sanctuary for debtors. East of the mosque, which dates from the 17th century, and just without the inner city walls, here demolished, is the Protestant cemetery of St George, used during the 17th, 18th and the greater part of the 10th centuries. Here are buried several British consuls. Here also was the grave of John Howard Payne, author of “ Home, Sweet Home ” and consul for the United States, who died at Tunis in 1852. In 1883 the body was disinterred and removed to America, but a monument has been placed on the spot similar to that erected over the new tomb at Washington.
The Bazaars.—The native city to the north of the Rue de la Kasbah includes the Jewish quarter and the synagogue. The Jews of Tunis adopt a special costume, the women wearing gaily coloured vests and close-fitting white trousers. Beyond the Jewish quarter, in the Ribat-el-Soweika, is the Place el Halfa-Ouine, a favourite rendezvous of the poorer Moslem population, wherein are many native cafés. South of the Rue de la Kasbah is the bazaar quarter. . Here the streets are very narrow and tortuous, some being vaulted and many covered in with planking. They are known as suks (markets), and each sul-1 is devoted to one particular trade. Beyond paving the streets the French have made no alteration in the suks, which retain their original character unimpaired. The shops consist of small cubes, open in the front, in which the trader squats cross-legged amidst his wares. The principal suks are el-Attarin (market of the perfumers), el-Farashin (carpets and cloths), el-Serajin (saddlery) and el-Birka (jewelry). The suk el-Birka was formerly the slave market. Near by are the green tiled domes and walls enriched with rose-coloured marbles of the mausoleum of the beys.
Public Institutions, &c.—Tunis is furnished with well-equipped hospitals and a large asylum for aged people kept by the Little Sisters of the Poor. The principal educational establishments, besides that of the mosque of the Olive Tree, are the Sadiki College, founded in 1875, for free instruction in Arabic and European subjects, the Lycée Carnot in the Avenue de Paris, formerly the College of St Charles (founded by Cardinal Lavigerie), open to Christians and Moslems alike, and the normal school, founded in 1884 by the reigning bey, for the training of teachers in the French language and European ideas. The Dames de Sion have a large establishment for the teaching of small children of both sexes, and there is a secondary school for girls. All the schools are well attended. About a mile and a half north of the centre of the European quarter, on the slopes of a hill rising 270 ft., is the Parc du Belvedere covering some 240 acres and commanding extensive views. Water is supplied to the city, with its numerous fountains, from jebel Zaghwan (vide infra) by the Roman aqueduct repaired, at a cost of half a million sterling, by the bey Mahommed al-Sadik (d. 1882).
The Port.—The canal which traverses the shallow Bahira, and connects Tunis with the Mediterranean, is nearly seven miles long. By means of breakwaters it is continued beyond the coast-line and is at its mouth 328 ft. wide. It has a uniform depth of 21% ft., but its width within the lake is reduced to 98 ft. In the centre, however, the canal is widened to,147 ft. to allow vessels to pass. There is a harbour at the entrance (see Goletta). That at the Tunis end of the canal is 1312 ft. long by 984 ft. broad, and is of the same depth as the canal. The canal was begun in 1885 and was opened to navigation in June 1893. An additional basin, south-east of the main harbour, was opened in 1905 and is used for the exportation of phosphates. Of the ships using the harbour more than half are French, and one-third Italian, British vessels coming next. British goods, however, are largely carried in French bottoms, and next to France the United Kingdom and Malta take most of the trade of the port. The exports are chiefly phosphates and other minerals, cereals, olive oil, cattle, hides, Sponges and wax. The imports are cotton goods, flour, hardware, coal, sugar, tea, coffee, &c. The figures of trade and shipping are included in those of the trade of the regency (see Tunisia), of which Tunis and Goletta take about a third.
Population.—The population of the city at the census of 1906 was returned at 227,519. The “natives”—Arabs, Berbers, “Moors,” Turks and negroes-were estimated at 100,000, Tunisian Jews at 50,000, French 18,000, Italians 52,000, Maltese 6000. Greeks 500 and Levantines 1000. The French language is predominant in the European quarter.
Environs: The Bardo Palace, Zaghwan, &c.—The environs of Tunis are picturesque and afford many beautiful views, the finest being from the hill on the south-east, 'crowned by a French fort, and from the Belvedere already mentioned. About a mile and a quarter from the Bab Bu Saadun, the north-west gate of the city, is the ancient palace called the Bardo, remarkable for the “lion court,” a terrace to which access is gained by a flight of steps guarded by marble lions, and for some apartments in the Moorish style. The finest of these apartments, containing beautiful arabesque plaster work, formed the old Harem, and-are nowtpart of the Musée Alaoui, which occupies a considerable portion o the Bardo. In this museum M. Paul Gauckler, the director of the department of art and antiquities in the Tunisian government, has formed a magnificent collection of Carthaginian and Roman antiquities, especially Roman mosaics. In the Musée Arabe, which occupies an adjacent small palace built about 1830, are treasures illustrative of the Arab-Berber or Saracenic art of Tunisia.
South-east of the city, along the valley, of the Wadi Melain, are hundreds of large stone arches, magnificent remains of the Roman aqueduct from Zaghwan to Carthage. At Zaghwan (38 m., by rail from Tunis), over the spot whence the spring which supplies the aqueduct issues from the hill, are the ruins of a beautiful Temple of the Waters. The spring is now diverted direct into the aqueduct and is not visible at the surface. Between Zaghwan and Tunis, and accessible by the same railway, is Wadna, the Roman Uthina, where, besides numerous other ruins, are the fairly preserved arches of a large amphitheatre. The ruins of Carthage (q.v.) lie a few miles north of Goletta.
History.—Tunis is probably of greater antiquity than Carthage, of which city however it became a dependency, being repeatedly mentioned in the history of the Punic Wars. Strabo speaks of its hot baths and quarries. The importance of Tunis dates from the Arab conquest, when, as Carthage sank, Tunis took its place commercially and politically. It became the usual port for those going from the sacred city of Kairawan to Spain, and was one of the residences of the Aghlabite dynasty (800-909). In the 10th century it suffered severely, being repeatedly pillaged in the wars of the Fatimite caliphs Al-Qaim and Abu Tahir Isma'il el Mansur with the Sunnite leader Abu Yazid and the Zenata Berbers.
For its later fortunes, see Tunisia, of which regency, since the accession of the Hafsites, Tunis has been the capital.
TUNISIA (Regency of Tunis), a country of North Africa,
under the protection of France, bounded N. by the Mediterranean,
W. by Algeria, E. by Tripoli and S. by the Sahara.
Tunisia reaches farther north than any other-part of Africa,
Ras-al-Abiadh (Cape Blanc)[1] being in 37° 20′ N. On the south
the boundary of the Tunisian Sahara is undetermined, but it
may be roughly placed at 31° N. This would give, therefore,
a greatest length of something like 440 m. The country lies
between 11° 40′ E. and 7° 35′ E. The average length is about
300 m., and the average breadth 150 m.; consequently the area
may be estimated at 50,000 sq. m. (For map, see Algeria.)
Physical Features.—Geographically speaking, Tunisia is merely the eastern prolongation of the Mauretanian projection of northern Africa, of that strip of mountainous, fertile and fairly well-watered. country north of the Sahara desert, which in its flora and its fauna, and to some extent in its human race, belongs rather to Europe than to Africa. Tunisia is divided into the following four fairly distinct regions:—
1. On the north and north-west the Aures mountains of Algeria are prolonged into Tunisia, and constitute the mountainous region of the north, which lies between the Majerda river and the sea, and also includes the vicinity of the city of Tunis and the peninsula of the Dakhelat el Mawin, which terminates in Ras Addar (Cape Bon). This first division is called by the French “the Majerda Mountains.” It includes within its limits the once famous district of the “Kroumirs,”[2] a tribe whose occasional thefts of cattle across the frontier gave the French an excuse to invade Tunisia in 1881. The highest point which the mountains attain in this division of Tunisia is about 4125 ft., near Ain Draham in Kroumiria. The country, however, about Bizerta is very mountainous, though the summits do not attain a greater altitude than about 3000 ft. The district between Bizerta and the Gulf of Tunis is a most attractive country, resembling greatly the mountainous regions of South Wales. It is well watered by streams more or less perennial. The principal river, the Majerda, is formed by the junction of the Wad Malleg and the Wad Kkallad. It and its
- ↑ It is possible that Ras-ben-Sekka, a little to the west of Cape Blanc, may be actually the most northerly point.
- ↑ The French seem systematically unable to master certain sounds foreign to their own language, or sounds which they suppose to be foreign. Thus the “w,” though constantly represented in French by “ou,” is continually changed by them into “v” when they transcribe foreign languages, just as the Greek χ and the German and Scottish “ch” is almost invariably rendered by the French in Aleria and Tunis as “kr.” Add to this the insertion of vowel sounds where they are lacking in the Arabic and you derive from the real word Khmir the modern French term of Kroumir. In like manner sebkha, a salt lake, is constantly written by the French as sebkra.
