Chapter XIX: El-Djem to Kerouan

The serious part of our journey may be said to have commenced at El-Djem. So far we had been on highways, accessible to tourists without any special permission, and practicable for carriages. My brother returned to Susa in the calèche, and we mounted our horses and, till our entry into French territory, never again saw a Christian face, with the exception of a telegraphic clerk at El-Baja.

Our party consisted of Lord Kingston and myself, an escort of four mounted soldiers, two of whom were Hanbas and two Spahis; a useless old Maltese servant, horses for ourselves, five mules for our baggage, and three attendants. One of these last, who had been a great traveller, and had visited Mecca and Medina, usually went by the honorific title he had thus obtained—El-Hadj. He was the life and soul of the party, and in all our troubles and difficulties cries of _Ya Hadj!_ resounded from every direction. I never met a better servant, and I tried hard to induce him to accompany me to Algiers; but he said, ‘Susa is my native place; I have neither father, mother, nor wife, but four little brothers and sisters, who have only me to support them, so I must stay and take care of them.’ May they be a comfort to your old age, Ya Hadj!

The Hanbas look upon themselves as more nearly approaching regular cavalry than the Spahis; exteriorly they are distinguished by a prevalence of blue instead of red in their uniform, but both are equally badly mounted, and armed with old and obsolete flint firelocks, or any other weapons they may choose to provide. Neither get any regular pay, but are remunerated by whatever they can squeeze out of the people amongst whom their duty takes them for the moment. The regular rate of pay they expect from travellers is five piastres, or 2_s._ 6_d._ a day, and as much more as they can get, by way of _Ahsan_ or present at the end of the journey.

_April_ 9.—We started about seven o’clock. Our people were not well up to striking and packing the tent, and distributing the various loads; and there was a good deal of preliminary discussion, and much subsequent readjustment, to be gone through; but in the end it was tolerably well done. We worked as hard as the muleteers but our escort were far too superior beings to pull a strap, or tie a rope, or degrade themselves with any menial occupation. Our original intention had been to proceed due west from El-Djem, but we were assured on all hands that it was impossible. The country was without resources of any kind, and the only practicable route was by Kerouan.

We had not intended to visit the holy city—it was out of the track of Bruce, and had little connection with Roman archæology; but it is undoubtedly a most interesting place, and we were well pleased to have an opportunity of seeing it.

At about 7½ miles from El-Djem we passed the three Koubbas of Sidi Naser and his two sons, situated in a fertile and somewhat wooded depression. Except the gardens of this oasis, surrounded by cactus, and containing a few olive-trees, there was absolutely nothing to break the monotony of the day’s march. Four miles further on, and about eleven from El-Djem, is Akalat Heneshia, a small douar located near two wells of very brackish water. At 14½ miles is Henchir Merabba, a douar of the Souessi, where we found it necessary to pass the night. We could not reach Kerouan that day, and there is no intermediate place where we could hope to find provisions. But were any to be found here? Apparently not, for no sooner was our intention announced to the Arabs of the douar than yells and shrieks of remonstrance resounded from every direction. They swore by the life of the Prophet, and by our own heads, that there was not a grain of barley remaining in the country; they had still a few grains of wheat left, but if we took that for our animals their wives and children would die of starvation. Fowls and eggs had become quite a tradition in the country, and they were not really sure whether they could offer us a handful of dry couscoussou. Our escort were quite equal to the emergency. We were about to protest that nothing was further from our intentions than to inconvenience them in any way, and that we were quite ready to pay for anything they might supply to us; but they calmly told us to stand aside, and not to interfere. The Bey’s letter was produced, a good many expletives were exchanged, and our unalterable determination was announced to spend the night there, and to spend it comfortably. When our hosts saw us dismount and commence to unload our animals, they became assured that further remonstrance was useless, and very soon two black tents were pitched for our accommodation, barley and grass were brought for the horses, and an abundant dinner provided for the men. We very soon got on excellent terms, by the never-failing expedient of showing them our arms, compasses, &c., and when I subsequently asked them why they had created such a disturbance, they replied that such was the way of the Arabs—they would rather have our room than our company, but as we were here, we were very welcome. They have some show of reason for their objection to entertain travellers, as the Government Hanbas and Spahis pillage the people unmercifully, and I fear that our efforts to prevent them were not always successful. We determined however to provide our own dinner. A judicious combination of preserved meats and vegetables, to make a sort of solid soup, was put on the fire to cook. We were so hungry that we could hardly refrain ourselves till it was ready, but at last the supreme moment arrived, when, to our horror, we discovered that it had apparently been cooked in a strong solution of Epsom salts. In fact, the water of this place is so bitter as to be unpotable for a stranger; this is owing to the vicinity of the salt lake, or _Gharra_, of Sidi El-Henni, a few miles to the east—the water of which percolates into the wells—and to the large amount of nitre contained in the soil. So we had to do without our dinner, and even the traveller’s greatest solace, a cup of tea, and I am afraid that we were by no means in an amiable frame of mind when we went to bed.

_April_ 10.—We started this morning at five o’clock, the features of the country being the same as since our departure from Susa—an interminable plain, in which here and there small patches of cultivation, and a few rare olive-trees, seemed to indicate the vicinity of inhabitants, but few or none were to be seen; they had probably migrated elsewhere for the cool season, and would return in summer to their now abandoned encampments, marked out with hedges of prickly pears. The cactus is a blessed plant for the Arabs; it not only affords an impenetrable barrier for the protection of the douar, but an abundant supply of delicious fruit without the disagreeable necessity of having to cultivate it.

Everywhere off the high road—if so the beaten track between Kerouan and Sfax may be called—the ground is perforated with rat and jerboa holes, which make riding sometimes rather dangerous. Swarms of beetles cover the ground, and seem to constitute the principal food of these rodents. It is the most amusing thing in the world to see these scarabæi rolling along, with their hind legs, a huge ball ten times as big as their bodies, in the centre of which their eggs have been deposited.

At 17½ miles from El-Djem we crossed the Oued Sherita, a salt stream which flows into the Sebkha from the south-west. At Bir Sedof (twenty-seven miles) are one or two wells of fairly good water, where we stopped to rest a few moments, and to water our beasts. Up to this point the road had been skirting the south-west shore of the Sebkha Sidi El-Henni, or lake of Kerouan, whence all the salt in the country is obtained. Soon after passing these wells it crosses a dried-up bay of the lake, on the opposite shore of which is another spring, called Aioun el-Hedjeb. The water here would be better than any other on the road, were care taken to preserve its purity, but it is permitted to flow unrestrained over a bog of black fœtid mud, caused by the passage of flocks and herds, and the decay of vegetable as well as animal matter. Even thus it is much prized by the few people in the neighbourhood, who have no other supply within a considerable distance.

A short distance to the south-west are the ruins called Kasr el-Aioun, _Castle of the Springs_, supposed by Davis to be the ancient Terentum.[139] It is evidently a Roman or Byzantine post, built on the edge of the Sebkha, in order to command the path across it. The foundations of a few buildings, and the ruins of a two-storied mausoleum, are all that remain, and these are of the most ordinary description of rubble masonry.

At forty miles the road crosses the sandy bed of the Oued Dellai, the lower course of the Oued Merg-el-leil, now like a piece of the Sahara transported here. It drains the country for many miles around, and its wide and deep sandy bed absorbs, and therefore stores up, a great part of the rainfall which would run to waste over harder and less permeable ground.

Long before reaching this the domes and minarets of Kerouan had come in sight, but mile after mile of hot dusty ground was traversed without the city becoming apparently any nearer. Here and there flocks of camels, either trying to pick up a scanty repast on this barren plain, or toiling dreamily and patiently along, served somewhat to break the monotony of the journey; but it was not for two hours, which seemed to us and to our jaded beasts like six, after first sighting the town, that we entered the gates of the Holy City. The whole distance of the route from El-Djem is about forty-one or forty-two miles.

Next to Mecca and Medina no city is so sacred in the eyes of Western Mohammedans as Kerouan. The history of its foundation is given by Ibn-Khaldoun.[140] In the fiftieth year of the Hedjira (A.D. 670) Moaouia ibn-Abi-Sofian sent Okba ibn-Nafa to conquer Africa. The latter proposed to his troops to found a city which might serve him as a camp, and be a rallying point for Islamism till the end of time. He conducted them to where Kerouan now is, and which was then covered with thick and impenetrable forest, the habitation of wild beasts and noxious reptiles. Having collected round him the eighteen companions of the prophet who were in his army, he called out in a loud voice, ‘Serpents and savage beasts, we are the companions of the blessed prophet, retire! for we intend to establish ourselves here.’ Whereupon they all retired peaceably, and at the sight of this miracle many of the Berbers were converted to Islamism; during forty years from that date not a serpent was seen in Ifrikia. No wonder that Okba is as much venerated here as St. Patrick is in Ireland.

Okba then planted his lance in the ground, and called out ‘Here is your _Kerouan_’ (caravan, or resting-place), thus giving the name to the new city. He himself traced out the foundation of the governor’s palace, and of the great mosque, the true position of the _Kibla_, or direction of Mecca, which was miraculously communicated to him by God. In most mosques the Imam, when leading the public prayers, turns ostentatiously a little on one side or the other, as if facing Mecca with even greater exactitude than the building itself; but here he invariably stands exactly in front of the people, thus recognising the miraculous correctness of the sacred niche or apse which indicates the direction of the great sanctuary.

The sacred character of this city has not exempted it from its full share of war and violence. Even the great mosque has more than once been almost totally destroyed by the Mohammedans themselves, but it has never actually been polluted by a Christian invader. According to Marmol, when Charles V. expelled Kheir-ed-din from Tunis the people of Kerouan elected the principal _Fakih_, or doctor of the mosque, to be their king, and he was reigning, and helped the Christians with provisions, when the Emperor was besieging Mehedia. He was actually recognised by the ruler of Tunis, and a matrimonial alliance was concluded between their children. In revenge for the aid thus rendered to his enemies, the Corsair Draguth conspired against him, and, having won over some of the other Ulemas of the mosque and the people of the town, to his side, he entered the place at night, made himself master of it, and slew the king.[141]

Until quite lately, the city was entirely sealed against all who did not profess the faith of El-Islam, and even now it is only by a special order of the Bey that a Christian is admitted within its walls. A Jew dare not even approach it, and it is said, that when on one occasion the heir presumptive paid a visit to it with a Jewish retainer in his suite, he was compelled to leave the latter at a day’s journey outside.

We were most kindly received in the house of the Ferik, Si M’hamed Merabet, Governor-General of Kerouan and the Djerid, who is universally admitted to be one of the most upright and distinguished officers in the service of the Bey, and has been entrusted with important political missions to France, both under the governments of Louis Philippe and Napoleon III. He was himself absent in the south collecting revenue; his next brother, Si Mohammed, had left the day before our arrival for Tunis; but his two younger brothers, Si Mahmoud and Si Hamouda, did the honours of his house with the utmost courtesy and hospitality. As the family to which these brothers belong is one of hereditary marabouts (_Merabets_, or men devoted to religion) each member of it bears a name derived from the same Arabic radical as that of the Prophet, _hamada_, to praise (God).

Here we made the acquaintance of a Frenchman of high education, who had lately embraced the Mohammedan religion, and who has been received by the Governor-General quite as one of his family, and has received a name similar to those of himself and of his brothers, Si Ahmed. We found him a most intelligent and instructive companion, and he gave us much information regarding the mosques that no Christian could obtain by his own means, and which the Mohammedans are usually too ignorant, or too unobservant, to be able to supply.

Si Mahmoud sent his principal chaouch and an escort to accompany us through the town; without this precaution it would be impossible for a Christian to stir abroad, and even their presence did not protect us from scowls, and averted looks, and abuse from children, wherever we passed. This rather spoilt the pleasure of our promenades, as it impressed us with the idea that our mere presence was an outrage to the religious feelings even of our hosts, though courtesy prevented them from showing it. We did not attempt to make any photographs of the city—we might not have been actually forbidden to do so, but we felt sure that so unusual a proceeding would have been displeasing to the people, and might have given rise to an outburst of fanaticism.

The great mosque was founded by Sidi Okba, but El-Bekri states that a century later Yezid ibn-Hatem, Governor of Africa, demolished it all, with the exception of the Mihrab, and rebuilt it. Ziadat-Ullah, the first emir of the Aghlabite dynasty bearing that name, demolished it a second time, and once more reconstructed it.[142]

Exteriorly it has no architectural pretensions, but in the interior there are nearly 500 marble columns, all derived from Roman buildings in various parts of the country; of these 256 are in the internal sanctuary itself, the remainder are in the courts of the building disposed in fifteen naves. On each side of the Mihrab are two columns of greater beauty than the rest, and in the central aisle in front of it are three more on each side, with smaller ones between, regarding which the Arabs have a superstition that only those whose salvation is assured are able to pass between them. Any person in mortal sin, whatever be his stature, however stout or however thin, would certainly find himself unable to squeeze through.

The beauty of the inside is much disfigured by the paint and whitewash which have been used to adorn it.

There is a curious collection of ancient armour lying uncleaned and uncared for, but still jealously preserved, in one of its chambers. Some of the pieces are said to be Roman or Byzantine; others belonged to the early Mohammedan invaders. If in course of time Mohammedan fanaticism should ever become sufficiently relaxed to permit the entrance of Christians to this sanctuary, this armour will form a most interesting study.

Marmol states that, on account of the peculiar sanctity of this mosque, it was selected as the burial-place of the kings of Tunis.[143]

The most exquisite, and indeed almost the only attempt at exterior ornamentation, amongst the religious edifices of Kerouan, is the gate of a small mosque next to that of Seyed Hoosain el-Alani, called the Mosque of the Three Gates, _Abou Thelatha Biban_. It must be six or seven hundred years old, and is decorated with beautiful Cufic inscriptions all along the façade, which, as its name implies, contains three gateways.

In the Zaouiah of Sidi ben Aissa, that of the well-known Aissaoui sect, there are public readings every night, and the usual performances of the votaries, such as glass, cactus and scorpion eating, every Friday. This mosque contains two magnificent brass candlesticks, evidently brought by the Moors from Spain, and which no doubt at one time decorated some Christian cathedral.

Next in sanctity to the great mosque is one outside the city, within which is interred one of the companions of the Prophet, Aba Zamata el-Beloui, whence its familiar name, _Jamäat es-Sahebi_, Mosque of the Companion. With him are buried three hairs of the Prophet’s beard, one under the tongue, one on his right arm, and the third next his heart. This has given rise to the ridiculous fallacy amongst Europeans that he was one of the Prophet’s barbers!

The mosques are generally kept in a tolerably good state of repair, especially the domes and minarets, which present a most picturesque appearance from a little distance; this illusion is to a great extent dispelled on closer inspection, as the architecture, though good in its general effect, is entirely wanting in beauty of detail, and even the ancient marble columns, with richly carved capitals, which support nearly every entrance gate, are marred by thick coats of whitewash. A common ornamentation is a roughly executed inscription in projecting bricks going round the four sides of a minaret, generally the ordinary protestation of faith, _La illah ila Ullah, Mohammed er-rasool Ullah_—There is no deity but God; Mohammed is the Messenger of God. The only really good specimens of Cufic inscriptions, that I saw, were on the Mosque of the Three Doors before mentioned, and on each side of the entrance gate called _Bab et-Tunis_.

The town is by no means dirty for a purely native one, and the filth appears to be carried away pretty regularly by camels and deposited outside the walls.

The inhabitants are entirely dependent on the cisterns under their houses for a supply of water, and in years of drought their sufferings have been very great. To remedy this three large reservoirs were built outside the walls, the first, called _Feskia m’ta el-Yeghlib_, or reservoir of the Aghlabites, is circular in shape and 480 paces in circumference. It is in bad condition, and full of impurities, but it still retains water. The two others are the _Feskia Saeed es-Sahib_, and _Feskia Bir el-Bey_, both rectangular in form, but utterly ruined and unserviceable.

The only well in the city is one of very brackish water, called El-Barota. Tradition says that on the foundation of the city it was discovered by a _sloughi_, or Arab greyhound, scratching up the ground. The pious believe that there is a communication between this and the holy well of Zemzem at Mecca. A pilgrim once let his drinking vessel fall into the latter, and on his return to Kerouan he found it in El-Barota! With the exception of Jamäat el-Bey, which is of the Hanafi sect, all the other religious establishments belong to the Maleki or orthodox sect.

The city is full of dervishes, not only the half-witted creatures of both sexes, whose infirmity is supposed to be a sign of divine favour, but men of intelligence, who really are animated by a strong sentiment of religion, and of pure and humble life, who reckon every day lost till their entrance into the joys of paradise.

It is extremely difficult to form anything like an accurate estimate of the population of such a city as this. Mr. Wood, in a recent commercial report, estimates it at 15,000.[144] M. Pellissier stated it at about 12,000. Comparing it with Mohammedan cities in Algeria, the population of which is known, I should be inclined to put it down at considerably less than 10,000.

It formerly possessed a very considerable trade, and was famous for the manufacture of carpets and woollen fabrics; now its industry is almost entirely confined to the manufacture of copper vessels, saddlery and Arab boots and shoes.

As a rule, the _physique_ of the people is poor, and the children are unusually rude and ill-bred towards strangers. There is very little intermarriage between the inhabitants of Kerouan and the people of other towns; the result in so small a community is an inevitable tendency to degenerate. Cancer, sore eyes, and maladies depending on dirt and poverty of blood are very common.

A short distance south of the city is Sabra, the site of Vicus Augusti, mentioned in the Itinerary of Antonine, from which has been derived a great part of the ancient materials employed in the construction of Kerouan, and of the royal residences in the neighbourhood, which in their turn have disappeared.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 139: Davis, _Ruined Cities_, p. 284.]

[Footnote 140: Ibn-Khaldoun, trad. de Slane, i. 327.]

[Footnote 141: Marmol, ii. p. 532.]

[Footnote 142: El-Bekri, _Afr. Sep._, trad. de Slane, p. 57. Peliss., _Exp. Sc._ p. 314.]

[Footnote 143: Marmol, ii. p. 532.]

[Footnote 144: _Reports of H.M.’s Consuls_, 1876, p. 147.]