Recent events have attracted so much attention to Northern Africa, and to that part of it over which the Bey of Tunis has hitherto ruled, that it seems unnecessary to offer any apology for the publication of this volume. But if an apology is unnecessary, an explanation is undoubtedly called for. Let me say then that I make no pretensions to any special knowledge of Tunis. I have not attempted to write a history of the Regency—though such a history could hardly fail to be intensely interesting; nor have I even sought to give a complete account of the country as it is now to be seen by visitors from a distance. Several circumstances made it impossible that I should do this. During the time I spent in Tunis, as will be gathered from the following pages, the country was not only in a state of war, but was under the influence of a very vehement anti-Christian feeling. That feeling had found expression in hideous massacres of Christians who had fallen into the hands of the so-called “insurgent Arabs.” French armies were in occupation of different points in the Regency, and were about to begin the march to the sacred city of Kairwan; and Tunis itself had, as a matter of precaution, been strongly occupied by the soldiers of the Republic. As a result of this state of things it had become dangerous for any Christian to go beyond the very limited districts in which the French troops were actually posted. Even in Tunis itself it was perilous to visit certain quarters of the city at any time, and after dark no European could walk about the streets safely. Consequently it was not possible for a visitor at this particular moment to see so much of the country as he could have done under happier circumstances—or, indeed, so much of it as he may see now, when there appears to be a temporary lull in the excitement of the Arab population. My story therefore is not a complete one. But I have endeavoured to tell, as simply and honestly as possible, the tale of a brief visit paid to the Regency at a very exciting time, and to give some account of the many scenes and persons of interest I encountered during my sojourn in the Land of the Bey. As it happened, I had some advantages as a traveller which enabled me to meet with people and to enter houses not usually accessible to Englishmen; and I have sought to tell an unvarnished and straightforward story about them. I might have added a great deal of information about the Regency generally, and the city of Kairwan in particular, for I gathered not a little knowledge of these subjects whilst I was in Tunis; but since I left the country Kairwan itself has been visited by Europeans, and is now accessible to travellers, and I do not think it desirable therefore to inflict my secondhand evidence upon the reader. If what I have written of my own experiences and actual observations should induce him to follow my example, and to spend a holiday in Tunis, I feel certain that he will consider himself well repaid for his pains by the enjoyment which the novel and picturesque sights of that strange and romantic land cannot fail to afford him.
THE LAND OF THE BEY.
CHAPTER I.
HOW I ATE BOUILLABAISSE AT MARSEILLES.
A mad holiday scheme — Prophecies of evil — Paris after rain — In the “Rapide” — Marseilles — A dish of Bouillabaisse, and a disillusionment.
“Go to Tunis!” cried all my friends, when I intimated my intention of taking a holiday in that little-visited district of Northern Africa; “why, you must be mad to think of it.” And then from each in succession there was poured forth a catalogue of the dangers, difficulties, and hardships which I was certain to encounter if I ventured into the dominions of the Bey. “Do you not know that the country is in a state of war; that a French army is on the point of occupying the city of Tunis itself; that the Arabs are murdering every European they can catch, and the French, not to be behind them, are doing the same by the Arabs?” “Have you read those horrible revelations about the prevalence of typhoid fever in Tunis? They say they are dying there by hundreds daily.” “Do you know what the African climate is? Have you any conception of the heat of an African sun?” These were but specimens of the admonitions poured into my unheeding ears by my kind friends.
The truth was that my determination to visit Tunis dated from a lovely day in October, 1880, when, sailing in the good ship Sidon towards Malta, I had the entrance to the Gulf of Tunis pointed out to me. Until that moment, although I had often looked at the place upon the map, I had never thoroughly realized its nearness to the shores of Europe. Tunis had seemed like Morocco or Timbuctoo or Lake N’gami, a mysterious spot shut out from the civilized world. But when I saw that this land in which the manners and customs of the East are to be found to-day in a degree of perfection which is unknown at Stamboul, was within four-and-twenty hours’ sail of Malta, I inwardly resolved that, if the Fates were propitious, I should make it the goal of my next year’s holiday.
Between that trip in the Sidon and my voyage in the following year a good many things had happened at Tunis. M. Roustan, aided by his accomplices in Paris, had planned and carried out the greatest act of international brigandage upon record, and unoffending Tunis had been violently seized by the French army in the name of a gang of mercenary conspirators. The hot-blooded Arabs and Moors of the regency had not been slow to resent the usurpation of the infidel, and a bitter war had begun. It was in the very midst of this war, on the day on which a French army entered the city of Tunis itself and made themselves masters of the capital, that I set off on my journey from a Yorkshire town to an African State. I propose to tell the story of that journey in some detail in these pages; for it was one of singular interest, albeit accompanied by more than one unpleasant adventure, and attended at times by an amount of discomfort that often caused me to smile grimly at the notion that I was engaged upon a pleasure excursion. In describing my experiences, I shall quote largely from the diary which I kept from day to day all through my journey; but if at any moment I feel inclined to dwell upon a particular scene or incident, the reader will forgive me if I lay my diary aside, and enlarge upon the rough notes made upon the spot. I can promise him that whether in quoting from my diary or in giving a detailed description of the various scenes I witnessed—some of which were of more than ordinary interest—I shall do my best to keep most strictly within the limits of the truth.