THE RÉGENCE OF TUNISIA AND THE TUNISIANS
For twenty years France has been putting forth her best efforts and
energies into the development of Tunisia, to make it a worthy and
helpful sister to Algeria. From a French population of seven hundred at
the time of the occupation in 1882, the number has risen to fifty
thousand.
Tunisia of to-day was the Lybia of the ancients; but whether it was
peopled originally from Spain, from Egypt or from peoples from the
south, history is silent, or at least is not convincingly loud-voiced.
Lybian, Punic, Roman, Vandal and Byzantine, the country became in turn,
then Mussulman; for the native Tunisian has not yet become French. The
Bey still reigns, though with a shorn fragment of his former powers. The
Bey is still the titular head of his Régence, but the French Résident
Général is really the _premier fonctionnaire_, as also he is the Bey's
Ministère des Affaires Étrangères.
The ancient governmental organization of the Bey has been retained with
respect to interior affairs. The Caïds are the local governors or
administrators of the territorial divisions and are appointed by the Bey
himself. They are charged with the policing of their districts, the
collecting of taxes, and are vested with a certain military authority
with which to impress their tribes. Associated with the Caïds, as
seconds in command, are a class called Khalifas, and as tax collectors,
mere civil authorities, there are finally the Sheiks.
[Illustration: _An Old Seal of the Bey of Tunis_]
It was a bitter pill for Italy when France took the ascendancy in Tunis.
The population of the city of Tunis to-day still figures 30,000 Italians
and Maltese as against 10,000 French,--and ever have the French
anti-expansionists called it a "_chinoiserie_." Call it what you will,
Tunis, in spite of its preponderant Italian influence, is fast becoming
French. It is also becoming prosperous, which is the chief end of man's
existence. This proves France's intervention to have been a good thing,
in spite of the fact that it accounts for seventy-five per cent. of the
Italian's animosity towards his Gallic sister.
The death of S. A. Saddok-Bey in 1882, by which the Tunisian sovereign
became subservient to the French Resident, was an event which caused
some apprehension in France.
The new ruler, Si-Ali-Bey, embraced gladly the French suzerainty in his
land that his sons might see the institutions of the Régence prosper
under the benign guidance of a world power. Ali-Bey resisted nothing
French,--even as a Prince,--and when he came to the Beylicale throne in
1882 he gave no thought whatever to the ultimate political independence
of his country. He was ever, until his death, the faithful, liberal
coöperator with the succession of Résidents Généreaux who superseded him
in the control of the real destinies of Tunisia.
As a sovereign he formerly stood as the absolute ruler of a million
souls, not only their political ruler, but their religious head as well.
The latter title still belongs to the Bey. (The present ruler,
Mohammed-en-Nacer-Bey, came into power upon the death of his
predecessor, Mohammed-el-Hadi-Bey in 1906.)
French political administration has robbed the power of the Bey of many
of its picturesque and romantic accessories; but the usages of Islam are
tolerated not only in the entourage of the Bey, but in all his subjects
as well. This toleration even grants them the sanctity of their mosques,
and does not allow the hordes of Christian tourists, who now make a
playground of Mediterranean Africa from Cairo to Fez, to desecrate them
by writing their names in Mohammedan sacred places. In other words,
Europeans are forbidden to enter any of the Tunisian mosques save those
at Kairouan.
It was Ali-Bey who achieved the task of making the masses understand
that their duty was to obey the new régime; that it was a law common to
them all that would assure the prosperity of the nation; and that it was
he, the Bey, who was still the titular head of their religion, which,
after all, is the Mussulman's chief concern in life.
Might makes right, often enough in a maladroit fashion, but sometimes it
comes as a real blessing. This was the case with the coming of the
French to Tunisia. A highly organized army was a necessity for Tunisia,
and within the last quarter of a century she has got it. The French were
far-seeing enough to anticipate the probable eventuality which might
grow out of England's side-long glances towards Bizerte, and the Italian
sphere of influence in Tripoli. Now those fears, not by any means
imaginary ones at the time, are dead. England must be content with
Gibraltar, and Italy with Sardinia. There are no more Mediterranean
worlds to conquer, or there will not be after France absorbs Tripoli in
Barbary, and Morocco, and the mortgages are maturing fast.
To-day the Tunisians are taxed less than they ever were before, and are
better policed, protected and cared for in every way. Their millennium
seems to have arrived. France, with the coöperation of the Bey,
dispenses the law and the prophets after the patriarchal manner which
Saint Louis inaugurated at Carthage in the thirteenth century.
The justice of Ali-Bey and Mohammed-el-Hadi-Bey was an improvement over
that of their predecessors, which was tyrannical to an extreme. The
Spartan or Druidical under-the-oak justice, and worse, gave way to a
formal recognized code of laws which the French authorities evolved from
the heritage of the Koran, and very well indeed it has worked.
The Bey had become a veritable father of his people, and was accessible
to all who had business with him, meriting and receiving the true
veneration of all the Tunisian population of Turks, Jews and Arabs. He
interpreted the laws of Mahomet with liberality to all, and from his
palace of La Marsa dispensed an incalculable charity.
The present Bey is not an old and tried law-maker or soldier like his
predecessors, and beyond a few simple phrases is not even conversant
with the French language. He is a Mussulman _in toto_, but his régime
seems to run smoothly, and day by day the country of his forefathers
prospers and its people grow fat. Some day an even greater prosperity is
due to come to Tunisia, and then the Beylicale incumbent will be covered
with further glories, if not further powers. This will come when the
great trade-route from the Mediterranean to the heart of Africa, to Lake
Tchad, is opened through the Sud-Tunisien and Tripoli, which will be
long before the African interior railway dreamed of by the late Cecil
Rhodes comes into being.
French influence in Africa will then receive a commercial expansion that
is its due, and another Islamic land will come unconsciously under the
sway of Christian civilization.
The obsequies of the late Bey of Tunis were an impressive and unusual
ceremony. The eve before, the prince who was to reign henceforth
received the proclamation of his powers at the Bardo, when he was
invested with the Beylicale honours by the authorities of France and
Tunisia.
The funeral of the dead Bey was more pompous than any other of his
predecessors. He died at his palace at La Marsa and lay in state for a
time in his own particular "Holy City," Kassar-Saïd, on the route to
Bizerte, where were present all his immediate family. Prince
Mohammed-en-Nacer, the Bey to be, was so overcome with a crisis of
nerves that he fell swooning at the ceremony, with difficulty pulling
himself together sufficiently to proceed.
The progress of the cortége towards Tunis, the capital, was through the
lined-up ranks of fifty thousand Mussulmans lying prostrate on the
ground. Entrance to the city was by the Sidi-Abdallah Gate, and thence
to the Kasba. The Mussulman population crowded the roof-tops and towers
of the entire city. The military guard of the Zouaves, the Chasseurs
d'Afrique, and the Beylicale cavalry formed a contrasting lively note to
the solemnity of the religious proceedings, though nothing could drown
the fervent wails and shouts of "_La illah allah, Mohammed Rassone
Allah! Sidi Ali-Bey!_" the Arabic substitute for "The King is dead! Long
live the King!"
Before the Grande Mosquée the Unans-Muftis and the Bach-Muftis recited
their special prayers, and all the dignitaries of the new court came to
kiss the hand of the reigning prince, who, at the Gate of Dar-el-Bey,
was saluted by the Résident Général of France.
The Tomb of the Beys, the Tourbet et Bey, is the sepulchre of all the
princes of the house, each being buried in a separate marble
sarcophagus, but practically in a common grave.
A fanatical expression which was not countenanced, but which frequently
came to pass nevertheless, was the crawling beneath the litter on which
reposed the remains of the defunct Bey by numerous Mussulman devotees.
The necromancy of it all is to the effect that he who should pass
beneath the body of a dead Mussulman ruler would attain pardon for any
faults ever afterwards committed. Seemingly it occurred to the
authorities that it was putting a premium on crime, and so it was
suppressed, and rightly enough.
The political status of the native of Tunisia to-day is similar to that
of his brother of Algeria. It is incontestable that the Tunisian's
status under Beylicale rule was not wholly comfortable, for the
_indigènes_ were ruled in a manner little short of tyrannical; but the
Arab lived always in expectation of bettering his position, in spite of
being either a serf or a ground-down menial. To-day he has only the
state of the ordinary French citizen to look forward to, and has no hope
of becoming a tyrant himself. This is his chief grievance as seen by an
outsider, though indeed when you discuss the matter with him he has a
long line of complaints to enumerate.
Things have greatly improved in Tunisia since the French came into
control. Formerly the native, or the outlander, had no appeal from the
Beylicale rule short of being hanged if he didn't like his original
sentence. To-day, with a mixed tribunal of Tunisian and French
officials, he has a far easier time of it even though he be a
delinquent. He gets his deserts, but no vituperative punishments.
One thing the Tunisian Arab may not do under French rule. He may not
leave the Régence, even though he objects to living there. The French
forbid this. They keep the _indigènes_ at home for their country's good,
instead of sending them away. It keeps a good balance of things anyway,
and the law of the Koran as interpreted by the powers of Tunis is as
good for the control of a subject people as that of the Code Napoleon.
The Tunisians, the common people of Tunis, are protégés of France, and
France is doing her best to protect them and lead them to prosperity,
assisted of course by the good-will and influence of the ruling Bey,
whom she keeps in luxury and quasi-power.
Formerly when the native ruler did not care to be bothered with any
particular class of subjects, whether they were Turks or Jews, he
banished them, but the French officials consider this a superfluous
prodigality, and keep all ranks at home and as contented as possible in
their work of developing their country.
The one thing that the French will not have is a wholesale immigration
of the Arab population of either Algeria or Tunisia. To benefit by a
change of air, the _indigène_ of whatever rank must have a special
permission from the government before he will be allowed to embark on
board ship, or he will have to become a stowaway. Very many get this
special permission, for one reason or another, but to many it is
refused, and for good and sufficient reasons. To the merchant who would
develop a commerce in the wheat of the plateau-lands, the barley of the
Sahel, or the dates of the oasis, permission is granted readily enough;
and to the young student who would study law or medicine at Aix,
Montpellier or Paris; but not to the able-bodied cultivator of the
fields. He is wanted at home to grow up with the country.
Tunis _la ville_ and Tunisia _le pays_ are more mediæval and more
Oriental than Algiers or Algeria. In Tunis, as in every Arab town, as in
Constantinople or Cairo, you may yet walk the streets feeling all the
oppression of that silence which "follows you still," and of a patient,
lack-lustre stare, still regarding you as "an unaccountable,
uncomfortable work of God, that may have been sent for some good
purpose--to be revealed hereafter."
The morality and the methods of the traders of the bazars and _souks_
remain as Kinglake and Burton described them in their day, something not
yet understood by the ordinary Occidental.
This sort of thing is at its best at Tunis. Wine, olives, dates and
phosphates are each contributing to the prosperity of Tunis to a
remarkable degree, and the development of each industry is increasing as
nowhere else, not even in Algeria. In 1900 the vineyards of Tunisia
increased over two thousand hectares, and in all numbered nearly twelve
thousand hectares, of which one-quarter at least were native owned.
[Illustration: THE OLIVES WE EAT
OLIVE de LUCQUES
OLIVE PECHELINE
OLIVE VERDALE
OLIVE ROUGET
OLIVE OLIVER
]
The wine crop in 1900 was 225,000 hectolitres, an increase of nearly
thirty per cent, over the season before, and it is still increasing. The
olive brings an enormous profit to its exploiters, and the Tunisian
olive and Tunisian olive oil rank high in the markets of the world.
Originally ancient Lybia was one of the first countries known to produce
olive oil on a commercial scale. All varieties of olive are grown on
Tunisian soil. The illustration herewith marks the species.
The art of making olive oil goes back to the god Mercury. In the time of
Moses and of Job the culture of the olive was greatly in repute. The
exotics of the East and of Greece took the olive-leaf for a symbol, but
the fighting, quarrelsome Romans would have none of it; the bay leaf
and the palm of victory were all-sufficient for them.
They soon came to know its value, however, when they overran North
Africa, and they exploited the olive-groves as they did the plateau
wheat belt. Cæsar even nourished his armies on such other local products
as figs and dates and found them strength-giving and sinew-making. North
Africa has ever been a _garde-manger_ of nations.
What Tunisia needs is capital, and everybody knows it. The date-palm and
the olive give the greatest return of all the agricultural exploitations
of the country, and after them the vine, and finally the orange-tree,
the lemon-tree, the fig and the almond. Each and every one of these
fruits requires a different condition of soil and climate. Fortunately
all are here, and that is why Tunisia is going some day to be a gold
mine for all who invest their capital in the exploitation of its soil.
The date requires a warmth and dryness of atmosphere which is found
nowhere so suitable as in the Djerid and the Nefzaoua in the south. Here
the soil is of just the right sandy composition, and rain is
comparatively unknown. For this reason the date here flourishes better
than the olive, which accommodates itself readily to the Sahel and the
mountains of the north. Of the vast production of dates in this region,
by far the greater part is consumed at home, the exportation of a
million francs' worth per annum being but a small proportion of the
whole.
Almost every newly exploited tourist ground has an individual brand of
pottery which collectors rave over, though it may be the ordinary
variety of cooking utensils which are common to the region. This is true
of Tunis and the potteries of Nabeul.
Besides mere utilitarian articles for domestic use, the shapes and forms
which these Arab pottery-workers give to their vases and jugs make them
really characteristic and beautiful _objets d'art_; and they are not
expensive. The loving marks of the potter's thumb are over all, and his
crude ideas of form and colour are something which more highly trained
craftsmen often miss when they come to manufacturing "art-pottery," as
the name is known to collectors.
A _cruchon_ decorated with a band of angular camels and queer zigzag
rows of green or red has more of that quality called "character" than
the finest _lustre_ of the Golfe de Jouan or the faïence of Rouen. For
five francs one may buy three very imposing examples of jugs, vases or
water-bottles, and make his friends at home as happy as if he brought
them a string of coral (made of celluloid, which is mostly what one gets
in Italy to-day), or a carved ivory elephant of the Indies (made in
Belgium of zylonite). The real art sense often expresses itself in the
common, ordinary products of a country, though not every tourist seems
to know this. Let the collector who wants a new fad collect "peasant
pottery," and never pay over half a dollar for any one piece.
Closely allied with the pottery of Nabeul is a more commercially grand
enterprise which has recently been undertaken in the Sahel south of
Tunis. Not all the wealth of the vastly productive though undeveloped
countryside lies in cereals, phosphates or olive-trees. There is a
species of clay which is suitable, apparently, to all forms of ceramic
fabrication.
In one of the most picturesque corners of the littoral, just south of
Monastir, is a factory which turns out the most beautiful glazed brick
and tiles that one ever cast his eye upon. The red-tiled roof of
convention may now be expected to give way to one of iridescent,
dazzling green, if the industry goes on prospering; and no more will the
brick-yards of Marseilles sell their dull, conventional product
throughout Tunisia; and no more will the steamship companies grow
wealthy off this dead-weight freight. The Italian or Maltese
_balancelle_ will deliver these magnificent coloured bricks and tiles of
Monastir all over the Mediterranean shores; and a variety of colour will
come into the landscape of the fishermen's huts and the farmhouses which
the artists of a former generation knew not of.
Tunis is undergoing a great commercial development, and if the gold of
Ophir is not some day found beneath its soil, many who have predicted
its undeveloped riches will be surprised and disappointed.
The railways of Tunisia are not at all adequate to the needs of the
country, but they are growing rapidly. When the line is finally built
linking Sousse and Sfax (the service is now performed by automobile by
travellers, or on camel-back; or by Italian or Arab _barques_ by water,
for merchandise), there will be approximately 1,700 kilometres of
single-track road. Algeria with an area four times as great has but
3,100 kilometres of railway.
The railway exploitation of Tunisia has not as yet brought any great
profit to its founders. The net profit after the cost of exploitation,
in 1904, was but half a million francs; but it has a bright future.
Great efforts are being made by the government authorities, and the
railway officials as well, towards colonizing the Régence with _French
citizens_. A million and a half of francs have already been spent by the
government, in addition to free grants of land, towards this
colonization, and in 1904 alone land to the value of a million and a
half was sold to _French_ immigrants.
If one wants to travel into the interior of Tunisia, off the beaten
track, say to Médenine, beyond Gabès; or to Tozeur, he should find some
way of fitting himself out with an authorization and recommendation from
the French "civil control." This recommendation will be written in
Arabic, and one will not be able to read it, nor will half the officials
to whom it is shown _en route_; but one and all will be impressed by the
official seal, the parchment, the heading "Praise to Allah the only
God," and the date at the bottom,--which will read something as follows:
22 Djoumada 2d, 1307,--this being the date of the Hegira. Any document
as mysterious and formal as this will accomplish much anywhere, so far
as its powers as an open sesame are concerned.