profits that would be gained were the oasis to be given over to Sicilian
cultivators. Apart from the fact that the wealthy Kaid of Gafsa, who is
the chief owner of it, would have something to say on the subject, these
advantages would be limited to pruning the trees and grafting some of
them; introducing, possibly, a few more vegetables, and having the ground
more parsimoniously tended than at present. The magnesia in the water is
hostile to the majority of delicate European growths. Something, no doubt,
could be done in the way of improvement, but as a set-off to a visionary
project of this kind, which is averse to the whole spirit of French rule
in Tunisia, there would be a great rise in prices: Italians would form
their inevitable ring. The extent of the gardens has almost doubled since
1880, without their help.
As to the Arabs----
If the French looked to their prison system they would soon arrive at
better results. For childish thefts and such-like trespasses, committed
nearly always at the instigation of their parents, boys of ten and twelve
are now locked up with hardened criminals, often for considerable periods:
what is this but a State-aided manufacture of crime? Go to the prison of
Sfax, and you will realize that there may be some reason for the
absinthe-drinker's remark as to the "organized bands of assassins" at that
place. I speak of what I have seen with my eyes. I found the prison of
Souk-el-Arba, for instance, so tightly packed with men and young boys that
there was not room for all of them to lie down at night, and such furious
fights used to occur for the possession of places near the wall (the room
was in pitch-darkness) that the warder was obliged to enter, every now and
then, and restore order by beating those nearest the door about the head
with a club.
The Arab boy, they will tell you, is full of guile, and must be repressed.
Granted, but----
A colony, furthermore, is _not an orchid_.
Granted.
Q.E.D.
_Chapter IX_
_SOME OF OUR GUESTS_
I shall be glad to leave for Metlaoui and the Djerid. Gafsa is losing its
flavour; the novelty and pungency are gone. The same old faces, the same
old _bouts de conversation_; quickly, indeed, does one live oneself into a
place and learn, or think to learn, all its little secrets.
The hotel, too, has suddenly become an insufferable menagerie. Mysterious
inspectors come and go, and commercial travellers of unappetizing looks
and habits are far more frequent than formerly. But I shall regret the
earth-convulsing laughter of the Greek doctor, who has latterly taken to
putting in an appearance at meal-time. He is a gruff, jovial personage,
and so huge in bulk that he can barely squeeze into the door of his little
shop in the _souk_ where he sits, surrounded by unguents and embrocations,
to treat the natives for their multifarious distempers. He is quite
straightforward about the business. "You come to this country to spend
money," he tells me, "but I--to make it."
The profession is not all plain sailing, however, for the French
authorities raise every kind of obstacle in his path; they tear his red
advertisements down from the street walls and openly call him a quack.
Were it not for the Greek Consul in Tunis, who happens to be an old friend
of his, who knows how much longer they would allow him to practise in the
land!
I sometimes go to watch his operations, which, so far as I can judge, are
fairly remunerative, thanks to Achmet the interpreter, one of whose many
duties it is to inform himself confidentially of the financial status of
prospective patients. For the richest sheikh will don tattered clothes
when he visits the surgery, and would doubtless be taken for some poor
labourer were it not for Achmet, who sees through the disguise and gives a
discreet sign to Æsculapius, whose services, of course, must be prepaid;
it is _money down_ before he will prescribe or give away a drop of
medicine.
I was much interested in one of his methods as exemplified on the person
of a native youth who was led in the other day. He was an Aissouiyah
dancer, and had evidently overdone his part in the heat of enthusiasm;
there were no less than forty-three sword-cuts across his middle. After
receiving a handsome fee the doctor gave him some liniment which caused
exquisite pain: the patient writhed in agony.
[Illustration: Natives of Gafsa]
"That's good medicine," I heard Achmet telling him, reassuringly; "that's
strong. See how it hurts!"
For a while he bore up bravely, but the pain growing worse instead of
better, the doctor was at last persuaded, out of compassion and in return
for a second fee, to give him something with a more soothing effect.
But eye diseases are his speciality. His _pièce de résistance_ is a Jewish
tradesman whom he has lately supplied with an admirable glass eye--a thing
almost unheard-of in these parts. This man and myself were sitting in the
shop not long ago when a Moroccan happened to be passing who had known him
in his one-eyed days; the stranger gave him a sharp look and then walked
swiftly away, apparently suspecting himself to be the victim of some
absurd hallucination as regards the new eye. But he returned anon, to make
sure of his mistake, I suppose; while the Jew confronted him with a
defiant glance of his two eyes. They stared at each other for some time in
silence. At last the Moroccan enquired:
"Are you the man who sold me that piece of cloth three weeks ago?"
"I am he."
There was another long pause. Then:
"That new eye: how came you by it?"
The Jew, a dreadful scoffer, pointed heavenwards with one finger.
"A thing of God!" he said. "A miracle has been vouchsafed me."
But the man of Mequinez answered nothing. He gazed at him once more, and
then, slowly bending down his head, folded his hands across his breast in
prayer, and walked away....
Then there is the Polish Count, Count Ponomareff, who arrived four days
ago. He is past middle age, with a drooping moustache and large red nose;
a wistful and woebegone figure, but a brilliant conversationalist, when
the mood is upon him. I have not taken very kindly to the man. Among other
things, he disapproves of flint-collecting; he asks, rather scornfully,
"whether one can sell such stones." And yet, for some obscure reason, he
has singled me out among the men as the object of his favourable notice,
affecting rather a distant manner towards the rest of us; the ladies,
however, are charmed by his courtly graces. He wears profuse jewellery, to
set off his title, no doubt. It is understood that he has held high
Government posts, and is now only waiting for some letters before joining
certain friends in a costly caravan expedition further south. Yet he seems
poor--hopelessly poor. I surprised him, soon after his arrival, in a
heated debate with the landlord on the subject of candles and _café au
lait_. Then he enquired if the country was safe.
"Not if you go out with a _machine comme ça_," touching the Count's
gorgeous watch-chain.
He knows, at least, how to handle his knife and fork, which is more than
can be said of all the inmates of this hostelry. A town-dweller,
evidently; he tells me he detests wild life of every kind and has come
here only to oblige his friends; he calls the Arabs "ignoble savages."
Such, however, is not the opinion of another guest, my friend Monsieur
M----. One must be careful how one criticizes the habits of the natives in
his presence; not that he would be angry, for he is too gentle to feel
wrath; or become argumentative--he is too sure of his ground for that; but
he might be wounded on his most sensitive spot, and he would certainly
think you--well, misinformed.
The motley crew of Gafsa have become his favourites ever since his arrival
in the country two weeks ago, and he has a theory that it is a mistake to
endeavour to learn their language--it only leads you astray, it spoils the
"direct impression."
He is a well-known French painter, whom some eye trouble has forced--only
temporarily, let us hope--to abandon the brush. Despite his patriarchal
beard, he is an impenitent romanticist of contagious youthfulness; the
entire universe lies so harmoniously disposed and in such roseate tints
before his mental vision, that no one save Madame M----, a wise lady of
the formal-yet-opulent type, whom Maupassant would have classed as "encore
désirable," is able to drag him to earth again, with a few words of
wholesome cynicism.
Just for the fun of the thing, and to while away his hours of enforced
idleness, he is collecting facts for a book to be entitled "Customs of the
Arabs," as exemplified by the life of Gafsa. The idea came to him quite
suddenly, after reading some descriptions which he considered sadly
misleading. Customs of the Arabs! To tease him, I quote the authority of
Bordereau, who says that there are practically no Arabs in Gafsa; that the
customs of this town are one thing and those of the Arabs another, unless
he applies the word Arab to all the Mohammedan races of these parts.
The objection is brushed aside; one word is as good as another,
_n'est-ce-pas_?
I point out a genuine Arab who happens to be passing; he has come down
from the hills and is leading a camel loaded with halfa; he is gaunt and
ill-clad, but walks with a fine swagger, and is evidently a valuable young
person, to judge by his tattooings.
"That? That's only a young savage from the mountains. How are you to find
out anything about him? And I make a point, you know, of only recording
what I see with my eyes. No theories for me! I mean to see everything and
to set it down; to describe the Arabs as they are--as they _really are_,
in all the circumstances of their daily lives. One must see everything."
As a painter, I urge, he must have discovered how useful it is to restrict
the field of vision now and then; to be deliberately half blind.
"Painting, Monsieur, is one thing, and writing another. It is one of the
few advantages of growing old that things begin to fall, so to speak, into
their proper places. When I go to my studio, I go for distraction; art, it
seems to me, is there to create moods, pleasurable or otherwise; a painter
must seize impressions. But I go to my library for information; the
business of a writer is to collect and arrange facts; a book, as I
apprehend it, should be--a book. That is my quarrel with this Tunisian
literature; many of the things that have been written about the country
are not books at all; while others are full of mistakes. Look at these two
volumes, for instance! Impressionistic realism, I suppose they would call
it, scrawled down by an excitable female journalist who, I am sorry to
say, has created quite a rage for European and American lady tourists
among these Arabs, to the great discredit of our civilization. Read them,
Monsieur, as a warning example, and perhaps you will give me your
Bordereau instead; there may be something in it, after all."
I gladly make the exchange, and regard the transaction in the light of an
omen, an epoch. I have been craving for something different from the facts
of Bordereau, who has been my companion all these days. A solid little
piece of work, by the way, which often set me wondering whether our
British public would care to pay four shillings for a technical account of
the climate, history and natural products of some remote Egyptian oasis.
But perhaps the cost of production has been defrayed by some Government
department.
These two volumes by Isabelle Eberhardt--where have I heard that name
before?--look tempting. I promise myself some hours of pleasant reading.
"And then, for downright misstatement," he continued, "look at this. Here
is a Monsieur Kocher, who passes for an authority, and who, describing the
Arab marriage customs, talks of the 'brutalité du viol dans le
marriage--un drame lugubre.' Now that comes of not examining things with
one's own eyes. Since my arrival here I have already seen several Arab
weddings and something of their married life, and I must say, candidly,
that I find it full of romance. Say what you will, these Arabs are
unconscious poets."
"And if you want still further information," I said, "ask the boy whom I
saw blacking your boots this morning. He will describe to you the minutest
details of his married life with surprising frankness. His father bought
him a wife two weeks ago, under the condition, however, that his little
brother is to be allowed to share in the joys of matrimony. That young
savage from the mountains would blush, if Arabs ever could blush, to hear
their revelations."
"Oh, oh, oh! You appal me! But I would like to make personal enquiries
into the matter; that is, if I can make them understand me. It is my rule,
you know."
"Do, Monsieur; question both the brothers, and write down their answers,
the perusal of which will be a liberal education for our boys at home.
Among other things, they say that whenever----But here is Madame coming!"
"Never mind her! She takes an interest in Arab institutions, as I do....
Only imagine, Amélie, our shoeblack is said to be actually married; and so
is his little brother, and they have one and the same bride! Two husbands
to one wife, or half a wife apiece--what do you think of that?"
"I think it's quite enough to begin with. Remember, _mon cher_, they are
only children."
_Chapter X_
_THE OASIS OF LEILA_
I rode, for a farewell visit, to the small oasis of Leila, or Lalla, which
lies a few miles beyond the railway station. It is one of several
parasitic oases of Gafsa: a collection of mud-houses whose gardens are
watered by a far-famed spring, the fountain of Leila.
The water gushes out, tepid and unpleasant to the taste--but
health-giving, they say, like so many unpleasant things--from under steep
banks of clay through which the railway to Sfax has been cut. It is a
sleepy hollow of palms, a place to dream away one's cares. The picturesque
but old-fashioned well at this spot has just been replaced by a modern
trough of cement. I watched the work from beginning to end, ten or fifteen
Arabs, supervised by a burly Sicilian mason, finishing the job in a few
days.
"These Saracens!"--such was the overseer's constant lament--"these
Saracens! You don't know, dear sir, what fools they are."
In never-ending procession of gaudy rags the village folk come to these
waters, the boys mostly on horseback, the women afoot. Donkeys are loaded
with the heavy black goat-skins of water; there is laundry-work going on,
and a good deal of straightforward love-making under the shade. These
children of nature have a wild beauty of their own, and the young girls
are frolicsome as gazelles and far less timid. They have none of the
pseudo-bashfulness of the townsfolk. For the rest, only the _dessus du
panier_ of womankind goes veiled hereabouts--a few portly dames of Gafsa,
that is, who are none the worse, I suspect, for keeping their features
hidden. Perhaps the good looks of these Leila people are a heritage from
olden days, for this oasis is known to be a race islet, inhabited almost
exclusively by men of the Ellez stock--one of the three races that have
chiefly contributed to the formation of the modern Gafsa type; a
conquering brood of European origin, small but shapely.
But untold ages ere this the waters of Leila were already frequented by
men of another kind, by the flint-artists. Among the relics of their
occupation I picked up, here, an unusually fine implement of the
"amygdaloid" shape.
Not a soul in Gafsa, native or foreign, could tell me who was the lady
Leila that gave her name to this fountain. On the spot, however, I heard
this tale: She was a young girl, madly enamoured of an Arab youth, but
strictly guarded. Her married sister alone knew of their infatuation, and
used to help her by keeping a look-out for him at the water-side; and when
he appeared, she would return home and sing to herself (as if it were a
snatch of some old ditty)--Leila, Leila, your lover comes! But the maiden
understood, and swiftly, under pretence of fetching water, she would run
to meet him at the well, and take her joy. The story has an air of
probability; such things are done every day, at every fountain throughout
the land. This lingering at the well is one of the moments when their hard
life is irradiated by a gleam of romance.
An old man also gave me the following account:--
Ages ago, he said, when Gafsa belonged to the Sultan of Trablus (Tripoli)
there was sad misgovernment in the land. The taxes became quite
unendurable, and the city was half emptied of its inhabitants, who fled
this way and that, rather than submit to the extortions of the Sultan's
officers. And among those who escaped in this fashion was a god-fearing
widow and her children. Her name was Leila. She took up her abode near
this fountain, which was then little frequented. Here she dwelt, doing
good works whenever occasion offered. And here, at length, she was
received into the mercy of Allah and entombed. The country-folk gave her
name to the water, to perpetuate the memory of her pious life....
The depression beyond this fountain is celebrated as the resort of game,
and yesterday a French gentleman of my acquaintance went there, provided
with all the accoutrements of sport, not omitting a copious
luncheon-basket--there might be snipe or partridges, or perhaps a hare, a
gazelle, a leopard--who knows?
He returned in good time for dinner.
"_Voilà ma chasse_!" he said, opening his bag. It contained a bundle of
wild asparagus, for salad, and fourteen frogs, which he had killed with a
rifle.
"You can't get frogs as easily in my part of France," he told me. "If the
sport were not forbidden for seven months out of the twelve, the species
would long ago have become extinct."
I enquired whether the close-season for frogs was officially set down,
like that of hares or wildfowl.
"Frogs," he explained, "are not considered game in the governmental sense
of that word; they fall into the category of fisheries which, as you know,
comes under the jurisdiction of the respective prefects. Hence the
close-time, though officially fixed, varies according to the different
provinces. In my department, for example, it begins on the 15th of
January. At Gafsa, if I may judge by certain indications, it would
probably be arranged to commence still earlier."
Far be it from me to decry the succulent hams of _Rana esculenta_ (or
rather _ridibunda_). I have been offered far more fearful wild-fowl nearer
home--certain ornithological wrecks, I mean, that have been kept beyond
the feather-adhering stage, and then reverently held before a fire, for
two minutes, wrapped in a bag, lest the limbs should drop off.
There is considerable talk at Gafsa of the wild mountain sheep, the
Barbary mouflon. They say that as late as the early nineties it was no
uncommon thing to meet with flocks of over thirty grazing in the
mountains. Although a special permit must now be obtained to be allowed to
shoot them, their numbers have much diminished. But the accounts vary so
wonderfully that one cannot form any idea of their frequency. Some talk of
seventeen being shot in the course of two weeks' camping, others of three
in a whole season. As a rule, they are not stalked, but driven, by an army
of Arabs which the sheikh organizes for that purpose, towards certain
openings in the hills where the sportsman takes up his stand. The desert
lynx is sometimes met with, and hyenas, they say, occur as near to Gafsa
as the Jebel Assalah. Arabs have told me that the fat of the hyena is used
by native thieves and burglars to smear on their bodies when they go
marauding. The dogs, they say, are so terrorized by the smell of it, so
numbed with fear and loathing, that they have not the heart to bark.
(Pliny records an ancient notion to the effect that dogs, on coming in
contact with the hyena's shadow, lose their voice.)
Here, at the Jebel Assalah, I encountered a jackal--a common beast, but
far oftener heard than seen. While resting in a sunny hollow of rock, I
heard a wild cry which came from a shepherd who was driving the jackal
away from his goats. The discomfited brute trotted in my direction, and
only caught sight of me at a few yards' distance. I never saw a jackal
more surprised in my life. When a camel expires in the plain near some
nomads' tents, they sometimes set a spring-trap for jackals near the
carcase--they eat these beasts and sell their skin for a few francs; the
traps are craftily concealed underground, with a little brushwood thrown
over them to aid the deception. It is impossible to be aware of their
existence. But woe betide the wanderer who steps on them!
For the machine closes with the shock of an earthquake, a perfect volcano
of dust and iron teeth leaping into the air. Its force is such that the
jackal's leg is often cut clean off, and he hops away on the remaining
three. For this and other reasons, therefore, it is advisable not to
approach too near a dead camel.
The desert hare is shot or coursed with muzzled greyhounds, _sloughis_,
who strike it down with their paws; unmuzzled, they rend it to pieces.
There are few of them in Gafsa just now, on account of the cold to which
they are sensitive; although muffled in woollen garments they shiver
pitifully. Of falconers, I have only met one riding to the chase. It was
the Kaid of Gafsa, a wealthy man of incalculable political influence both
here and in Tunis. It is even whispered--But no; one must not repeat all
one hears....
With the proprietor's permission I went over a young plantation of trees
and vegetables that has sprung up near the railway line, about halfway
between Gafsa and Leila. Excavating to a depth of six metres at the foot
of the bare Rogib hill, they encountered an apparently unlimited supply of
water, and here, where formerly nothing but a few scorched grasses and
thorns could be seen, is now a luxuriant little oasis. More might be done
with the place, but the owner seems to have lost interest in it; the
locusts, too, have been rather destructive of late.
He had planted quantities of prickly pears, he said, but the Bedouins'
cattle had devoured them. These are useful growths in Tunisia, requiring
hardly any moisture and forming, when full-grown, impenetrable walls of
spiky green. They also bring in a respectable revenue. In the district of
Kairouan, for instance, many families draw their entire income from them.
A few have been planted at Sidi Mansur and elsewhere near Gafsa, but they
are unprotected and liable to be trodden down in their early years, or
eaten. Barbed wire, herald of civilization, is almost unknown in these
parts.
Like most tradespeople, this proprietor was rather despondent about the
future of Gafsa. There had certainly been some improvement within the last
twenty years--slight, but steady; the building of the railway station so
far outside the town he considered a disgraceful piece of jobbery, a crime
which had permanently injured the prospects of the place. Merchants, he
said, are entirely dependent on the state of the Metlaoui mines. If, like
last year, these do well, then Gafsa also thrives. If there is a strike or
over-production, as at this moment, Gafsa suffers.
[Illustration: The Roman Wall]
Tourists come to this town, he said, but they leave next day. Nothing is
done to make their stay agreeable.
The natives are not of a kind to take much interest in its welfare. Gafsa
has gone through too many vicissitudes to be anything but a witches'
cauldron of mixed races. Seldom one sees a handsome or characteristic
face. They have not the wild solemnity of the desert folk, nor yet the
etiolated, gentle graces of the Tunisian citizen class; much less the
lily-like personal beauty of the blond Algerian Berbers. Apart from some
men that possess, almost undiluted, the features of the savage Neanderthal
brood that lived here in prehistoric times, the only pure race-type that
survives is one of unquestionably Egyptian origin, one to which Monsieur
Bordereau, in his book on Gafsa, has already referred. No wonder; since
Egyptian invasions of this region went on for centuries, culminating in
the extended sea-dominion of Thotmes III at the end of the seventeenth
century B.C.
A bastard Greco-Latin was the language of the place up to the thirteenth
century A.D.