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.]