Chapter XXIII

LEAVE SBEITLA — SBIBA — ER-RAHEIA — HAMADA OULAD AYAR —
ARRIVAL AT MUKTHER.

We left Sbeitla early on April 16; the morning was fresh and delightful, and notwithstanding the rain of the previous night, there was nothing like mud on the road, even the watercourses were not running. About half a mile north of the town is a group of ruins, which Guérin imagines to have been a temple,[167] from the number of columns of red marble still standing and lying about. To me it has more the appearance of a Byzantine fortress; it is built on an eminence commanding the plain to the north, which Sbeitla itself, situated in a depression, could not do, and it is evident that older materials have been used in its construction. A little further off, and on the opposite or left bank of the river, are the ruins of a temple. Thence to Sbiba is a distance of nineteen miles; the road lies over a plain bounded by mountains, similar to what we had traversed since leaving Trozza, but quite destitute of trees. It is exactly the same route as was taken by Desfontaines in 1784,[168] who states that for several hours he marched through a forest of pines and the Phœnician juniper before descending into the verdant plain in which Sbiba is situated. There he observed the Turks burning a superb olive-tree of great age close to the ruins, and the process has, no doubt, been carried on vigorously ever since, as the forests which he alludes to have quite disappeared.

Sbiba has been identified with the ancient Sufes, Sufibus, or Colonia Sufetanæ, mentioned in the Itinerary of Antoninus as xxv miles north of Sufetula, and the same distance south of Tucca Terebinthina, the modern Dougga. M. Guérin discovered an inscription here, placing this beyond all doubt. It commenced with the words SPLENDIDISSIMVS . ET . FELICISSIMVS . ORDO . COL. SVFETANAE . and showed further on that Hercules was the tutelar deity of the city.[169]

St. Augustine, in his Epistle 50, addressed to the elders and chiefs of this place, makes allusion to the martyrdom of sixty of its inhabitants for having destroyed the statue or symbol of this god, ‘quod Christiani signum Herculis confregissent.’

A council was held here in A.D. 524, when the Bishop Quodvultdeus was displaced in favour of Fulgentius. Other Bishops are mentioned as having taken part in the councils of Carthage and in the religious dissensions of the time.[170]

It was probably a lingering memory of this martyrdom which gave rise to the tradition mentioned by El-Bekri (A.D. 1068): ‘The body of a man is to be seen in a fissure of a rock. It is known to have been there since before the conquest of Ifrikia. All the parts of the body, great and small, have resisted the effects of decomposition and the attacks of wild animals. It is said that this is the body of one of the disciples of Jesus. God knows what there is of truth in all this.’[171]

Although it appears to have been a city of some importance, it was far from attaining the magnificence of its ‘little’ neighbour Suffetula. The existing ruins are in a state of great dilapidation, but one can still trace a handsome monumental fountain, baths, Christian churches, and several buildings constructed with older Roman materials.

After passing Sbiba, a bright and limpid stream, the Oued el-Hatab, or river of wood, is crossed. This is mentioned by Bruce, as is also an affluent of it, ‘the small river Gouseba.’ The country was then occupied by the Oulad Hassan and by wandering parties of the great tribe of Drid. We encamped for the night at Er-Raheia, a douar of the Oulad Mehenna, near the marabout of Sidi Ali el-Maregheni, a neat-looking koubba, situated in a pleasant little garden, evidently tended with the greatest care. All along our route to-day we noticed Roman remains more or less important at almost every mile.

As usual, the Kaid of the Oulad Mehenna was from home, but his brother acted for him in his absence; he it was who had refused to send us any supplies to Sbeitla. As our caravan appeared in sight he and his secretary came out on horseback to reconnoitre us. Instead of approaching, he kept at a considerable distance, and allowed us to pass without any sign of recognition or welcome. Our spahis were furiously indignant, and asked each other whose dog he was to offer such an indignity to guests and soldiers of our Lord the Bey; was he going to treat us at his own douar as he had done at Sbeitla? At last he approached us, looking exceedingly sulky, and still without making any salutation. One of the spahis, usually a very quiet and civil fellow, could stand it no longer; he jumped off his horse, ran to the Kaid’s brother, and, after some violent altercation, the two came to blows, and blood would certainly have flowed had I not rushed between the disputants and separated them. The chief was livid with passion at the indignity which had been put upon him before all his people, and I had much difficulty in smoothing matters over by severely censuring the spahi for having dared to strike a person of such importance, and by observing to the aggrieved party, that this certainly would not have happened, if he had shown us the commonest civility, due to any stranger whether travelling with the Bey’s _amra_ or not. He subsequently became more than civil to us, and wished to give us a _dhiffa_, but I steadfastly refused to receive anything at his hands, save barley for the horses and food for the escort, without which we could not have continued our journey. We prepared our own dinner somewhat ostentatiously, which served as a lesson to him, and was certainly more agreeable to us than any food we should have received from his tents. I tried all I could to induce him to accept payment for the grain which he had supplied to us, but he was deaf to our requests, and even prevented us from giving a present to his retainers.

We started from our camping-ground, at Er-Raheia, about seven A.M. on April 17. Our friend was ready to bid us God-speed, and he over and over again begged us to dismiss anything like ill-feeling from our minds on account of what had taken place last night; he even implored me to overlook the behaviour of the spahi, whom I had contemplated sending back to Tunis, with a letter to the English Consul-General explaining my reason for dismissing him. I saw what an effort this cost him, so I could not but meet his advances more than half-way, and he accompanied us a short distance on our road and left us with renewed expressions of regret at what had taken place. For the first few miles our way led through irrigated fields, and meadow-land traversed by numerous streams of water; our baggage mules had the greatest difficulty in struggling through, and more than once their loads slipped. It was a long time before we got clear of these difficulties, but they were as nothing in comparison to the delight of abandoning for ever the interminable and scorching plains in which we had been travelling so long, and entering fairly into the fertile, well-watered region of the Tell.

The road ascended the north-west end of Djebel Skarna, at a place called Kef er-Rai, _the shepherd’s rock_, and passed between the _Zaouiahs_ of Sidi Moëlla on the left, and that of Sidi Abou Dabous on the right, while some distance off to the west, on the opposite side of the plain, was a third, that of Sidi Ahmed ez-Zair. These koubbas or marabouts are not only picturesque objects in the landscape, but very useful to the traveller. They mark localities in a convenient manner, in a country where the inhabitants are never long stationary in one place, and to Mohammedans, at least, they afford a grateful shelter when overtaken by night or by bad weather.

At first the hill-sides were bare and arid, soon little patches of cornland began to appear, and when at length we found ourselves on the top and well into the Hamada of the Oulad Ayar, we were delighted to see an amount of cultivation and a richness of soil which we had not met with since our arrival in the country.

When Sir Grenville Temple passed through this district in 1832[172] the people had just killed three lions, whose skins they were sending to Tunis. These animals have now almost entirely disappeared from the Regency. It is said that one is occasionally to be heard of in the neighbourhood of Kef, but even that is doubtful; they are certainly extinct everywhere else.

He also met two Mamelukes who had been sent to collect the duties on tar and pitch, which were made in great quantities in the neighbourhood. The Aleppo pine has not disappeared as completely as the lions; and we did see some branches of it at the Kaid’s encampment, but we never met a tree growing in this part of the country, and it is probable that in a very short time this also will disappear.

On the top of this range is a large fertile plateau, about a thousand feet above the level of the plain below, where we found the tents of the brother of the Kaid of Oulad Ayar. He insisted on our resting in his camp, and gave us a delicious repast of excellent bread, dates and fresh milk. From this place to Mukther, wherever the soil was not tilled, it was covered with a carpet of grass, clover and trefoil, as rich as an English meadow, well watered by streams and springs, a perfect paradise after the dreary region of the Sahel from which we had just emerged. The climate too had changed entirely, partly owing to a general change of weather and partly to the height at which we were. The sky became slightly overcast, a fresh, cool breeze succeeded to the sirocco which dries up every mucous membrane in the body and makes life almost a burden; and our tempers improved and our spirits rose as the glass fell. This is the highest point in the country round about. The streams from its north-west slopes flow towards the Medjerda, while those on the south-east find their way in the direction of the Chotts, or are lost in the great plain of the Sahel.

About 2½ miles from Mukther we passed a mausoleum which the natives call Beit el-Hadjar, _the stone house_. This was also observed by Bruce, who says:

The 10th November, passed a sepulchral monument about three miles from Mucter, square, oblong, with pilasters in front and in the angles, with rude ill-executed Corinthian ornaments. Did not design it. That night lay in the mountains in the districts of the Welled Ayar, above which place is their _gellah_ or fortress.

This fortress is a mountain peak somewhat resembling a castle, and to which they are in the habit of driving their flocks for safety in times of danger. The monument has certainly no architectural merits, but it is constructed in a solid and careful manner of finely-cut stone.

It is rectangular in plan; on each side are six Corinthian pilasters, and four on each end, surmounted by a bold and massive entablature. Within, it is divided into two chambers, each 9 ft. 9 in. broad. The inner or mortuary one is 6 ft. 9 in. long. Several columbaria exist in the walls. It had two doors; the outer one has disappeared, but it must have been of a single slab of stone turning on pivots, the holes for which still exist. Another door in the partition wall led into an outer chamber 10 ft. long, with seats in the wall, and lighted by a window. This door is still lying on the floor; it was decorated with a bas-relief representing a winged figure holding some large object in his right hand. Above the aperture of the door half of a wreath of laurel is sculptured on the wall. The roof was of immense blocks of stone laid across, one of which still exists in each chamber. This is evidently the building erroneously laid down in Ste. Marie’s map as ‘Mausolée de Verrius,’ but the tomb of C. Verrius Rogatus, described by Sir Grenville Temple,[173] is situated on the opposite side of the city, near the aqueduct.

The ruins of Roman constructions which we had observed all along to-day’s route became more frequent as we approached Mukther. Instead of encamping within the circle of the ruins there, we proceeded a little further on, and pitched our tent in a charming dell, full of clear springs and rich grass, and shaded by a grove of fig-trees, nearly south-west of the koubba of Sidi Ali ben Omar.

Here, again, the old scene of wrangling took place before we could get any supplies. The Khalifa of the district told us that the people were completely poverty-stricken, they had not wherewithal to nourish a single horse or mule. Sheep were as much a matter of ancient history as the Roman cities (the hills were covered with both!), and that if we insisted on camping there, we must supply our own provisions, and our animals must be satisfied with the grass which grew on the ground.

I took the head man apart and putting a sum of money in his hand, told him that we had no desire to be a charge on any one; all we asked was permission to pay a fair price for what provisions we might require, and that I would give him whatever more might be due before leaving. His objections vanished in a moment, and we were in hopes that at last we had found a means of purchasing honestly what we required. In an hour, however, he returned with the money in his hand, saying that it would be a disgrace to our Lord the Bey, if a Consul were permitted to travel through his country save as a guest, that everything we required should be supplied, but that payment was out of the question. Our spahis had got hold of him in the interim, and, as usual, they managed to have their own way, which was that we should rather expend our money in presents than in payments, and for very obvious reasons.

The grove where we were encamped was full of pigeons and other birds. My companion, who could never see a pigeon or game-bird without an irresistible longing to bag it, was on the point of loading his gun, when the Arab implored us not to shoot them, as they were in the habit of frequenting the Saint’s tomb, and were considered as partaking of his sanctity. I need hardly add that we were delighted to respect this pleasant superstition.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 167: Guérin, i. p. 376.]

[Footnote 168: Desfontaines, ap. Dureau de la Malle, ii. p. 76.]

[Footnote 169: Guérin, i. p. 371.]

[Footnote 170: Morcelli, i. p. 287.]

[Footnote 171: El Bekri, trad. de Slane, p. 324.]

[Footnote 172: Temple, _Excurs. in Medit._ ii. p. 252.]

[Footnote 173: Temple, ii. p. 259.]