the disposition shown by the nation which is about to add the proud name of Kairwan to the list of its conquests!

The day after my visit to the beautiful country home of the English Consul-General, I had another opportunity of seeing an interior at the Marsa. The Marsa, I ought here to explain, is not so much a village as a circumscribed district in which are gathered together the villas of many of the wealthiest and most important members both of the European and native communities. Thus M. Roustan has, like Mr. Reade, a country house here; and here also are the palaces of the brothers of the reigning Bey. It was to pay a visit to Taib Bey, the younger brother of the Bey, that I went to the Marsa on this occasion. That Taib is mixed up in many of the political intrigues of which the Regency is at present the scene, and that he would not be at all sorry to supplant his brother, is, I believe, perfectly true. The standard of morals prevailing here is—well, I think it will be better to call it Tunisian; and if all that I have heard, not only about the Bey and his brothers, but about many other distinguished people in Tunis, is to be trusted, the world would not lose much if an earthquake were to bring the whole Regency to destruction to-morrow. Mr. Levy, the gentleman whose claim to the Enfida estate is one of the causes that are said to have led up to the French invasion of the country, acted as my guide in this visit to Taib Bey, in which the principal part was played by my friend Mr. B———. Taib, it appears, was anxious to influence the English public on his behalf; hence his invitation to us. It was the first time that I had ever been honoured by being received by the brother of a reigning Sovereign, and perhaps I ought to have felt more impressed than I did with the greatness of the occasion; but as a matter of fact it is a little difficult for an Englishman to enter into all the niceties of Tunisian dignities—almost as difficult as it is for him to understand the feeling of delight with which the Frenchmen here, who have been decorated with the Order of the Bey, display upon their manly bosoms the vast pewter plate which is the chief of the insignia of that Order.

Mr. Levy’s three horses, harnessed abreast, made comparatively short work of the journey from Tunis to the Marsa. We found ourselves precisely at the appointed hour entering the large, rambling Moorish villa, situated in the midst of a pleasant garden, which is the residence of the illustrious Taib Bey. Half way up the garden we were met by the Bey’s secretary, a swarthy Arab, clad in gay yellow robes, richly embroidered. He conducted us through an inner court, in the middle of which a fountain was playing, into a small sitting-room, where the Bey’s son-in-law, a Turk, greeted us in the most friendly fashion. Here coffee was served in the usual manner, in delicate porcelain cups, placed in elaborately chased silver holders. Presently a good-looking boy of twelve or thirteen came to announce that the Bey awaited us. We were ushered up a narrow tiled staircase, and through an antechamber into a large apartment, where we found the Bey seated on a sofa. It would be doing violence to the truth if I were to say that the appearance of his Highness was prepossessing. His manners, it is true, were pleasant, and he was evidently anxious to put himself on friendly terms with us; nor can it be said that he lacked intelligence. But no one could mistake the meaning of the flabby chin, the loose and puffy cheeks, the watery eye, and lean and trembling fingers. The sensuality which is the curse of these Arab potentates had evidently broken his manhood. There was, too, a furtive cunning in his glance that put one instinctively upon one’s guard.

Taib Bey may be, as he professes, a better man than his brother; but he is not a man in whose mercy I, for one, should care to find myself. Of his conversation with us, carried on through the medium of an interpreter, and lasting for some twenty minutes, I need not say much. It was chiefly directed against the reigning Bey, the ex-Prime Minister, Mustapha, and M. Roustan. If the truth must be told, I was more interested in what I saw than in what I heard; and as Europeans are seldom admitted to the houses of these Arab princes, I was anxious to make the best use of my time whilst there. All the rooms which I saw were very poorly furnished, but the curtains, sofa covers, &c., were of clean and pretty chintz. The ornaments, even in the large apartment in which we were received, and which was evidently the chief reception-room of the house, were the tawdriest paper flowers, placed under common glass shades. The only things to be seen which were really rare or curious of their kind were two tall clocks at the foot of each staircase. These were very fine, and with all the ardour of a bric-à-brac hunter I felt half-inclined to sound Taib’s secretary as to the possibility of my purchasing one of them. I managed to resist the inclination, however; and perhaps it was just as well that I did so, as, unless rumour libels him, his Highness has a decidedly unpleasant way of making his anger felt when any one chances to displease him.