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.]