Chapter III: From Sfax to Gabés

At 9 a.m. on the morning of the 14th October, the _Ville d’Oran_ weighed anchor and left the roadstead of Susa in brilliant weather for Monastir.

Monastir, or Mistir, has a population of nine thousand inhabitants, of whom one thousand are Europeans. It was originally a Carthaginian town; later, the “Ruspina” of the Romans. It is now surrounded by battlemented walls interspersed with towers and pierced by five gates. Ornamented with coloured tiles, the minarets of several mosques rise here and there above the houses.

I crossed the town from the south to the opposite side. Here I found an immense cemetery; grave upon grave grouped about kubbas. In the very midst of the cemetery is a cistern, which must supply remarkably good water!

Following along the walls of the town I soon reached the beach, where before me lay three small islands—Jezirel el Hammam (Pigeon Island), Jezirel Sid Abd el Fairt el R’dani (so called after a Marabout whose kubba crowns its summit), and the third island named Jezirel el Austan (Central Island).

Still following the walls, I passed Moorish women and children washing clothes on the shore. A number of boats were lying in the shallow water under the lea of the islands.

At ten o’clock I was again on board, and at eleven we started, steering for Mehdia, some thirty-six miles farther south.

On the way we passed Cape Diauros, the site of ancient Thapsus. It was a Carthaginian colony where fought Cæsar Scipio and Cato. Numerous ruins recall the old times.

In Mehdia harbour we anchored about three o’clock. Mehdia was once a very important town; now it has only some ten thousand inhabitants. The Sicilians besieged it in 1147; the Arabs in 1160; the Duke of Bourbon in 1390; and Charles V. in 1557. The knights of Malta took part in this last assault, and the grave of one of these knights is still shown.

Some Europeans carry on a trade here in oil, dried fruits, sponges, coral, and sardines. In the months of May and June there are often a couple of hundred boats lying off the shore fishing for sardines, and generally making good hauls. In one night a single boat may take even as much as from four to six hundredweight of fish.

Large vessels do not follow the coast from Mehdia to Sfax, but make a long circuit round the island of Kirkennah, the water along the coast being shallow. Along this stretch of sea have been placed light-buoys to mark the course. These buoys are filled with compressed oil, and burn incessantly day and night. They are constructed to burn three months, but are inspected monthly.

Early in the morning of the 15th October we cast anchor about two miles outside Sfax, of which the white walls glistened in the morning sun. A steam tug took us ashore. The ebb and flow of the tide here is very strong, with a possible rise and fall of as much as eight feet, which accounts for the flatness of the beach.

The only ship in the roadstead was the _Fæderlandet_ from Bergen, lying-to and discharging timber.

Sfax was taken on the 16th July 1881 by a force under Admiral Garnault, after a serious bombardment which laid waste a great part of the ramparts and the town.

The walls enclosing the European quarter, which faces the sea, have been pulled down lately, and here the French have established themselves. To the rear lies the Arab town, still surrounded by its walls and towers.

On landing I met the Vice-Consul for Sweden and Norway, Olaf Henriksen, a young man who in the course of a few years has made for himself a good position as partner in the large, and perhaps sole, firm of timber traders in the place. His office and warehouses are on the quay. Olsen, his co-partner, is likewise a Northerner. Henriksen is agent for the United Shipping Co., but it is seldom that Danish vessels touch here.

(_From a painting by Mrs. Henriksen._)]

After a stroll through the town, Mr. Henriksen led me to his home and introduced me to his wife, a Norwegian lady from Christiania. I spent a comfortable and most enjoyable day in their house, which is outside the town and commands a view of the harbour.

Mrs. Henriksen is a very fair artist. On the walls hung sketches of her northern home and of Sfax, painted by herself and showing considerable talent. The tombs of Marabouts, the cemeteries outside the walls, and the Arab tents in the vicinity were the subjects that pleased me most. She most amiably promised to be my collaborator, by allowing me to make use of a couple of her sketches for my book.

Sfax is a large town, with about fifty thousand inhabitants, of whom the eighth part are Europeans. A considerable trade is carried on in sponges, oil, and esparto grass, this last being worked by a Franco-Anglo-Tunisian Company; in addition to these, there is a trade in fruit and vegetables, more especially cucumbers, called in Arabic “Sfakus,” from which, no doubt, arises the name of the town.

In the neighbourhood are many villas and gardens, where the townsfolk take refuge in the hot season, but beyond these is the sandy desert.

In ancient days the Romans had here a large city, of which many traces are found. In the covered streets I saw arches, which by their capitals and columns were of Roman origin, and heard of old Roman graves and foundations being frequently discovered.

Sfax is a garrison, and amongst the soldiers is a fine body of Spahis, but at the time of my visit many were absent at the manœuvres.

During the night we steamed in four hours from the roadstead of Sfax to Gabés.

A golden strand: in the background some white houses, and to the right a palm grove. Such is the view of Gabés from the sea.

The landing-place was only a short distance from the European quarter. I called on the commanding officer, Colonel Gousset of the Spahis, to whom the Regency at Tunis had recommended me, directing that he should assist me by word and deed in my journey to the cave dwellers (troglodytes) of the southern mountains.

It was the hour of muster, and the Colonel introduced me to many of the officers, one of whom, Captain Montague of the General’s staff, lent me his horse, and a Spahi was told off as my guide.

“When one wanders towards the Syrtes and ‘Leptis Magna,’ one finds in the midst of Afric’s sands a town called Tacape; the soil there is much cultivated and marvellously fruitful. The town extends in all directions to about three thousand paces. Here is found a fountain with an abundant supply of water, which is only used at stated times; and here grows a high palm, and beneath that palm an olive, and under that a fig tree. Under the fig tree grows a pomegranate, and beneath that again a vine. Moreover, beneath these last are sown, first oats, then vegetables or grass, all in the same year. Yes, thus they grow them, each sheltered by the other.”

Thus wrote Pliny of the oasis near Gabés over eighteen hundred years ago, and this description can be applied in the main at the present day.

Of this town, created by the Carthaginians, colonised by the Romans, and later the seat of an archbishopric, and which stood nearer the ocean than the existing villages, there remain now only some crumbled ruins on the hills near Sid Bu’l Baba’s Zauia, now difficult even to trace.

Remains of cisterns can be seen, built with the imperishable cement of which the Romans alone understood the preparation. But the stones have long since been removed to Jara, Menzel, and Shenini, villages of the oasis, where are still to be found, in the wretched native buildings, carved capitals and bas-reliefs, side by side with sun-dried bricks and uncut stones.

But it is long since this old town vanished. The Arab geographers in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as also Leo Africanus in the sixteenth century, mention Gabés as a large town surrounded by walls and deep trenches, which latter could be flooded with water. They tell us of a great fortress there, and that the town had a large population and extensive suburbs. Then the Mohammedan conquerors laid their iron hand over the country, and the inhabitants were dispersed and gathered in the villages Jara and Menzel, each now containing some four thousand inhabitants. Both villages were situated near the river and close to the market-place, and were continually fighting amongst themselves for the possession of these; whilst other villages, of which Shenini is the largest, concealed themselves amidst their palm groves.

To keep these rival villages in subjection, the Turks erected, just between them, a fort—Borj Jedia (the new fort). It was blown up by French marines on the 21st July 1881, when they assaulted, stormed, and seized the villages.

Later there arose by the seashore, huts, taverns, and eating-houses, and, after the first occupation, these formed a place of resort for all sorts of adventurers, and was therefore wittily named “Coquinville” by the soldiers. Out of this has grown quite a little town, known as the Port of Gabés. This is occupied by the European colony, consisting of from one to two thousand persons of various Mediterranean origins. The residence of General Allegro, the Bey’s governor of El Arad, the most southern district of Tunisia, was originally the only building on the spot, and here he still resides; but now in the long streets there are commandants’ houses, officers’ quarters, the Hotel de l’Oasis, and a large number of offices of all descriptions. Behind the town to the south, lie the barracks for the garrison of Spahis and infantry. In former days the troops were quartered farther inland, on a height near the Gabés River, as the water was better; but now drinking-water has been brought to the town from a near-lying oasis.

Wad Gabés, or the Gabés River, has its source about a score of miles inland, and flows over its broad bed, through saline and lime-charged soil, down to the oasis, wherefore the water contains much magnesia, and is in consequence most unwholesome, and has caused the death of many a young colonist and soldier. It is said that the age of the eldest soldier buried in the churchyard was but five-and-twenty.

In old times the water must naturally have been as unhealthy as now, but the Romans, those masters of colonisation, used, on that account, rain water collected in cisterns. Remains of such tanks are found everywhere in the south.

The Arab rider, given me as guide, and I rode along the northern bank of the river so as to cross the Gabés oasis from the sea towards the interior.

It was the most enjoyable excursion I can remember ever having made.

The sea roared behind the sand cliffs, while the horses panted through the deep sand. From behind the cliffs appeared the tops of palm trees, and presently we were in the shade.

The light gleamed through the palm leaves on lemon, orange, and pomegranate trees, and on the trailing vines, trained up to the beloved sun, and stretched from tree to tree in graceful festoons.

In the open spaces between the palms lay the orchards, where grew all kinds of fruit trees—peaches, apples, pears, plums, apricots, figs, olives, and many others.

The air was pregnant with the scent from the trees and plants. Beneath the shade of the thick foliage overhead spread the most beautiful green sward, intersected by flowing rivulets of water and small canals, dammed by means of dykes and low banks, as in our own land irrigation.

By small paths and roads we wandered on, following the turns of the canals, riding sometimes on a narrow track between two banks, and if we then met Arabs on their little overladen mules it was a squeeze to pass by them.

There was silence amongst the trees. Only now and then, when we drew near to tents, or some straw hut concealed amidst the foliage, could we hear voices and the barking of dogs. Women and children peeped at us through the branches, and we saw men in scanty clothing working with hoes in their gardens, or women weeding the beds and gathering henna in baskets.

Birds flew from branch to branch, or across the open spaces. Wood pigeons called, and turtle-doves cooed, whilst the chaffinch fluttered about on the tops of the almond trees, and in the distance the sound of a shot proclaimed that a sportsman in a clearing on the borders of the oasis had fired at hare, quail, or partridge. On the extreme border, by the sea, was the tomb of a Marabout, built from the ancient remains of the town of olden days, blended with new materials. The columns supporting the entrance were of new rough stone, with handsome carved capitals.

We emerged on the barren plain, and saw in the far distance, on rising ground, other palm groves, but hurried back again into the fascinating wood, till, by paths and over small stone bridges, beneath which streams rippled sheltered by the arching palms, we came to a broader road between high dykes. There it was difficult to advance, as some artillerymen with baggage carts drawn by mules had stuck fast in the mud, the waggons being overladen with stone.

The way now turned towards the river. As we left the palm grove by the miry road to cross the bridge, the grey walls of a village lay before us on the opposite side. The river bank was crowded with women and children washing; clothes were hanging to dry on the bushes, whilst shortly-kilted figures waded into the water, or sat on the stones by the river side beating clothes with flat boards. Most of them pretended not to see us, some turned their backs, and a very few stole roguish glances at us.

The whole scene was worthy of the brush of a good artist. The grey-yellow water, the yellow shore and green wood under the deep blue sky, and against this background the many-coloured figures of women and children. All were in constant movement and chattering loudly.

We rode through the gate. The village consists of narrow streets and lanes of wretched low houses. The air was oppressively hot, and dirt was everywhere. My guide rode in front, pushing people aside with loud exclamations. They submitted quietly to being hustled; “Kith to kin is least kind.” Then, again crossing the river, we rode through the oasis to other villages and as far as the poor huts of Shenini, then turned again down to the stream, which here ran between high banks, and after visiting, just at nightfall, some encampments close by, we hastened on our way back to Gabés.