A WHITE SQUALL.
A crowded deck — Rough seas — La Calle and its boatmen — A
sea-fight on a small scale — Dinner under difficulties — Trying
to sleep — The small miseries of life — The Gulf of Tunis —
A beautiful prospect — Goletta — My friend Afrigan — Jewish
women — French soldiers.
_Sunday, October 16th._—The _Charles Quint_ left Bone at two
o’clock on its voyage to Goletta. Unfortunately, before the hour of
sailing the weather underwent a complete change. Heavy clouds settled
down upon the hills encircling the town, swathing them in a grey mist,
so that the scenery suddenly seemed to change from that of Africa to
that of Scotland. Indeed, these African hills at all times bear a
strong resemblance to the brown highlands of our own country. Then
a fresh wind sprang up, and sharp showers of rain began to fall;
whilst the sea rapidly lost its beautiful blue colour, and turned
to a pale green like that of the German Ocean. I was glad to betake
myself to my cabin, and there lay aside the white garments in which
I had clad myself in the hot early morning, returning to a warmer
and more sober dress.
At last, at two o’clock, the moorings were cast loose, and we set
sail amid the chattering of the excited crowd of Moors and negroes
on the wharf, and the dismal groaning of our deck passengers, whose
prophetic souls had apparently already enabled them to foresee the
trouble that was to come. It is one characteristic of French and
Italian steamers, and not altogether an agreeable one, that the
whole deck is free to the passengers of all classes. The saloon
is, of course, reserved for those who pay for its accommodation:
but everybody is at liberty to walk upon the hurricane-deck,
or to sit in the snug corners which abound near the poop. This
afternoon accordingly I found many Arabs, many Jews, and not a few
dubious-looking Christians, scattered about on the upper deck. Below,
in the ship’s waist, were the horses and tents of Colonel Allegro,
and a swarm of Mohammedan women squatting under Turkish carpets,
and apparently endeavouring to persuade themselves that they were
going to have a fine run to La Calle, the first port on the way to
Goletta. Alas! no sooner had we got clear of the harbour of Bone than
we found ourselves in the full enjoyment of all the experiences of
a white squall. Only a few hours had been needed to turn the placid
sea of yesterday into a boiling, angry ocean, upon which our brave
_Charles Quint_ pitched and rolled like a cork. Woeful was then the
scene among our deck passengers. One after another they succumbed
to their inevitable fate, and before long there did not seem to be
a single person among them who was not horribly sick.
The misfortune was that they simply “lay where they fell” like
so many logs, so that a promenade upon the upper deck could only be
enjoyed at the risk of trampling upon some prostrate Arab, Turk,
or Jew. I thought of Thackeray’s description of “the white
squall famous” which he encountered nearly forty years ago in
the Levant. Many of his lines were appropriate to the situation
on board the _Charles Quint_ as, tossed about upon the raging sea,
she resolutely fought her way onwards towards her destination:—
Then the Greeks they groan’d and quiver’d,
And they knelt and moan’d and shiver’d,
As the plunging waters met them
And splash’d and overset them;
And they call in their emergence
Upon countless saints and virgins;
And their marrow-bones are bended,
And they think the world is ended.
And the Turkish women for’ard
Were frighten’d and behorror’d;
And shrieking and bewildering,
The mothers clutch’d their children;
The men sung “Allah! Illah!
Mashallah Bismillah!”
As the warring waters doused them;
And splash’d them and soused them;
And they call’d upon the Prophet,
And thought but little of it.
Then all the fleas in Jewry
Jump’d up and bit like fury;
And the progeny of Jacob
Did on the maindeck wake up
(I wot those greasy Rabbins
Would never pay for cabins);
And each man moan’d and jabber’d in
His filthy Jewish gaberdine,
In woe and lamentation,
And howling consternation.
And the splashing water drenches
Their dirty brats and wenches;
And they crawl from bales and benches
In a hundred thousand stenches.
For Greeks read Algerians—and really I hardly think it is necessary
to change the word—and one has a very fair picture in Thackeray’s
delightful doggerel of the white squall of this afternoon.
Two hours after leaving Bone we reached La Calle, a small,
desolate-looking town pitched at the bottom of a deep bay, and,
like all these North African ports, surrounded by an amphitheatre
of brown hills. La Calle is famous as one of the great seats of
the coral fishery, and this fishery is carried on by a colony of
Italians. Unfortunately for the comfort of persons wishing to visit
La Calle, these Italians are employed to convey passengers from the
steamer to the tiny little harbour, and this afternoon they gave us
a “taste of their quality” which was worthy of the very worst
days of the Sicilian and Neapolitan banditti. The sea was running,
I won’t say mountains, but certainly hillocks, high, and the
steamboat was rolling incessantly. Under the best of circumstances
the transfer of the passengers from the vessel to small boats must
therefore have been a work of considerable risk. Indeed, at one moment
you saw a little cockle-shell of a boat waiting to convey passengers
twenty feet off in the trough of the sea, and the next instant it
was being jammed against the ladder which the trembling voyagers
had to descend. But to add to the ordinary perils of transhipment
under such conditions, the worthy coral-fishers of La Calle, who
I am convinced had left their country for their country’s good,
engaged in the fiercest struggle over each hapless passenger as he
got to the foot of the ladder. They shrieked and swore and tore their
hair; they uttered blasphemies so foul and horrible that one was
thankful that their language was to a great extent unintelligible;
they aimed furious blows at each other with oars and boat-hooks, and
thought nothing of endeavouring to stave in the side of a rival boat,
though they must have known that its occupants would assuredly have
been drowned if they had succeeded. It was a naval battle on a small
scale, and I confess that as I looked at it, as I saw these frail
little craft tossed to and fro by the boiling sea, and beheld their
owners, apparently possessed by the most maniacal fury, striking and
cutting and cursing at each other, regardless of imminent danger to
themselves, I became as much absorbed in the spectacle as though I
were looking on at a new Trafalgar.
But when the unfortunate passengers, trembling girls and women,
and men who seemed to share their terrors, became involved in the
struggle, rage and indignation came uppermost in my breast, and I
was strongly tempted to try whether the sight of a revolver might
not have reduced these ruffians to some degree of quietude. It was
really piteous to see one poor woman, evidently in a very delicate
state of health, and perfectly livid with terror, led down the heaving
ladder. In the extremity of her alarm she implored us all, as we were
Christians, to let her die in peace on board the steamer. She had been
exceedingly sick on the passage from Bone, and one would have thought
she would have hailed the prospect of reaching land with delight. But
the horrors of that middle passage from the ship to the shore were
too much for her. And then as she clung convulsively to her husband
and a stout sailor on the slippery plank at the foot of the ladder
which the waves every moment threatened to submerge, the ruffians in
the boats made straight for her, and literally endeavoured to tear her
from her husband’s grasp. At each moment I expected to see the whole
group fall into the sea; but at last the poor creature was flung,
almost senseless from fright, into the bottom of one of the boats,
her baby was tossed in after her as though it had been a bundle, and
the husband, after finding himself buried to his waist in a green sea
which suddenly swept up the side of the _Charles Quint_, was permitted
to join them. So the work went on for an hour or more, forming one
of the most painful and exciting spectacles I ever beheld. I am not
particularly timid about matters of this sort; but I confess I would
not have landed at La Calle this afternoon under any pressure short
of that of absolute necessity. Many persons are drowned every year
on this coast in the attempt to land, much of the risk and consequent
loss of life arising from the atrocious misbehaviour of the boatmen.
At last, when the shades of night were closing in, we turned
our backs upon La Calle, and once more made direct for the Gulf
of Tunis. By this time we were in something more than a mere
squall. The wind was blowing strong from the south-west, and the
sea was following the big steamer in huge green waves which seemed
trying to catch and overwhelm us. How we pitched and rolled, and
staggered and tossed and thumped along! The dinner-bell rang, and
I turned into the saloon. Of course the “fiddles” were on the
table; but even those detestable instruments did not prevent half
my soup being emptied into my waistcoat, or a bottle of Bordeaux
from pouring in a crimson tide over the tablecloth. Colonel Allegro
was the only passenger who joined me at the meal; and it was eaten
under difficulties of no ordinary kind. At one moment the colonel
seemed to be lying on his back immediately below me, whilst plates,
knives, forks, and glasses all appeared to be slipping towards him,
with intent to disappear in his huge open mouth; at the next he was
glaring down upon me from an inaccessible height, from which he was
discharging at my devoted head the crockery and cutlery he had just
been upon the point of swallowing.
Of course, we laughed and joked and made the best of it; but
really the greatest joke of all was the attempt to eat under such
circumstances. I was not surprised when my good friends, the Corsican
Brothers, rose solemnly from their chairs, held on hard whilst they
made polite bows to myself and the colonel, and then staggered
away with interlocked arms and white faces into the darkness of
the deck. Even the captain looked uncomfortable, and, for my part,
I frankly confess that I should at that moment have preferred the
humblest fare upon a plain deal board on solid earth to the most
sumptuous repast that could have been served on this table that
was behaving itself like a rocking-horse bewitched. With profound
thankfulness I drank my coffee and cognac, and recognized the fact
that dinner was over. I tried to smoke on deck, but soon found that
it would be necessary to be lashed to one’s seat in order to be
secure; so I gave up the attempt and turned into my berth. Even here
it was with the greatest difficulty that I could keep myself inside
the berth, the ship rolling so violently that more than once I was
flung out upon the floor of the cabin, much after the fashion in
which a sack of coals is discharged from a cart. I picked myself
up, bruised and sore, and tried to sleep. But the screams of the
frightened passengers all around me, the crash of falling boxes,
and the thunder of the waves as they washed over the deck, made
slumber impossible. So about eleven o’clock I made my way as best
I could upon deck once more.
It was a magnificent sight which met my eyes, as I clung to the
hand-rail of the hurricane-deck and peered out into the gloomy
night. Heavy black clouds were flitting rapidly across the sky,
the phosphorescent sea was boiling brilliantly on every side of
the _Charles Quint_; on the starboard the long line of the coast
could be seen, and through the heaving waves our noble ship went
staggering along after the fashion of a Dover and Calais packet,
whilst its progress was accompanied by the discordant shrieking
of the wind in the cordage overhead. It was when I had finally
turned in for the night, after giving a reassuring answer to an
unfortunate fellow-passenger, who was convinced that all hope of our
ever touching land again was gone, that I had occasion to undergo an
experience which might furnish a theme for an admirable discourse. I
had foolishly placed my watch under my pillow, and in one of my
struggles to retain my place in my berth I broke the glass. It was
a very small matter, but it is the small miseries of life that are
the worst to bear; and I confess I was in no philosophic temper as,
holding on like grim death to the side-board of my berth with one
hand, I scraped up the broken fragments of glass as best I could
with the other, and endeavoured to make it possible for me to get
into bed again in safety.
_Monday, October 17th._—After the storm a calm! When I awoke this
morning, about seven o’clock, the brilliant sunshine was streaming
in at my port, and all was perfectly still and silent in my cabin. It
was difficult to realize the fact that this sedate little chamber
had been going through all the antics which had tormented me a few
hours earlier; but alas! there was evidence of the truth in the state
of the floor, upon which the contents of one of my portmanteaus had
been scattered in a promiscuous fashion. I did not lose much time
in turning out, and then, indeed, I beheld a sight which more than
repaid me for anything I had suffered on the previous day. The ship
was at anchor in the Bay of Tunis. Do you ask me to describe the Bay
of Tunis? Pray have you ever read a description of the Bay of Naples,
or the Bosphorus, or the Gulf of Smyrna? No words can do justice to
the exquisite scene that presented itself as I stepped upon deck
this morning. The great bay is almost land-locked. To the east is
a fine range of billowy hills, called the Lead Mountains, famous
both for their mineral treasures and their hot springs. In the dim
distance the blue peaks of the Zaghouan range were to be descried,
the range of mountains that look down upon the far-famed city of
Kairwan. Directly in front of me were the white houses of Goletta,
among which the curious water-palace of the Bey, built upon piles and
standing out into the waves, was conspicuous. Away to the west was
the stony amphitheatre, rich with the memories of two thousand years,
where once stood Carthage, the very spot from which Dido looked with
longing eyes upon the white sails of her hero-lover as they floated
over this lovely bay; and beyond Carthage, with its great College
of St. Louis now dominating the spot, was the lofty peak on the edge
of which is built the walled Arab town of Sidi bou Said. Everywhere
there were fine hills in graceful outline sweeping down to the fresh
blue waters of the Gulf, and everywhere there were strange tropical
trees, lofty date-palms and straggling prickly pears, to remind me
that I was no longer in Europe; whilst at every point white-walled
towns and rambling palaces or fortresses met the eye. And then for
our foreground we had the bay with its crowd of shipping, among which
was one beautiful craft, the _Bittern_, from which floated the English
flag. It was a lovely and refreshing scene, and as I drank in all its
details with eager eye I felt thankful that I had not allowed myself
to be deterred from coming here by any of the exaggerated tales of
dangers and horrors which I had heard at home or on my way hither.
Small boats of curious Eastern shape and rig, manned by Arabs,
negroes, or Maltese, were dancing along over the sparkling sea. There
was much coming and going, too, of heavy barges between the shore
and the huge French transports which were lying in a line not far
from our own gunboat the _Bittern_. Evidently great quantities of
military stores are being unshipped for the use of the army. After
a little delay one of the smaller boats came alongside the _Charles
Quint_. I shook hands with the captain and the Corsican Brothers,
who had now quite recovered their equanimity and good looks, and
started for the shore. What was I to find there? Endless had been
the stories of the perils to be encountered in Tunis which had been
dinned into my ears during the journey out. But I had found that
the nearer I drew to Tunis the less terrible those stories became,
and though I had taken the precaution to load my revolver before
seating myself in the boat, I had a firm conviction that I should
find Tunis, upon the whole, at least as safe a place of residence
as some portions of her Majesty’s dominions are at this moment.
The little harbour of Goletta—_the_ Goletta, as it is universally
called here—is guarded by a curious breakwater of time-worn
stones. This breakwater is said, like the quaint Custom House which
stands at one end of it, to have been constructed by the Spaniards
of stone taken from the ruins of Carthage. Beyond the breakwater
you enter a kind of canal, on one side of which is the crumbling
fort of Goletta, which has more than once stood a prolonged siege,
which, indeed, had the honour upon one occasion to be assailed by
no less a personage than Charles the Fifth. As I was rowed up the
canal, under the walls of the fortress, dozens of Arab boys, playing
on the banks in their brilliant costumes, pointed with jeers and
laughter to the passing European; negroes, black as night, grinned
with placid good-humour at my pale face and curious dress; whilst
now and then a sullen Moor, wrapped in the graceful folds of his
_burnous_, shot forth a glance full of anger and contempt. Here at
least I could feel that I had got beyond the reach of Mr. Cook and
his “personally-conducted” flock, and that whatever experiences
might await me, they would not be commonplace.
And yet my first experience of all upon landing was as commonplace
as could be wished. I had hardly jumped ashore, at the foot of the
shady main street of Goletta, when a swarthy young man approached me,
and, lifting his hat, announced himself as the commissionaire of the
Grand Hotel of Tunis! I might have been leaving a train at the Hague
or Cologne. Yet let me confess that this interruption to my dream
of Eastern adventures, though unromantic, was not unwelcome. Very
quickly I placed myself in the hands of my new friend, Afrigan by
name, who appeared to be an unusually intelligent and gentlemanly
specimen of the order to which he belonged. [And here to anticipate
the record of my diary, I cannot do better than state that Afrigan
remained with me as servant and interpreter during the whole of my
stay in the Regency, and that from first to last I found him most
useful and trustworthy in both capacities. His honesty, good-nature,
and intelligence, his remarkable knowledge of the current languages
of Northern Africa, and his steadfast devotion to my interests,
made him invaluable to me. I shall have many subsequent occasions
to mention him in the course of my story; but it is only right
that I should make this statement regarding him at this point in
the narrative.] Under his care I first visited the Custom House. A
very good-natured, gentlemanly Arab passed my portmanteaus through
without troubling himself to look at their contents; and they were
forthwith taken up to the little railway station and deposited there.
It wanted an hour and a half to the time for the starting of the
train for Tunis, so not to lose one’s opportunities I set off,
accompanied by Afrigan, for a walk through Goletta. The town consists
of one short but wide main street, with shady trees growing down
either side, and a number of wretched, winding alleys, opening into
miserable unpaved squares. Everywhere there was plenty of life and
activity. French officers in crowds were sitting drinking and smoking
under the trees in front of the two cafés of which the place can
boast, whilst all about were troops of Arabs and Jews, dressed in
all the colours of the rainbow. One of the first things to strike
my attention was the extraordinary costume of the Jewish women—a
costume quite unlike anything I had seen before, either in Eastern
Europe or Asia Minor. It consists of a short silk jacket and white
tights, the latter displaying the shape of the limbs to advantage. In
many cases these tight trousers were embroidered in gold or silver,
and I am told that sometimes a pair will cost as much as twenty
pounds sterling. The Arab women wear a somewhat similar dress; but
the “cut” is by no means so smart as it is in the case of the
Jewesses; whilst they have in addition a large burnous enveloping
them almost down to the heels, and in all cases their faces are
hidden by thick black yashmaks, the effect of which is hideous in the
extreme. The Jewish women wear either a coloured silk handkerchief
gracefully folded in turban fashion on their heads, or a white cap
with projecting horns, somewhat after the style of the head-dress of
the girls of Northern Holland. What the Arab women look like I cannot,
of course, say; but many of the Jewesses are really handsome—a fact
of which they are by no means ignorant. Most of the Arab men whom
I have seen at Goletta are also very good-looking, stalwart fellows.
As I sat sipping a cup of coffee in front of a café, large numbers
of French soldiers on fatigue duty passed me, whilst ever and anon
the echoes of the street were woke up by the rumble of a military
waggon or a heavy piece of ordnance. The soldiers, poor fellows,
are very young, and have a wearied and dispirited look. Most of them
were carrying burdens which seemed to overtax their strength sorely.