Chapter XXVII

LEAVE TEBOURSOUK — VALLEY OF LIONS — AIN TUNGA — TESTOUR.

We left Teboursouk at 6.30 A.M. on April 22. The road led at first through a magnificent grove of olive-trees, which evidently constitute the principal wealth of the country. Still, we saw but few young ones, and I am tempted to believe that the system of taxing these precious trees conduces to their destruction.

Each one, after the age of ten years, pays an annual tax of half a piastre, or threepence, without reference to the amount of fruit it bears, and as trees are rarely productive before fifteen years, the owner of a new olive grove would have little or no return for his money during this period, and a certainty of taxation during the last five years of it. Under these circumstances it is hardly surprising, that he does not feel called upon to make an unremunerative investment of his money for the ultimate benefit of his posterity; he cuts down unproductive trees for the sake of their timber, but takes no steps to replace them. If some system could be devised for taxing the produce instead of the tree itself, the _déboisement_ of the country, which is going on at an alarming rate, might to a certain extent be arrested.

About a mile beyond the town the road emerges into open ground, and for a short distance follows the course of the Oued Khalad, which is crossed and recrossed many times. The alternation of hill and dale is most picturesque, and the great want in Tunisian landscape, the absence of wood, is to some extent supplied by the unusually fine tamarisks which fringe the river’s banks. The water was low during our visit, but evidently the stream never becomes actually dry, as it was full of little fish. Quantities of blue jays and blackbirds added their share of attractions to the scene.

This is the _Oued el-Asood_, or valley of lions, of which Sir Grenville Temple remarks: ‘As the surrounding country abounds in lions it is not prudent to remain here after sunset. Sixteen of these animals had been seen together here four evenings before.’

At seven and a half miles from Teboursouk is Ain Tunga, a delightful roadside fountain, near which is a venerable old olive-tree affording an impenetrable shade. We met here a party of the Oulad Ayar, who had been to Tunis to sell their produce and were returning to their homes in the neighbourhood of Mukther; they travelled like the patriarchs of old with all their belongings about them, houses, wives, children, cattle and sheep. They were busy washing their clothes at the spring, an operation which did not tend to increase its purity. But questions of cleanliness are the last that ever enter into the consideration of modern Arabs; they think nothing of drinking the water of a source, which they are in the very act of polluting, and it is no uncommon thing to see what appears to be a clean bed of sand covered with water, but if a little of the gravel is turned over, a layer of black putrescent mud is seen to exist below it.

J. LEITCH &. Co. Sc.

THEATRE OF THIGNICA (AIN TUNGA)

FAC-SIMILE OF ROUGH INDIAN INK SKETCH BY BRUCE.

HENRY S. KING Co. LONDON.]

Here are the extensive ruins of the ancient Thignica. Bruce is absolutely silent regarding his visit to this place; nevertheless he has left five sheets of drawings illustrative of it:—

1. Perspective pencil sketch of temple; too faint for reproduction.

2. Very rough pencil sketch, with dimensions, of plan of temple, details of base of order, echinus and fillet, and of a remarkably fine soffit. On the back are careful sketches, in Indian ink and pencil, of other details of the same building.

3. Careful sketches in Indian ink of details of cornice and soffit. On the back is a drawing in pencil of capital of order.

4. Careful sketches in Indian ink of details of architecture.

5. Slight perspective sketch in Indian ink of other ruins at Ain Tunga, including the theatre and arch, but not the Byzantine fortress. (Plate XXVI.)

The last-mentioned is now the most conspicuous ruin in the place. Bruce has left no sketch of it; indeed, throughout all his wanderings he paid no attention whatever to buildings of this period, which, though by no means uninteresting from an historical point of view, are absolutely devoid of any architectural merit.

The exterior walls are in a very perfect condition, as are also the towers at each angle, but the interior is so choked up with a rank growth of weeds and scrub, that to examine it is almost an impossibility. Numerous inscriptions are still to be seen here, which have been given by Guérin; the most important one, in six fragments, records the full name of the place, ‘Municipium Septimium Aurelium Antoninianum . . . . Herculeum Frugiferum Thignica,’ and commemorates the reconstruction of its market-place in the time of Alexander Severus and of his mother Julia Mamæa, A.D. 222-235.[219]

The Corinthian temple must have been almost as fine as that of Dougga; the portico is now entirely destroyed, and all that remains are the angles of the cella. The masonry was of an unusually fine quality, and the columns were magnificent monoliths. In Bruce’s time the portico was still entire, with the exception of one angle of the pediment. It was a tetrastyle closely resembling the Temple of Jupiter and Minerva at Dougga, but even richer and more ornate in some of its details; it has not the defect observable in the latter, the want of antæ; pilasters being distinctly marked in the plan at the end of the cella walls.

Bruce records on one of the sheets a fragment of inscription which has been mentioned by subsequent travellers, and which still exists:—

. . . . MAXIM . . . . . . .

. . . . BLICA MVNIC. . . .

The dimensions marked on the plan are as follows:—

Feet. Inches.

Width of building 38 0

Depth of portico 25 0

„ „ cella 42 10

Diameter of column 3 1

Three other inscriptions were copied by Bruce; the first has the remark attached to it, ‘This is now in the Bey’s garden, Tuburbo.’

ALLIUI UL

QVE MVNICIPIVM AELIVM AVR

ET QVE EGRILLIO PLARIANO LEG . PR

* * * * *

CAERERI AVG SACR

FABIVS CAECILIVS

PRAETEXTATVS F . I . P

CVR . REIP . POSVIT

* * * * *

VALENTI[220]

There exist also several other remains of less interest: a small and plainly constructed arch and theatre of rubble masonry, a Christian basilica, besides traces of various other buildings scattered about, which are figured in Plate XXVI.

About four miles further on we came to Testour. Shortly before reaching the town we crossed the Oued Siliana, close to its junction with the Medjerda, at a spot which had once been spanned by a Roman bridge. The ruins of this were perceptible on either side; it was entire during the visit of Sir Grenville Temple in 1832, and he mentions having crossed over it.[221] Beyond we enter the valley of the Medjerda, whose course, as far as we could see it, was marked by orchards and fields of corn, more like a bit of English scenery than is usually met with in Africa.

The modern city is built on the site of the ancient Bisica Lucana, a city unknown to history, but which may probably be the Visica mentioned in Morcelli’s ‘Africa Christiana.’[222]

Shaw records an inscription found here, bearing the ancient name of the place, COL. BISICA LVCANA,[223] which he probably copied from Peyssonnel, who says that it existed in the market-place.[224]

There are still many inscriptions scattered about; the most interesting are two milliary columns, erected during the reign of Aurelius; one is in the house of a ropemaker, and the other in the vestibule of the Djamäa el-Kebir. The former indicates a distance of LXIX and the latter LXXI miles from Carthage. They have been given by various travellers.[225]

I am not aware whether anything of unusual importance was going on at the capital during the time that we were travelling in the interior, but we found, almost invariably, that the head man was absent at Tunis, and it was his Khalifa, or representative, who received us. Here the Khalifa also was away, and there was no one in his place to offer us hospitality; we were not at all sorry to be thrown on our own resources, as supplies were readily obtainable, and we were permitted to purchase them in the open market and to lodge our animals in the public fonduk. The notables of the village received us on our entry, and informed us that the shop of the barber had been cleared out for our reception. They made many excuses for the poorness of the accommodation; every other place, they assured us, was swarming with fleas, and this was the only comparatively clean place in Testour. It might have been so we did not try any other; but we would gladly have compounded for any number of fleas, if thereby we could have secured exemption from the attacks of more voracious insects. To add to our other miseries, it commenced to rain hard almost immediately after our arrival, and continued without intermission all night; so there we lay in a miserable cell, 10 feet square, without even attempting to sleep, making periodical attacks upon the enemy, and oppressed with a horrid dread that after so much rain we should find the Medjerda too full to be fordable in the morning.

Testour is a squalid village, whose sole merit is to have wide and airy streets. The houses are built of a poor sort of rubble, consisting of half-burnt bricks and small stones, and roofed with tiles, only too ready to lend themselves to the prevailing inclination of the place to fall into ruin. Still it is not quite without remains of former grandeur; the minaret of the great mosque, though in a very dilapidated condition, is a good specimen of Moorish architecture, and has been tastefully decorated with coloured tiles. This was probably the work of the Andalusian Moors, by whom the village was peopled, on their expulsion from Spain.

Pelissier describes it as badly built, with a population of two or three thousand inhabitants.[226] Guérin says that it was in decadence during his visit, and contained two thousand souls, including a few hundred Jews.[227] Things have gone badly with it since then, as the population cannot now be more than one thousand, and the Jews are to be counted by the score instead of the hundred.

It is situated in an exceptionally favourable position, on the right bank of the Medjerda, almost dipping into the stream, and on the great highway between Tunis and Keff, and so on into Algeria. Its soil is extremely fertile, and its orchards, which fringe both banks of the river, supply all Tunis with fruit.

If, therefore, we have a right to expect anything like a prosperous village in the whole country, Testour is the place where it ought to exist. Long years of misgovernment, of rapacity in high quarters, of brigandage encouraged for private ends, and of Mohammedan intolerance for everything like progress and civilisation, have produced their natural results. No nation can remain stationary; if it does not progress, it must rapidly retrograde; and nowhere is the contrast between ancient magnificence and present decadence more plainly visible than in the Regency of Tunis.

It was very pleasant here to witness the treatment of a poor half-witted fellow, evidently the village imbecile. Instead of being pursued with hoots and jeers, or at best regarded with indifference or contempt, as might possibly happen in a Christian country, everyone had a kind word to say to him, most of the elderly men stopped and kissed him tenderly on the cheek, and all seemed thoroughly to understand, that exceptional kindness was due to one, whom God had seen fit to deprive of His most precious gift.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 219: Guérin, ii. p. 151.]

[Footnote 220: There are several other inscriptions given, but as they are copied in Guérin and other authors, I omit them.]

[Footnote 221: Temple, _Excurs. in Med._ ii. p. 63.]

[Footnote 222: Morcelli, i. p. 357.]

[Footnote 223: Shaw, i. p. 169.]

[Footnote 224: Peyss., ap. Dureau de la Malle, i. p 139.]

[Footnote 225: Guérin, ii. p. 160.]

[Footnote 226: Peliss., p. 25.]

[Footnote 227: Guérin, ii. p. 159.]