Chapter XXXIII

BRUCE’S ROUTE TO DJERBA, TRIPOLI, AND BACK TO TUNIS.

After some weeks’ excursion of no moment about Tunis, I again set out the eastern circuit by Gemme, or Tisdrus, towards Gabbs or Tacapæ, and continued along that coast till opposite the island of Gerba.

It is situated about half a mile from the land; it is the Meninx Insula, or island of the Lotophagi, and is a sandy island with several small villages, producing a few dates which are not good; labouring under a great scarcity of water; even that which it has is but indifferent. It has a small castle, not capable of any defence, subject to the Bey of Tunis.

Dr. Shaw says the fruit he calls the lotus is very common all along that coast. I wish he had said what was this lotus; to say it is the fruit most common along that coast is no description, for there is no sort of fruit whatever, no bush, no tree, nor verdure of any kind excepting the short grass that borders these countries before you enter the moving sands of the desert. Dr. Shaw never was at Gerba, and had taken this particular from some unfaithful storyteller.[279]

In this island there is a very considerable manufacture of woollen shawls; the generality of these are coarse and cheap, for common use, but there are others where the best wool is employed, and these are of great price and fineness.

They are all sent to Alexandria to be dyed, then returned, and are the head-dress of the soldiery of the State of Tunis, and indeed of most other people, unless those who profess law or religion, who wear them white, and not dyed.

This wool, though employed here in Gerba exclusively, is not the produce of the island itself. In the mainland, immediately south of the island, the very numerous clans of noble Arabs, the Wargummah and Noile inhabit, and pay only a nominal obedience to the Bey, passing the frontiers as their occasions require. They have factors in the island entirely at their devotion, and to them they send the wool, which is dressed, woven, dyed and accounted for to the proprietors through the hands of these factors.

Here we found that the Bey of Tunis had prepared a house for us, and sent from his own palace every sort of refreshment that he could devise, with orders to receive us with every possible honour, and furnish us with what we required at his expense. Here I stayed a month with an intention to proceed to Tripoli through the desert, _making fair copies of my minutes_[280] and designs, and having sent back to Tunis two of my spahis who had been wounded, and one that was afraid to go further.

I sent a letter to Mr. Fraser, the consul at Tripoli, desiring an escort, as I was now reduced to nine men in all, seven of whom, though indeed resolute people and well armed, were encumbered with the mules and camels which carried our tents and provisions; the other two were an English servant, and a renegado, my dragoman, who, with myself, were the only three mounted on horses and at liberty.

No return came from Tripoli, for the Bey being on ill terms with the Consul, though he promised, he would not send any escort. I and my servants did indeed most rashly attempt to pass the desert inhabited only by ruffians and assassins, the Noile, the Wargummah and many other tribes, at continual war, who pay no sort of acknowledgment to any sovereign, and where the caravan from Morocco to Mecca, which we found near Tripoli, had been defeated and plundered, though they amounted to about 3,000 men.

This enterprise is one of so great a danger that when Younus Bey, prince of Tunis, fled for his life, when the Algerines had murdered his grandfather Ali Bey, and taken his father prisoner, he declared that that passage was the greatest enterprise of his life; yet he was a prince allowed among the first for bravery even to rashness, nor did we escape, for the night of the third day we were attacked by a number of horsemen, and four of our men were killed on the spot. Providence, the prodigious resolution of our little company, and the night, saved the remainder, and we arrived at Tripoli when given over by everybody for lost.

About four days from Tripoli I met the Emir Hadjee, conducting the caravan of pilgrims from Fez and Sus in Morocco, all across Africa to Mecca. He is a middle-aged man, uncle to the present Emperor, of a very uncomely, stupid kind of countenance. His caravan consisted of about 3,000 men, and, as his people said, from 12,000 to 14,000 camels, part loaded with merchandise, part with skins of water, flour and other kinds of food for the maintenance of the Hadjees.

They were a scurvy, disorderly, unarmed pack, and when my horsemen, though but fifteen in number, came up with them in the grey of the morning, they showed great signs of trepidation and were already flying in confusion. When informed who we were, their fears ceased, and after the usual manner of cowards they became extremely insolent.

The inhabitants of that district have in no wise improved during the past century, the very latest account of them we have is given by Captain Mouchez. In a paper which he read before the _Académie des Sciences_, at Paris, on January 8, 1877, he says that the littoral is extremely dangerous, shelter and ports of refuge do not exist, and when he landed, even for a few hours, to take observations, he found himself surrounded by natives, who exercise the profession of robbery and brigandage on a large scale.

The coast is composed of sandy downs, which stretch inland as far as the eye can range, an absolute desert, without trees or traces of habitation. The beach is strewn with vestiges of wrecks, which have, no doubt, been pillaged and the crews murdered by the nomades who frequent the country, and who recognise neither the Government of Tunis nor the Bey of Tripoli.

‘One day,’ says M. Mouchez, ‘I landed unarmed, with a secretary and an assistant, and had already fixed my instrument, when a large number of Bedouins, on horseback and on foot, appearing from behind the downs, literally fell upon and surrounded us.

‘They first pointed their guns at us to prevent our flight, then approaching, lay hold of me, searched me, and tried to drag me away. This I strongly resisted, and at last made them understand that this violation of the law of nations would be instantly punished, and that my steamer would carry a complaint to the Governor of Tripoli. This had its effect, and they allowed us to go. In the evening we proceeded to Tripoli to claim satisfaction. This was readily granted by the Governor, who was lately a professor at the School of Constantinople; he placed at our disposal a guard of Turkish soldiers, who protected us during our survey of the coast.

‘I never saw anything so extraordinary as the arms of the natives who surrounded us,’ continues M. Mouchez. ‘Some of them had swords apparently of the sixteenth century, beautiful Damascene blades; one took aim at me with a flint gun of great antiquity. I was desirous of purchasing one of these arms, but they did not understand me, and there was no time to be lost in useless talk, for their attitude was by no means reassuring. The Mussulmans of the coast bear no goodwill to the French nation, and do not forgive us the conquest of Algeria.’

At Tripoli we found the Hon. Mr. Frazer, of Lovat, the King’s Consul; he complained heavily to the Bashaw, who excused himself poorly.

I am persuaded he would have laid the blame upon Mr. Frazer, if any accident had befallen us.

I cannot allude to this gentleman without mentioning that he is, as I hear, recalled upon a complaint of the Bashaw of Tripoli, who, after many other irregularities, at last confined him to his house. This grand complaisancy to these Barbary gentlemen, who answer the complaints for national grievances by personal exceptions against the Consul, will soon have the effect of making neutral freighters believe that our flag is insecure and without protection, and will certainly in the end throw all this caravan into the hands of the French, who support their Consuls and colours with the utmost spirit both at Tunis and Tripoli.

His Royal Highness the Duke of York having given orders to Commodore Harrison to desire, in his name, that all encouragement and assistance might be given to me in my journeys from each of these regencies, and that gentleman being soon expected at Tripoli, I left a letter for him, begging him to obtain of the Bashaw of Tripoli the same liberty I had in Algiers and Tunis, to visit the antiquities of the kingdom, after which I returned along the coast of the Lesser Syrtis down to Cape Bon, the Promontorium Mercurii, from thence again arrived at Tunis, after an absence of more than six months constantly encamped.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 279: Bruce mentions in the previous chapter, p. 270, that he passed through a plain covered with _seedra_ or _lotus_. No doubt, the _zizyphus lotus_ is here alluded to, a shrub common in South Africa, the fruit of which, in a wild state, is just edible. When cultivated it is somewhat better, and is sold in Arab markets. This was probably the _lotus_ of the Lotophagi.]

[Footnote 280: These were probably lost in the shipwreck hereafter narrated.]