The land of the Bey

by T. Wemyss Reid

I suggested to Mohamed that inasmuch as the Kairwan people now lay under the same condemnation, they might perhaps look more leniently upon the offences of himself and his brethren. But he shook his head in a doleful fashion, and pressing my hand warmly, commended me to the protection of Allah, as one who was about to go through a den of wild beasts. My next difficulty was with Afrigan. He had served me so faithfully and diligently hitherto, that I felt loth to part from him. “Will you go to Kairwan with me?” I demanded of him as we sat and smoked our cigarettes under the delicious sky of an African night, in front of a little café of which I had become a frequenter. “Well, you see, sir,” said he, with Scotch indirectness, “I have a wife.” “But what of that? I may have one also, and yet I am going.” “Ah, sir, you may have a wife,” said Afrigan, in a tone which implied the profoundest incredulity upon the point; “but she’s a long way off, so it doesn’t matter. You see, sir, my wife is in Tunis.” “And you won’t go, then?” “Well, sir, I am afraid she would not let me.” After this, argument of course was useless. I confined myself to inviting him to accompany me at least as far as Susa, whither I was to proceed by sea. Now, even at Susa, life is by no means safe. Indeed, constant reports had reached Tunis during my sojourn there of the shooting of Europeans in the streets of the town; and it was notorious that Arab raiders had cleared the country up to the very walls of the city. Afrigan, however, was quite ready to go with me to Susa; and forthwith I despatched him to pack a small portmanteau, whilst I made a few farewell calls upon French and English friends.

The next day there was a great disappointment. It was the day on which I ought to have started, and I had taken passages for myself and my servant. Suddenly news was brought to me that the steamer could not start for another day. It was a bitter termination to my hopes of getting to Kairwan, and it required all my philosophy to get over it. On that particular day, I may here mention, I and my two friends, B——— and P———, found ourselves so sick of the vile hotel fare, that we induced Montellacci, the Italian pastry-cook of the European quarter, to prepare us a meal of tinned soups and meats. It was a welcome change from the menu of the Grand Hotel, for we at least knew what it was that we were eating; and though perhaps Montellacci was a little puzzled by our preferring preserved hare soup and minced collops to the dainties of the table d’hôte, he did his best to satisfy us. We felt quite at home as we ate. How strange, too, is the power of association! As we were lunching in the confectioner’s shop there fell upon our ears the sound of music. Music, it should be understood, is almost the only form of recreation in which the people of Tunis are able to indulge. There is, however, no theatre—it was burnt down some weeks ago—and no concert-room; so that the musicians are compelled to wander from café to café, trusting to the liberality of the frequenters of those places for their reward. On this occasion it was a couple of Neapolitans, with violin and flute, who favoured us with the strains of a gay Neapolitan fisher’s song. Suddenly they passed from this to one more familiar to me; and hackneyed and vulgar though the melody was, it touched me in a curious way to hear the well-known “Grandfather’s Clock” performed there, in the narrow street where the Arabs were walking to and fro, and the innumerable dogs were playing their part as scavengers.

A night’s reflection brought me to the conclusion that I would go to Susa even now, and take my chance when there of getting on to Kairwan. Accordingly, on the next afternoon, having provided myself with a letter of introduction to the English Vice-Consul at Susa, Mr. Gallia, I set off with Afrigan for Goletta. By five o’clock I was on board a magnificent vessel of the Compagnie Transatlantique, the Ville de Naples. This is a sister ship to the Charles Quint, and, like the latter, was built upon the Clyde. It is, however, somewhat larger than the Charles Quint, and, if anything, is even more gorgeously appointed. As I was being rowed off to the place where the Ville de Naples lay at anchor, I passed close to the English gunboat Falcon, Captain Selby. The sailors were just being piped to tea, and it was right pleasant to see so many “jolly Jacks” of my own country and to hear once more the strains of an English bugle. Nor was it less pleasant to find oneself again on board a clean and well-appointed French boat, on which one could exchange the filth and bad food of Tunis for something like civilized cookery. There was some delay in making a start, and it was not until long after we had dined that the anchor was weighed. But I shall never forget that interval of waiting. All round us were the merchant-vessels and men-of-war gathered together in the safe anchorage of the gulf; whilst in the distance were the low ranges of hills, and the white and spectral towers of Tunis and Goletta. A change had taken place in the weather immediately after sunset. For the first time since my arrival it became, not cold, but cool. And now the most terrific storm of lightning I had ever witnessed suddenly burst around us. This African lightning is at once magnificent and terrible to behold. It played all over the surface of sea and land, in wonderful, tremulous flashes of the most intense violet. There was literally no interval between these flashes; and I saw further inland under their penetrating glare than I could have done in the sunshine. Even after the anchor had been raised and we had got well on our way in the Mediterranean, the lightning seemed to be following us, lighting up the crests of the waves, and throwing the rugged coast-line out in splendid relief.

The next morning, going on deck I found the ship running into the deep gulf at the bottom of which lies Susa. The Zaghouan hills were almost as distinctly visible here as they had been at Tunis, though it was at the other side of them that I now looked. Presently on the port quarter we sighted Monastir, an important centre of the trade in olive oil; and then Susa was opened up to us right ahead. It would be difficult to imagine a pleasanter-looking town than Susa—when seen at a distance. Built in a parallelogram, with high white walls running completely round it, and a huge kasbah or citadel dominating it in the background, it presents a most pleasing aspect from the sea. The country is much more fertile here than it is in the neighbourhood of Tunis; a rich belt of olive forest running along the seacoast, and many handsome Moorish villas and farm-houses nestling between the trees and the shore of the bay. Looking beyond the town inland, I saw ranges of sandhills of curious shape. Beyond these sandhills stretches a marshy desert reaching far into the interior. Riding at anchor in the harbour were two French ships of war, an Italian gunboat, and my old friend the Charles Quint! After breakfasting on board—a most “happy thought,” as I subsequently discovered—I landed under the walls of the town. These walls, it ought to be explained, run right along the beach as well as on the other sides of the city, so that the latter is completely closed in. How necessary such defence is, may be gathered from the fact that within the past six weeks every villa or farm-house outside the walls, including even those which are only a few hundred yards from the gates, has been pillaged by the insurgent Arabs. So near have these gentlemen ventured to the town that—as I subsequently found by unpleasant experience—it is dangerous even to walk or ride fifty yards beyond the walls.

Susa being the starting-point of one of the columns which has marched upon Kairwan, and being also the base of supply for the whole French army in that part of the country, is at this moment the scene of immense activity. No one landing here can fail to perceive that he is in a country in which an active campaign is being carried on. On the beach enormous quantities of matériel of all kinds are gathered, and the big flat-bottomed boats are ever bringing fresh supplies from the ships in the harbour. Arab labourers and French soldiers, mingled together in a picturesque crowd, are all talking wildly, rushing hither and thither, and generally doing the best they can to obstruct one another. It is amusing to contrast the shrill tones of the French with that extraordinary guttural sound which represents spoken Arabic, and which has for all the world so strong a similarity to the “gobble-gobble” of an infuriated turkey. The Arabs in Susa, or rather, here on the beach in the midst of the French transport department, seemed to have been roused from their ordinary apathy. I even saw some of them running, and one or two of them were evidently excited. Threading my way through the great mounds of grain and coffee bags, I came upon the starting-point of the little Decauville railway, which is being laid down to serve the army at Kairwan. The last time I saw one of these miniature locomotives was in the Steam Plough Works at Leeds. The railway to Kairwan starts from the beach, or rather from the yard of Messrs. Perry, Bury, and Co., an English firm engaged in the esparto grass trade, for whom Mr. Gallia, our Vice-Consul, acts as agent. It is as yet only completed to a point about twelve miles from Susa, and has to be constantly watched by patrols, in order to prevent its being destroyed by the Arabs.

Passing through a deep vaulted gateway, more like a tunnel than an ordinary entrance gate, and then through a second which was in the occupation of French soldiers in soiled and ragged uniforms, I found myself in the town itself. There was a labyrinth of narrow, ill-paved streets, along which one had to pick one’s way with the utmost care. A few Maltese coffee-houses, where vile adulterated spirits were being sold to the sailors and soldiers, and here and there a melancholy little shop, alone broke in upon the depressing monotony of the blank white walls, which here, as in Tunis, line the streets for the greater part of the way. After feasting one’s eyes upon the fair exterior of the city, it was indeed a disillusionment to enter it. With some little difficulty Afrigan and I found our way to the English Vice-Consulate, where Mr. Gallia, the son of an Italian father and of an English mother, was engaged in transacting business in a vaulted apartment, which would have looked like nothing so much as a stable or a cellar if it had not been for the beautiful tiles with which floor and walls were lined. Here I was received with kindness on the presentation of my letter of introduction. “Is it possible to get to Kairwan?” I asked. “Certainly,” was the answer, given with a businesslike promptitude to which I was quite unaccustomed in the Regency. “A French convoy will leave here at three o’clock this afternoon; you must get a pass and go with it, and you will be there in three days.”

I was delighted to find how the dangers, of which I had heard so much when in Tunis, seemed to have vanished as I approached them, and instantly prepared to go. But there was still much to be done before I could consider myself equipped for a journey which, counting the return journey, would last at least a week, and during the whole of which I should have to be entirely dependent upon my own resources both for food and for shelter. A thick Arab burnous, and a splendid fez, or sheshia, as it is called here, were procured for me by Afrigan; the English hat I wore being wholly unsuited to the climate. I may say here that no greater mistake than that of taking a very light hat into such a country as Africa can be committed. The head must have sufficient covering to protect it from the fierce rays of the sun. It was curious indeed to observe that when the heat was greatest in Tunis, the Arabs seemed to wear their thickest clothes and biggest turbans. After attending to these necessaries of dress, I engaged, on Gallia’s recommendation, a servant to replace Afrigan. A glance at the man showed that I had made a change for the worse. He was a Maltese, who spoke Arabic, Italian, and a little English, and was described to me by the faithful Consul as “not quite right in his head, and given to drink, but fairly honest.” He was, however, the only man who seemed willing to risk his life in a journey to Kairwan, so I was compelled to put up with him. Then a mule and a donkey had to be hired, and some sixty francs’ worth of tinned meats and bread bought, whilst knives, pannikins, a lantern, and some candles completed my outfit.

It was no light matter to have to rush about the streets of Susa making these purchases under the blazing mid-day sun. Afrigan, whose heart was evidently heavy at parting from me, did his best, and his dull successor was quite willing to suggest the most incredible purchases of meat for the journey. I saw his eyes glisten as each successive tin was added to the store I was collecting, and I thought ruefully of the share which he would undoubtedly claim for himself when the moment to divide these good things should arrive.

At last, panting and exhausted, I returned to the Vice-Consul’s to report the completion of my equipment. Alas! the first words that greeted me were an announcement that Mr. Gallia had been mistaken, and that the convoy had started at one instead of three o’clock. I suggested that I might easily overtake it, as it consisted of some hundreds of laden camels. He laughed at the notion. Even the half-hour’s start it had obtained was fatal to my chance of joining it. To go without armed escort beyond the city walls was to court attack. I did not credit this alarming statement at the moment; but a few hours later, when by an unpleasant experience of my own I had ascertained in a practical manner the presence of insurgent Arabs within a few hundred yards of the city gates, in the belt of olive wood outside the walls, I was compelled to give the Vice-Consul credit for having spoken the literal truth.

Of the miseries of the enforced sojourn at Susa which I had now to face I shall not say much. I parted with Afrigan, who went on board the Ville de Naples, which had been appointed to return to Tunis the same evening. Mr. Gallia had informed me that Susa had lately been blessed with a luxury, a “real Parisian hotel,” and thither I went to take up my quarters until the convoy for Kairwan should start, an event which we understood would take place on the following day. A real Parisian hotel! It was situated in an old Arab house, opposite the great mosque of Susa, an extraordinary building, of which I shall have something more to say presently. I subsequently found that this house was the property of Mr. Levy of the Enfida, who had let it recently to an enterprising Frenchwoman from Marseilles, who had come to Susa in the wake of the French army. The filth left behind by the last Arab occupants of the place apparently still remained undisturbed. A few articles of European furniture, a long wooden table, and a dozen cane-bottomed chairs had been put into one of the rooms, which by the process had been converted into a salle-à-manger. I asked to see a bedroom, and was led up a slippery outside staircase to a gallery from which the various sleeping apartments were entered. The furniture of that into which I was shown consisted of an old iron bedstead on which a bag stuffed with shavings was placed, a small table, and a three-legged stool. The tiled floor was thick with filth, and the heavily barred windows refused to open. However, there was shelter here from the sun, and though I had my suspicions as to the contents of that bag of shavings, it was at least possible to rest one’s weary legs upon it, whilst I covered all the native odours of the apartment with the grateful fumes of tobacco. After a while, too, I got a basin containing some water, so that I was fain to confess that civilization had indeed achieved a triumph in Susa when this “Grand Hôtel de France” was set up there.