A White City Near An Ancient Grave

( Originally Published 1923 )

AT Constantine I dismissed my chauffeur and car, they returning to Algiers, while I continued by train to Tunis, stopping over for a day at Hamman Meskoutine.

In a pretty little dell, luxuriant with trees and vegetation, are located hot springs, bubbling forth their lime-impregnated water at two hundred and five degrees temperature. During the ages these calcareous waters have gradually left a great lime deposit, forming the cascade over which the waters tumble to a stream sixty feet below, from which rises a mist of steam. The cascade is colorful and particularly fortunate in its attractive environs : great eucalyptus trees, rugged old olives, palms and oleanders, and the whole scene situated in a setting entirely surrounded by great hills. The springs themselves are indeed a modest affair compared with some of the gigantic geysers of the Yellow-stone, which are much greater in volume, and more varied and beautiful in coloring. The hotel is in a grove of old olive trees, with a lovely orangery and garden close at hand, and affords good accommodations to visitors. It is claimed that the waters are very efficacious in cases of rheumatism and kindred ailments.

There is here, too, connected with these springs, an interesting legend of an incestuous marriage.

"A rich and powerful Arab possessed a sister of wondrous beauty, and deeming her too lovely to be married to any but himself, he determined to espouse her, in spite of the prohibition of the Mohammedan law, and supplications of the elders of his tribe, whose opposition he negatived by the delightfully simple and charming process of cutting off their heads.

"Then commenced the usual marriage festivities, and as the accursed couple were about to retire, the elements were set in motion; fire came out of the earth, the water left its bed, and the thunder pealed forth in a fearful manner. When tranquillity was restored, the Arab and his sister and every one connected with the feast were found petrified, and cones, built up by the deposits of the water, still representing the actors of this drama."

Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, which is now a French protectorate, has a population of two hundred thousand inhabitants. The modern portion is typically French,—wide boulevards planted with trees, modern buildings, tram service, and so forth. You need but to pass through the old, massive gate-way, Porte du France, however, and almost immediately you are in a maze of rambling, tunnel-like passage-ways, the Souks, which have the appearance in places of the wine caves of Epernay. Shafts of light are admitted here and there by openings through the vaulted ceilings covering these passageways, while others of these meandering narrow alleys are only covered by wood or even strips of canvas. The effects of the lights and shadows are extremely artistic and picturesque, and one encounters jostling crowds of bargaining natives, Arabs, Moors, Bedouins, but mostly Jews, who swarm these alleys like bees from a hive. The faces of the women are covered by black crepe veils, only the eyes showing through slits and producing a weird effect. It is here in Tunis that we have an inter-mingling of people and customs, modern and ancient, that at once makes this Oriental city most interesting. Along these vaulted passage-ways are tiny shops or stalls, which appear like openings to caves. These little shops are slightly elevated, and usually not more than five feet wide, seven feet deep, and six feet high. A rope hangs in front of them, where-with the proprietor, grasping same, pulls him-self up into his bazaar, and squats among his stock in trade, consisting of that particular variety of merchandise in which the alley, where the store is located, specializes : for example, perfume, jewelry, candles, fezzes, metalwares, saddlery, shoes (mostly slippers, yellow and red, and many embroidered), and the like. These quaint and picturesque Souks are unequaled and unlike any other place, and present features of great interest to artists and tourists. Merchants are seen squatting among shoes or slippers; tailors bending over their sewing; candlestick-makers offering candles with five branches and decorated with paper rings suggesting the red hand of Fatima, often seen painted on the doorways of Mohammedan houses ; vendors of perfume that has the delicate freshness and purity of a flower garden, and some which never knew the spirit of flowers, but which are both tantalizing and seductive.

Our wandering brought us to the old slave market where hundreds of white captives, through the piracy of the Berbers and before Decatur and other champions of civilization had taught them better manners, were sold into bondage.

Domes and minarets rise above the low, flat-roofed structures which so largely make up this city. Among the most interesting buildings are the Old Mosque and the Palace of the Bey. The former, however, is not open to Christians.

Near the White City of Tunis is the grave of the ancient city of Carthage. Elissa or Dido, who was the daughter of the Tyrian king, fled from Tyre because of the tyranny of her brother, Pygmalion, and is said to have landed with other exiles on the north coast of Africa in 846 B.C., and there to have bought as much land as could be covered by the skin of an ox. By craftily dividing the skin into very thin strips, they obtained a piece of land sufficient to enable them to build a fortress. This new dwelling place or city which grew up around the fortress, the wanderers called Karthade ; that is, the new city. Thus began the city of Carthage (Duncker's history of Antiquity). The story is also told that the local chieftain, Iarbas by name, from whom Dido made this original Carthage land purchase, later sought her hand in marriage, with threat of war for failure to comply. To escape his ultimatum, Dido stabbed herself upon a funeral pyre that she had had constructed.

Little is known of this city before the fourth, third, and second centuries, B.C. Carthage prospered greatly, and the maximum of her power was attained before her first war with Rome which began in 264 B.C. The first and second Punic Wars greatly reduced her strength and dominion, but even as late as 15o B.C. before the third Punic War, Carthage had a population of seven hundred thousand, and occupied a fortified circumference of about twenty miles. After suffering the vicissitudes of the Punic Wars between the Carthaginians and the Romans, the city was in 439 A.D. taken by the Vandals and later captured and completely destroyed by the Arabs in 698 A.D.

Its very stones, in the form of exquisite pillars and beautiful carved marble, have been looted and carried away. Of the glory and splendor of Carthage, little remains today be-sides heaps of rubbish, excavation mounds, and portions of a noble aqueduct. After visiting Timgad or even Drugga, the ruins of Carthage, with the exception of the great aqueduct, are a disappointment. However, the Lavigerie museum, located here, is filled with archæological treasures : sarcophagi, skeletons, skulls, and bones; lovely little vases beautifully embellished and choice decorations in fine detail; personal ornaments such as necklaces, cameos, rings, scarabs; and specimens of such practical things as razors, wine and milk jars, terra cotta lamps, spikes, nails, cooking utensils, and so forth.

It requires a vivid imagination to repeople this scene; but, nevertheless, these skeletons, skulls, and bones, these specimens of art and commerce, are authentic links that connect us with the activities of a great people in a great city, of a period earlier than the beginning of the Christian era.