the internal condition of the country. In the third quarter of the 19th century not more than a tenth part of the fertile land was under cultivation, and the yearly charge on the public debt exceeded the whole annual revenue. In these circumstances only the rivalry of the European powers that had interests in Tunisia protracted from year to year the inevitable revolution. The French began to regard the dominions of the Bey as a natural adjunct to Algeria, but after the Crimean War Turkish rights over the regency of Turns were revived. After the Franco-German War the embarrassed Bey turned towards Great Britain for advice, and a British protectorate—suggested by the proximity of Malta—was not an impossibility under the remarkable influence of the celebrated Sir Richard Wood, British diplomatic agent at the court of Tunis from 1855 to 1879. The railways, lighthouses, gas and Waterworks and other concessions and industries were placed in British hands. But in 1878, at the Congress of Berlin, Lord Salisbury agreed to allow France a “free hand” in Tunisia in return for French acquiescence in the British lease of Cyprus.
After 1862, however, the kingdom of Italy began to take a deep interest in the future of Tunisia. When the country went bankrupt in 1869, a triple control was established over Tunisian finances, with British, French and Italian “controllers.” In 1880 the Italians bought the British railway from Tunis to Goletta. This and Occupation by the French. other actions excited the French to act on the secret understanding effected with the British foreign minister at the Berlin Congress. In 1881 a French force crossed the Algerian frontier under pretext of chastising the independent Khmir or Kroumir tribes on the north-east of the regency, and, quickly dropping the mask, advanced on the capital and compelled the Bey to accept the French protectorate. The actual conquest of the country was not effected without a serious struggle with Moslem fanaticism, especially at Sfax; but all Tunisia was brought completely under French jurisdiction and administration, supported by military posts at every important point. In 1883 the new situation under the French protectorate was recognized by the British government withdrawing its consular jurisdiction in favour of the French courts, and in 1885 it ceased to be represented by a diplomatic official. The other powers followed suit, except Italy, which did not recognize the full consequences of the French protectorate until 1896. In 1884 a thorough reform of the government and administration of the country was begun under the direction of a succession of eminent French residents-general. In 1897 Great Britain surrendered her commercial treaty. with Tunisia and agreed (subject to a special temporary privilege regarding cotton goods) to allow her commerce and all other relations with Tunisia to be subjected to the same conditions as those affecting all such relations between Britain and France.
The French protectorate over Tunisia, based on the treaty signed by the Bey at Bardo on the 12th of May 1881 and confirmed by the treaty of La Marsa (June 8, 1883), was not recognized by Turkey, which claimed the regency as part of the Ottoman dominions. The protests of the Porte were ignored by the French, and in 1892 Turkey so Relations with Turkey. far recognized the actual situation as to determine the Tunisia-Tripoli frontier as far south as Ghadames. South of that point the Saharan frontiers of Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli remained undefined. Working eastward from Tunisia and Algeria the French occupied several points to which Turkey laid claim. Thus the oasis of Janet, S.S.W. of Rhat, was occupied in 1906. The action of France led to counter-action by Turkey and to, various frontier incidents. Janet was reoccupied by Ottoman troops in the summer of 1910, but in deference to French protests the troops were withdrawn pending the delimitation of the frontier. At the same time Turkey maintained the claim that Tunisians were Ottoman subjects.
Frontier troubles had however little effect on the remainder of the protectorate. In 1904–1905 there were famines and some native discontent in the south of Tunisia; but in general the country has prospered amazingly under the French protectorate. The native dynasty has been strengthened rather than weakened, and Tunisia may be pointed out as the best and wisest example of French administration over an alien land and race. Though on a smaller scale it is worthy to be set as a pendant to the British work in Egypt.
Bibliography.—Of Arabic sources accessible in translations the geographical works of Yaʽkubī (Descriptio al Magribi, by De Goeje, Leiden, 1860), Al-Bakrī (Descr. de l’Afrique septentrionale, by De Slane, Paris, 1859; Arabic text, ibid. 1857) and Idrisi (Descr. de l’Afrique, &c., by Dozy and De Goeje, Leiden, 1866) belong to the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries respectively; the history of Ibn Khaldun (Hist. des Berbères, by De Slane, 4 vols., Algiers, 1852–1856) includes the earlier Hafsites, that of Al-Kāirawanï (Hist. de l’Afrique, by Pelissier and Rémusat, Paris, 1845, in Expl. scient. de l’Algérie, vol. vii.; Arabic text, Tunis, 1286 A.H.) deals especially with Tunisia and goes down to 1681. Especially valuable and lucid are the following works: Ernest Mercier, Histoire de l’Afrique septentrionale (Berberie) (3 vols., Paris, 1891), and Histoire de l’établissement des Arabes dans l’Afrique septentrionale selon les auteurs arabes (Paris, 1875); Stanley Lane Poole, The Barbary Corsairs (“Story of the Nations Series,” London, 1890), deals in part with the history, of Tunisia. Other works which should be studied are: Dr Thos. Shaw’s Travels (1757); Leo Africanus’s description of Africa in Ramusio and in Purchas’s Pilgrims; Rousseau, Annales tunisiennes (Algiers, 1864); the late Sir R. Lambert Playfair, In the Footsteps of Bruce (London, 1887); A. M. Broadley, Tunis, Past and Present (Edinburgh, 1882); Guerin, Voyage archéologique (Paris, 1862); D’Hérisson, Mission archéologique en Tunisie (Paris, 1884); E. D. Schoenfeld, Aus den Staaten er Barbaresken (Berlin, 1902); Sir Harry Johnston, The Colonization of Africa (Cambridge, 1905); Gaston Loth, La Tunisie et l’œuvre du protectorat français (Paris, 1907); Professor Arthur Girault, Principes de colonisation et de législation colonial, vol. iii. (3rd ed., Paris, 1908). Lists of all the rulers of Tunisia will be found in A. M. H. J. Stokvis, Manuel d’histoire, vol. i. (Leiden, 1898). The geography of Tunisia was first treated scientifically by E. Pélissier in the 16th volume of his Explor. scient. de l’Algérie (Paris, 1853); and by C. Tissot, Explor. scient. de la Tunisie: Géog. comparée de la province romaine d’Afrique (2 vols., Paris, 1884–1888); also in Murray's Handbook, by Sir R. L. Playfair (1887). The works of Canon Tristram on the Sahara describe southern Tunisia in the ’sixties of the 19th century. Two important articles on Tunisia appeared in Nos. 22 and 23 of the Revue générale des sciences (Paris, Nov. 30 and Dec. 15, 1896). Still more valuable is La Tunisie française, in two volumes, a government publication (Paris, 1896). An article on the Tunisian Sahara, the Tunisian Cave-Dwellers and Berber Languages, &c., by Sir H. H. Johnston, was published in the Geog. Journ. for June 1898. Other articles by the same author appeared in the Graphic during the years 1899, 1900 and 1902. An interesting dissertation on the question of the Berber race is given in Professor A. H. Keane's Man, Past and Present. Numerous other works in English and French have been published on Tunisia from the tourist's point of view; the best of these is by Douglas Sladen, Carthage and Tunis (2 vols., 1908). Gaston Boissier, L’Afrique romaine (1895), is a picturesque but somewhat superficial aperçu of the principal Roman ruins. Flaubert's Sâlammbo ought always to be read by those who visit Carthage and Tunisia. It was mainly written at La Marsa, near Carthage. See also H. S. Ashbee, Bibliography of Tunisia (London, 1889). (H. H. J.)
TUNNEL (Fr. tonnel, later tonneau, a diminutive from Low Lat. tonna, tunna, a tun, cask), a more or less horizontal underground passage made without removing the top soil. In
former times any long tube-like passage, however constructed,
was called a tunnel. At the present day the word is sometimes
popularly applied to an underground passage constructed by
trenching down from the surface to build the arching and then
refilling with the top soil; but a passage so constructed, although
indistinguishable from a tunnel when completed, is more correctly termed a “covered way,” and the operations “cutting”
and “covering,” instead of tunnelling. Making a small tunnel,
afterwards to be converted into a larger one, is called “driving
a heading,” and in mining operations small tunnels are
termed “galleries,” “drift ways” and “adits.” If the underground
passage is vertical it is a shaft; if the shaft is begun
at the surface the operations are known as “sinking”; and
it is called a “rising” if worked upwards from a previously
constructed heading or gallery.
Tunnelling has been effected by natural forces to a far greater extent than by man. In limestone districts innumerable swallow-holes, or shafts, have been sunk by the rain water following joints and dissolving the rock, and from the bottom of these shafts tunnels have been excavated to the sides of
