the different races now work together in apparent amity, were once the
scene of a sanguinary primitive battle. There is a steep gully at one
point, a dry torrent; the Khabyles lived on one side of it, the
Tripolitans on the other, and between these two races there occurred, on a
starlit night in May, 1905, an affray of unearthly ferocity.
The Khabyles, prudent folk, many of whom had served in the French Army,
had long been laying in a store of warlike provisions; their secret was
well kept, although it was observed that piles of stones were being
collected round their huts, and that a goodly quantity of dynamite and
petroleum was missing from the stores; some of them possessed guns and
revolvers, the rest were armed with knives, daggers and savage mining
gear. They chose a Sunday for the attack, well knowing that the
Tripolitans, who are good-natured simpletons, would be least prepared to
resist them on that day, and half of them in a state of jollification; and
they were so sagacious, that they actually induced a few drunken
Tripolitans to insult them, before beginning the conflict. This, they
knew, would be counted in their favour afterwards.
Hardly was the night come when they advanced in battle array--the fighting
contingent in front; behind them the boys and older men, who kept them
supplied with stones and weapons. A well-nourished volley of missiles
greeted the Tripolitans, some of whom rushed to the fray, while others
took refuge in their huts or with the Moroccans who lived in their own
village near at hand. It was now quite dark, but at close quarters the
stones began to take effect, and hardly was a man down, than five or six
Khabyles ran out of the ranks to finish him off with their knives; others,
meanwhile, went to the locked huts and fired them, or burst them open with
dynamite.
The explosions and lights began to attract attention in Metlaoui; the
whole sky was aflame; there were mysterious bursts of sound, too, and a
chorus of wild howls. Something was evidently wrong, up there.
A party of Europeans, accompanied by a small force of local police, went
up to the mines to investigate. They found themselves powerless; "keep
yourselves out of danger," they were told, "and let us settle our own
affairs." The carnage was in full swing; it was hell let loose. Not
content with killing, they mutilated each other's corpses, bit off noses,
gouged out eyes, and thrust stones in the mouths of the dead; burnt and
hacked and slashed each other till sunrise; no element of bestiality was
lacking. The wounded crawled away to die in caves, or were carried to
nomad camps. The number of the dead was never ascertained; Dufresnoy says
"about a hundred," which is probably below the mark, as an eye-witness saw
three railway trucks loaded with the slain. To this day they find
mouldering human remains, relics of that battle, hidden away in crevices
of the rocks.
Although, once roused, the Tripolitans fought like demons, they were
worsted--the others were too numerous. They had a brief moment of revenge,
however; for during their retreat, on Monday morning, they encountered two
young Khabyle boys who had been on absence and were now returning to work
at the mines, blissfully ignorant of what was going on. These unfortunate
lads were literally torn to shreds.
I confess that, as a spectacle, I should have preferred that night's
engagement to anything in modern warfare. It must have been a stupendous
exhibition of the _bête humaine_.
The Khabyles meditated nothing short of a total extirpation of the
Tripolitan stock; they sent to the mines of Redeyeff for auxiliaries of
their nation, some of whom actually arrived in time for the slaughter; the
rest were intercepted on the hill-paths by the police of Gafsa, who had
been telegraphically summoned and despatched by special train. And soon
afterwards, elated by success, the Khabyles fell foul of the Moroccans and
sent word that they meant to fight them too for sheltering Tripolitan
fugitives in their huts. The Moroccans were delighted at the prospect; but
the management got wind of the project in good time, which was just as
well, for the Moroccans are not only the most orderly of the native
settlers at the mines, but also by far the strongest and fiercest, and it
might have fared ill with the Khabyles. The Tripolitan village has now
been moved to another site--a certain number of troops, too, are
definitely stationed at Metlaoui.
"As usual," said Dufresnoy, "we came in for the blame. They say that we
did not allow the real authors, the Khabyles, to be punished, because they
are French citizens, and all the rest of it. Don't believe a word of that.
If it had been the Tripolitans, we would have acted just the same; we
cannot be bothered with decisions of civil courts, which would have
satisfied nobody, besides depriving us, probably, of a number of good
workmen. There was a little outcry about this, too: that none of the
wounded were treated in our hospital, but carried down to the native
_funduk_ near the station. 'The hospital,' said our director, 'is for
those who are injured in the performance of their duty, and not for
bloodthirsty savages.' That's sound--that's military. One cannot afford to
be sentimental in this country."
I asked what could possibly be the reason for such a ferocious outbreak of
hostility.
"Long-standing animosities of race," he said, "and, as determining cause,
_cherchez la femme_"
"But you said that there were no women on the place."
"_Eh bien, cherchez toujours_...."
And then it also occurred to me that among the mass of local literature
and newspaper files I had perused in his house there was not a single
criticism of this affair. I thought it strange, I said.
He smiled.
"Local politics, my friend! We are obliged to keep the Press well under
control, you know. Don't compare Tunisian life with life in England; there
is no public opinion here, no idea of fair play. These papers, if they
were not subventioned, would print abominations such as no English
journalist could conceive; they would alienate our best friends in the
long run. The company must take account of things as they are, not as they
should be--of Arab savagery, Franco-Tunisian malevolence; of journalistic
venality and public credulity. Whoever is not for us is against us. That
is why the only papers that dare to criticize our management are those
which nobody reads; those, to put it bluntly, which are not worth bribing.
For the rest, there is not a writer in the whole country capable of
grasping either our aims or our methods; the poor fellows have not had the
required education. They only want their mouths stopped."
"That must be more convenient than libel suits; and more economical as
well."
"Just so. Above all things, we are bound to consider the interests of our
shareholders."
_Chapter XV_
_THE SELDJA GORGE_
It is good, after such visions of human infirmity and of death, to ride
over the plain to the Seldja gorge, an astonishing freak of nature. I was
twice within its towering walls of rock; the first time on horseback,
accompanied by a young Tripolitan miner, and in the evening; yesterday
again, in the torrid noon, afoot, alone.
You will do well, in every case, to ride as far as the _bordj_, or
rest-house, that stands near the entrance of the cleft, since there are
about four wearisome miles of level country to be traversed after leaving
Metlaoui. On the first occasion the Tripolitan ran for this whole long
stretch beside my horse, which trotted briskly; he amused himself, none
the less, in belabouring its hind-quarters with a club to make it go still
faster, and I confess to being not scandalized, not inordinately
scandalized, at this performance. We grow hard among the implacable desert
stones. Besides, it was only a hired beast. Any true lover of animals will
understand.
Skirting the foot of the hills that trend along, apparently closed, one
suddenly encounters a broad stream-bed with a rivulet meandering down its
centre; this is the Seldja-water (_arabice_, Thelja). It issues out of a
gateway, hitherto unrevealed; and here you may turn aside from the plain
and enter into the heart of the mountains, into a world of nightmare
effects. This very portal is fantastic, theatrical; it leads into an arena
of riven rocks that might serve as council-chamber for a cloud of Ifrits,
and is closed at the further end. There is a second gateway to be passed
before you can enter the gorge itself.
The track winds upwards--the whole length of the defile is about three
miles--sometimes between walls of rock which are chiselled so smoothly by
the gentle waters that one can hardly believe them to be of natural
workmanship (and at these points, as a rule, your only path is the
stream-bed itself); opening out again into wide amphitheatres, rose-tinted
cirques of desolation, where masses of debris, slipped down from the
heights, lie prone in Dantesque confusion. There are rock-doves and
falcons fluttering about the sunny precipices; cliff-swallows build
precarious habitations against the roof of yawning caverns; sandpipers and
wagtails skim over the streamlet that glides in a smiling flood across
reaches of yellow sand. The charm of water in the waste! This Seldja-brook
is a true child of the sun; cold in the morning and evening hours, its
restless little heart becomes tepid at midday with the glowing beams.
Spiky reeds and tamarisks trip alongside, and the wild fig thrusts
demoniac roots into the crevices; here and there you may see a group of
oleasters, descendants, maybe, of the now vanished Roman olive plantations
in the plain, or a stunted palm that has shot up from the stone cast away
by some passing caravan. For these Oueds are all highways dating from
immemorial ages; there is a ceaseless passage of man and animals along
them.
We passed numbers of camels, groaning and snorting among the slippery
rocks, with the water splashing over their feet; higher up, a large
descending flock of sheep, over six hundred of them, completely blocked up
the valley. They were being led to the plain below, where, thanks to the
recent rains, a succulent but ephemeral crop of green had sprung up. Their
owner was a fine Boujaja, some six and a half feet in height, accompanied
by a sturdy brood of children: milk-drinkers. The upland pastures could
wait, he said. Strange to think that two more showers a year might make
settlers of these vagrants.
It was among these rocks that Philippe Thomas first detected the traces of
those phosphates that have made his name famous. Tissot, in 1878, already
anticipated their discovery.
In point of sheer grandeur, of convulsed stratification and cloven ravine,
of terrorizing features, I have seen gorges far finer than this of Seldja.
Yet it contains one stretch of superlative beauty--a short defile or
cañon, I mean, formed of two opposing precipices with a chasm of some
thirty yards between them; they wind and curve, parallel to one another,
with such magisterial accuracy that one would think they had been designed
with mighty compasses from on high, and then carved out, sagaciously, by
some titanic blade.
Here we halted; it was time to turn back. There was an indentation in the
rocks near at hand, fretted away by hungry floods of the past and
overhung, now, with creepers and drooping fernery, concerning which my
Tripolitan companion told me a long and complicated legend. This shadowy
hollow, he explained, was the bridal couch, in olden days, of an earthly
maiden and her demon-lover. He was a simple fellow, unfortunately, who
knew the story too well to be able to tell it coherently.
On my second visit, however, I pushed vigorously up the stream-bed in the
heat of the morning, determined to reach the head of the waters. Gradually
the aspect of the valley changes. It opens out; the rocks melt away into
bare white dunes, the country assuming the character of a tableland; you
begin to feel a sense of aloofness.
There was blazing sunshine in these upper regions, but a fresh breeze;
this is the Ras el-Aioun, where the French have bridled some of the wild
waters, thrusting them into a tube that carries them in a mad whirl to
their settlement at Metlaoui. Here, too, they have planted a promising
youthful oasis, a kind of nursery garden of poplars and cypresses and
tamarisks and mimosas, in whose shade grow geraniums, mesembryanthemum and
other flowers and creepers, as well as a host of vegetables of every kind.
I soon discovered a recess in this delectable pleasaunce, and began my
solemn preparations for luncheon.
Out of the pool below there resounded a tuneful croaking of frogs: it
spoke of many waters....
Presently an Italian workman or gardener with curly grey hair and
moustache--the ubiquitous Italian--came up and began to talk,--_per fare
un po' di compania_. He conversed delightfully, a smile playing about his
kindly old face. He told me about the garden, about the French engineers,
about himself, chiefly about himself, in limpid, child-like fashion. He
had travelled far in the Old and New Worlds; in him I recognized, once
again, that simple mind of the wanderer or sailor who learns, as he goes
along, to talk and think decently; who, instead of gathering fresh
encumbrances on life's journey, wisely discards even those he set out
with.
Seldja, he told me, used to be a dangerous place for Europeans to
traverse; many robberies and even murders had taken place there in times
past; the new regime, of course, had put an end to all that. But there
were still two perils: the frightful flies that bred diseases and made the
gorge almost impassable in the hot months (every one suffered from
fevers), and the serpents. Ah, those _maladette bestie di serpenti_--they
swarmed among the rocks: they were of every kind and size; worst of all,
the spleenful naja. He himself had killed one that measured two metres in
length and was as thick as a man's arm. They don't wait till you can hit
them, he said, but rush straight at you, swift as an arrow, upraised on
their massive posterior coils, hissing like a steam-engine, and swelling
out their throat with diabolical rage.
This is the beast that figured in the competition between Aaron and
Pharaoh's conjurers, and it remains the favourite of modern African
snake-charmers, who catch it after first irritating it by means of a
woollen cloth wherein the fangs are embedded and broken. It is also, no
doubt, the dreaded species which Sallust describes as infesting the region
of Gafsa. But Lucan goes a little too far in his account of Cato's
expedition into these parts; this veracious historian has inserted a few
pages of sublime serpent nonsense, exquisite fooling....
Of all the deadly worms that breed in these wildernesses the most
formidable, because the most sluggish, is the two-horned nocturnal
cerastes, the "pretty worm of Nilus." No sensible person, nowadays, goes
into the bled[1] [Footnote: This is one of the many Arabic words which
admit of no clear translation. As opposed to a town, it means a village or
encampment; as opposed to that, the open land, a plain, or particular
district. When colonists talk of "going into the bled," they mean their
farms; in newspaper language it signifies the country generally, inhabited
or not--what we should call "the provinces "; oftentimes, again, the
barren desert or (more technically) the soil.] in summer-time unless armed
with a phial of the antidote--Trousse Calmette or Trousse Legros--whose
liquid is injected with a hypodermic syringe above and below the wound,
and has saved many lives.
"And the scorpions, Signore! We have to tie cotton-wool round the legs of
our beds so that these infernal creatures cannot climb up while we are
asleep; they get entangled in it, ha, ha! And that is why we all keep cats
and hens, who eat them, you know, just like the Arabs do. And sometimes it
rains scorpions."
I had heard that story before, from natives; and it may well be founded on
fact. The terrific gusts of desert wind overturn the stones under which
the scorpions lie; the fragile beasts are exposed to the blast and, being
relatively light, swept skyward across leagues of country with the flying
sand. A similar explanation has been given for those old accounts of frog
and fish rains.
"Yes; they drop from the clouds. During certain storms I have picked them
off my clothes, three or four at a time. Rather a ticklish operation,
sir."
So we discussed the world in that umbrageous shelter, to the music of the
frogs. He condescended to partake of a microscopic share of my meal, and
thereafter left me, with some old-world compliment, to irrigate his
thirsty lettuces.
_Chapter XVI_
_AT THE HEAD OF THE WATERS_
I sat alone, screened from the midday heat, drowsy and content. It was a
pleasant resting-place, under that leafy arbour, through which only a few
rays of light could filter, weaving arabesque designs that moved and
melted on the floor as the wind stirred the foliage overhead. And a
pleasant occupation, listening to those amiable amphibians in the mere
below--they carried my thought back to other frog-concerts, dimly
remembered, in some other lands--and gazing through the green network of
branches upon that sun-scorched garden, where now a silvery thread of
water began to attract my attention as it stole, coyly, among the
flower-beds.
The day is yet young, methought; it is too hot to think of marching home
at this hour. Now is the time, rather, for a pipe of _kif_--if only to
demonstrate the difference that exists between man and the ape. For your
monkey can be taught to eat and drink like a Christian; he can even learn
to smoke tobacco. But he cannot smoke _kif_: the stuff would choke him.
Four pipes, reverentially inhaled ... it was almost too much, for a mere
dilettante.
But the mystery of the frogs, the when and where of it, was solved. Slowly
and benignly the memories travelled back, building themselves into a
vision so clear-cut and elaborate withal, that I might have been holding
it, as one holds some engraving or miniature, in my hand. It was in the
Rhine-woods, of course; long years ago, in summertime. But the frog-music
here was not amiable at all; never have I heard such angry batrachian
vociferations. They came in a discontented and menacing chorus from ten
thousand leathery throats, and almost drowned our converse as we crept
along through the twilight of trees that shot up from the swampy earth.
These Rhine-woods are like pathless tropical jungles: everything is so
green and luxuriant; and morning grew to midday while we threaded our way
through the tangle of interlacing boughs and undergrowth. Yet we knew, all
the time, that something else was in store for us, some joy, some
surprise. And lo! there was an opening in the forest, and we suddenly
found ourselves standing upon the summit of a high bank at whose foot
there rolled a sunlit and impetuous torrent. Too staid for the formation
of ripples, too swift for calm content, the river seemed to boil up from
below in a kind of frolicsome rage. A blissful sight.
"_Er spinnt_" my companion was saying.
In what obscure chamber of the brain had those words slumbered, closely
folded, for thirty years? It was indeed an authentic weaving of arabesque
designs upon the even texture of the living liquid mass; multitudinous
rings and ovals and lozenges were cast up from the green depths as from a
mighty over-bubbling cauldron; some fiercely engulfed again, others torn
hither and thither into new and pleasing shapes, fresh ones for ever
emerging; only a few contrived to linger unchanged, floating in sunny
splendour down the face of the waters. A blissful sight! The dark and mazy
woodlands, now, were left far behind--the croaking of the frogs sounded
strangely distant. We gazed in ecstasy upon that shining flood....
On my return journey down the Seldja gorge, that afternoon, I had a narrow
escape. It struck me that it would be more agreeable, instead of once more
following the windings of the brook, to proceed along the railway--a
single line--that climbs down from Ras-el-Aioun to within a few hundred
yards of the _bordj_, where my horse was waiting. It was easier walking;
it would also be shadier (in the tunnels) and, last and chiefest, I would
enjoy a change of scene by looking down into the valley instead of up at
the cliffs.
Plausible reasoning.
This line is a pretty little piece of engineering; there are bridges and
steep embankments that afford fine views into the tortuous depths of the
gorge; there are tunnels, blasted into the rock without lining of masonry,
deliciously cool and all too short--all too short save one, that seemed
never-ending. It writhed about, too, in that dark mountain; I saw no speck
of light, either before or behind me; the iron roadway was raised about a
foot, on rough stones, above the narrow path that followed the jagged,
irregular wall of rock along which I was groping and stumbling. Rather an
awkward place, I thought, to meet a train----
And as if in that reflection had lain the potency of a spell, there came
upon me, at that moment, from behind, a distinct blast of wind and a low
rumbling sound. I pricked up my ears. There was no doubt about it: a
train, still invisible, was gliding in good-natured fashion, with steam
shut off, down the gradient. A considerable number of ideas, incongruous
and quite beside the mark, passed through my mind; but also this one--if I
ran, I should inevitably stumble against a sleeper or some projecting
stone; if I stumbled, I should lose my presence of mind, and then,
perhaps--! Meanwhile, the noise grew louder, deafening; already, in
imagination, I felt the monster's hot breath upon me.
Walking steadily, therefore, for a few more yards, I felt a little cavity
in the rough-hewn wall of rock that appeared deeper than the others; there
I compressed myself, feeling flatter than a turbot, and absurdly resigned.
It was the nick of time. The earth was trembling under the mechanical
horror; it passed me, with a roar and rush of wind, by I know not how many
inches; there were flashes of light, a screeching of machinery, an acrid
smell of mineral oils and heated metal. Then all was over again, save for
a choking-fit produced by a deluge of bituminous coal.
Just a little flutter.
But outside that tunnel, in the sunshine, I sat down and indulged in
certain musings. _Suicide of an Englishman in Tunisia_: that was it;
inasmuch as even they who know me well could hardly be brought to believe
that such an act of abysmal foolishness, as this of not investigating on
which side the safety-niches were, could be the result of accident. An
ignoble, ridiculous death.
It must have been a fit of temporary obliviousness, brought about by the
unaccustomed heat of the sun.
Or possibly the _kif_....
It affects people differently.
I must limit myself to three pipes, in future.
_Chapter XVII_
_ROMAN OLIVE-CULTURE_
Now, on the former occasion, instead of descending into the _bordj_ from
the railway line, I rode with the Tripolitan once more out of the
rock-portal into the plain, that glowed with the fugitive fires of sunset.
It is a treeless waste, bereft of every sign of cultivation.
And yet, if you look on your left hand as you issue from the gorge, you
will perceive, at the very narrowest point, some fragments of ancient
masonry adhering to the cliff; they are all that remains of a Roman dam
which blocked up the valley, regulated the supply of water flowing from
above, and purified it from stones and sand. The inference is clear: the
plain must have been cultivated in those days. Likely enough, it was
covered, like many other parts of "Africa," with olives, that drew their
life from this judiciously managed water-supply.
The Oued Seldja to-day fulfils no such useful function. Once the
rock-portal is passed, it unlearns all its sprightly grace and trickles
disconsolately through the sands, expiring, at last, in the dreary Chott
el Rharsa.