Kitabı oku: «In the Land of Mosques & Minarets», sayfa 17
CHAPTER XXVI
THE OASIS OF TOZEUR
ONE arrives at Tozeur via Sfax and Gafsa and the light narrow-gauge railway belonging to the company exploiting the phosphate mines. Beyond Gafsa the line runs to Metlaoui, peopled only by six hundred phosphate workers of the mines, a mixed crew of Arabs, Sicilians, and Maltese, speaking a veritable jargon des ours, which nobody but themselves can understand. It is strange, this little industrial city of the desert, but it is unlovely, consisting only of little whitewashed cubes of houses, a school-house, a miniature church and mosque, and a few miserable little shops.
Gafsa is the chief metropolis of the region of the chotts. It is called by the Arabs the pearl of the Djérid, and is a military post, and the bled, or market town, for untold thousands of desert nomads. The same word bled, when used by the city dweller, means the desert. Such are the inconsistencies of Arab nomenclature. They almost equal our own.
Tozeur is reached from Gafsa by any one of a half dozen means. On foot, on bicycle, – if you will, by automobile, – if you have the courage, by diligence, calèche, or on horse, donkey, or camel back. If by either of the latter means, you will of course be accompanied by a grinning blackamoor who will respond to the name of Mohammed, and be thoroughly useless except to prod the animal now and then. You and he will understand each other by sign language, or by what might be called phonetic French, and you will get on very well. Tozeur is eighty odd kilometres from Gafsa over a “route carrossable,” as the French describe a carriage road, – sandy and rutty in places; but still a road which ranks considerably higher than most of those of Ohio or Indiana. There are no means of obtaining provisions, or even water, en route, so the journey must be made either in a day, or arrangements made for camping out overnight. With a good guide the journey might preferably be made at night, for a nocturnal ramble in the desert is likely to awaken emotions in the sentimentally inclined which will be something unique among their previous experiences.
An Arab horse or mule will think nothing of doing sixty kilometres between sunrise and sunset, but if a calèche is to be one’s mode of conveyance, thirty-six hours is none too long to allow for the journey from Gafsa to Tozeur.
The high-class Arab professes a contempt for the donkey or the mule, though this indeed is no part of his creed, for we must not ignore that it was a donkey that the Prophet most loved among beasts.
For the masses who have passed the bourriquet stage, the mule is the beast of burden par excellence. The Bey of Tunis, when he takes his promenades abroad, has a team of six mules attached to his band-wagon coach, and superb and distinguished-looking beasts they are; but the desert Sheik will have nothing but an Arabian horse, not the “charger shod with fire” of the drawing-room song, but a sound, sturdy, agile beast, a good goer and handsome to look upon.
The indigène’s mule will amble along over a desert track fourteen or sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, carrying his human burden in the characteristic Arab saddle known as a borda, and scarcely seeming to feel the weight.
The Arab is habitually kind to his beast of burden, at least he is no more cruel to him than most lighter coloured humanity, and not nearly as much so as the Sicilian and the Spaniard.
The little donkey to which the Prophet showed compassion was doubtless a contrary little beast at times; but, since he is reputed to have been able to go leagues and leagues without either eating or drinking, loaded with burdens at which a full-grown mule and horse had balked, the bourriquet of the desert Arab must have had (and has) some undeniable virtues. Not often is his lot an unhappy one, and the strangling curb and bit and the resounding whacks from a spade or shovel, with which the sunny-faced Italian usually regales his four-footed friends, are seldom to be noted in North Africa. The Arab is voluntarily just towards all living things, and if he sometimes forgets himself, and gives his camel or his donkey a vicious prod, he, perhaps, has had provocation, for both are contrary beasts at times.
En route one passes many caravans, fifty or a hundred camels in a bunch, half as many horses and mules, a score of donkeys, and a troop of women, children, and dogs bringing up the rear. Most of them are making for Kairouan or Gabès, coming from Algeria through the gateways of El Oued and Ourgala. The camels march in Indian file, loaded down with bales and barrels, a hundred, a hundred and fifty and more kilos to each. No other means of transportation is so practicable for the commerce of the desert, nor will be until some one invents a broad-tired automobile that won’t sink in the sand. The camel’s foot, by the way, doesn’t sink in the sand, and that is why he is more of a success in the desert than any other carrier. When the ideal automobile for the desert comes, the ship of the desert will disappear, as the horse is disappearing from the cities and towns of Europe and America.
Intermingled with the caravans are occasional flocks of sheep, black-faced sheep and rams, with two, three, and even four horns apiece, and fat, wobbly tails of extraordinary size, the characteristic, it seems, of the sheep of the Sud-Tunisien. Like the hump and the six stomachs of the camel, this fat caudal appendage of the Tunisian sheep is a sort of reserve supply of energy, and when it is dry picking along the route, they live on their fat. Other animals often starve under like conditions.
Long before Tozeur is reached one wonders if the guide has not lost his bearings. Probably he hasn’t, but it is all like the trackless ocean to the man in the saddle, and the mule or donkey or camel doesn’t seem to care in the least which way his head is turned so long as he is not made to push forward at full speed.
If one encounters a native, the guide being momentarily hidden behind a sand-dune, most likely a bonjour or a salut will be forthcoming; but that is all. The native’s French vocabulary is often small, and in these parts he is quite as likely to know as much of Italian, Maltese or Hebrew. One that we encountered looked particularly intelligent, so after the formal courtesies of convention, we risked:
“Tozeur? loin?”
“Là-bas.”
“Combien de temps?”
“Il en faut.”
“Quelle distance?”
“Au bout.”
Our interrogatory was not a success. Another time we should trust to our guide and bury suspicion. The Arab has some admirable traits, but he often does not carry things to a finish, not even for his own benefit, and his acquaintance with French is apt to be limited and his conversation laconic. The Oriental proverb on the life of the nomad suits the Arab to-day as well as it ever did.
Mieux vaut être assis que debout,
Couché qu’ assis,
Mort que couché.
Finally a blue line of haze appears on the horizon, something a little more tangible than anything seen before, unless indeed it prove to be a mirage. If not a mirage, most likely it is Tozeur, or rather the palms surrounding that sad, but interesting centre of civilization.
“Tozeur?” you ask again, of Mohammed this time, and that faithful Arab with a curt assent breathes the words “C’est bien ça.” Mohammed is learned, has mingled with the world, and is suspicious that your confidence in his powers is not all that he would have wished. “Well, here we are,” he thinks, “now what have you got to say?” “C’est bien ça: Tozeur! Oui! oui! Je n’ai trompé pas jamais, moi, Mohammed.” By this time he has thought it all out and is really mad, but his mood soon passes and he becomes as before, taciturn, faithful and willing. The Arab doesn’t bear malice for trivial things.
By contrast with the houses of Kairouan, Sousse and Sfax, which cut the blue of the sky with a dazzling line of white, Tozeur is but a low, rambling mud-coloured town of native-made bricks called tobs. The impression from afar is one singularly sad and gloomy, for the architectural scheme of the builders of Tozeur is more akin to that of the Soudanese than to that of the Berber or Arab. In its detailed aspect the architecture of Tozeur is remarkably appealing, quaint, decorative, and founded on principles which the Roman builders of old spread to all corners of the known world of their day. This may be the evolution of the architecture of Tozeur or it may not, but certainly the flat-brick construction is wonderfully like that of the baths and cisterns of the Romans.
Tozeur itself is melancholy, but its situation is charming and contrastingly interesting to all who hitherto have known only the Arabe-Mauresque architecture of the cities of the littoral, or the Roman ruins of the dead cities of Lambessa, Timgad and Tebessa. The little garrison which the French planted here some years ago has gone, and only a few European functionaries remain, those in control of the impôt, a doctor and an innkeeper, who doubtless means well, but who has a most inadequate establishment. And this in spite of the fact that Tozeur is the capital of the Djérid.
The Djérid itself is a great expansive region between the plateau steppes and the desert proper. The natives are Berbers who have become what the French call Arabisé, though many of their traditions seem to be paganly Roman rather than Mussulman.
The hotel accommodations of Tozeur are endurable, but as before said they are inadequate. Travellers are rare in this desert oasis, and two or three sleeping-rooms scantily furnished – a bed, a chair and a wash-basin – are the extent of the resources of Mme. Besson’s apologetic little hotel.
Tozeur’s market is a mere alley of inverted V-shaped huts of reed, wherein are sold – after much solemn bargaining and drinking of coffee – all the small wants of the desert Arab, such as a morsel of town-baked bread, hobnails for his shoes, a piece of tanned leather – with the fur on – with which to make a new sole, a hank of thread, a tin pot or pan, or a bandanna handkerchief – which however must have stamped upon its border some precept from the Koran. The Arab’s personal wants are not great, and as he almost invariably carries his worldly goods about with him they are accordingly not bulky.
Our only diversion at Tozeur was watching an hysterical fête or pilgrimage to the neighbouring tomb of a marabout who died in recent years richly endowed with sanctity. The history of this holy man was told us as follows:
This man, Alfaoui, had lived all his life in Algeria, practising the virtues of the Koran so assiduously that he was reckoned by his friends and neighbours as one of the good and great. Having taken too active a part in the insurrection of 1871, when the whole country – except Kabylie – was ablaze with sedition, he fled precipitately from Algeria and settled with his goods and chattels at Tamerza in Tunisia, one of the oasis villages of Tozeur, arriving in time to great repute and respect among the people.
Alfaoui’s compact with Allah was not however so intimate but that he occasionally conspired against the French, who, in the eighties, came to occupy Tunisia, as they had Algeria fifty years before. His conspiracies were in a way harmless enough, and consisted principally in “doing” the French officials at every opportunity. He refused to pay his taxes, and advised his followers to do the same; he smuggled tobacco, firearms and matches, and trafficked in them among the natives, to the loss of a certain revenue to the fiscal authorities, who, when they finally ran him to earth en flagrant délit, found only some thousands of empty match boxes with English labels, – but made in Belgium nevertheless, – the kind of matches where you scratch three before you get one to burn, or as the French say of their own abominable allumettes, it takes a match to light a match.
Alfaoui was tried and condemned by the French tribunal, and it was this ready-made “martyrdom by infidels” that caused the faithful roundabout to elevate the meddlesome Alfaoui the Algerian to the distinction of a marabout, and a house or kouba was built for him entirely of brick taken from the sepulchres of a neighbouring cemetery. Thus are holy reputations made to order in the fanatical faith of the Mussulman. Alfaoui’s followers to-day are many, and without knowing why they venerate him, thousands make the pilgrimage to his shrine, and wail and chant and weep and have a good time generally. The government says nothing. It fears nothing to-day, and since the Mussulman must have many and convenient shrines for the excesses of his devotion to the principles of the Koran, why that of a contrebandier and agitator serves as well as any other and no harm done.
The great date-palm plantations of Tozeur are watered by a complicated system of irrigating canals whose flood-gates are opened every morning by the authorities. A very deep spring gives an abundant supply of sweet, limpid water which runs in miniature rivulets around and through the tentacle-like roots of the Djérid’s million palm-trees, bringing the means of livelihood and prosperity to a conglomerate population of thirty thousand souls. Thirty millions of kilogrammes of dates bring a considerable profit to the cultivator, even if a goodly share does go to the exploiter, the transportation company and the middleman. Four hundred thousand frances in taxes and duties are collected yearly, from this most fertile of all African date-growing regions.
All this is something to think about and marvel at when one is threading his way slowly through the palisaded trunks of a grove of a million palm-trees. The Arab knows the value of dates as a food product, but it needed the European to exploit the industry profitably.
The Arab’s veneration for the date-palm is great, and he affectionately refers to it as “the tree which grows with its feet in the water and its head in the fire of the sky.”
There is another product of the palm-tree less beneficial to man, and that is a sort of wine or sap which is gathered much as the Mexican gathers pulque, or as the resin is sapped from the pine-tree. It’s a soft, pleasant, somewhat sticky liquid, seemingly innocuous, but its after effects may be safely guaranteed as being of the “stone-fence” variety. The Arab, by tradition, is a temperate person in food and drink, but the European has taught him to drink white wine and he himself has copied the French and taken (in small numbers fortunately) to absinthe, and now he has got a ready-made distillery of lagmi in every palm-tree. The government proposes some sort of control of this “moonshining,” but the wheels of the law, like those of God, move slowly, and the seed of dissolution may yet be sown among the Arabs of Tozeur before the fiscal authorities find a way to levy a tax on lagmi.
No one who ever saw the indigène villages attached to a fertile Saharan oasis will fail to remark that in spite of the proximity of the cool, welcome shadow of the thick-growing palm-trees, the adobé (tob) huts are invariably huddled together upon some blazing, baked spot of ground with not so much shelter from the sun’s rays as is given by a flagpole. Why indeed is it so? The Arab may be like the Neapolitan in his contempt for those who walk or live in the shade, but certainly the sun-baked existence which most dwellers in Arab mud houses live for twelve months out of the twelve must be enervating and discouraging, or would be if the Arab ever felt the effects of heat and cold, which apparently he does not. Perhaps this is the explanation of the motive which prompts him to select his town sites where he does. The case is not so hopeless though; the palm-tree grows quickly; and a dozen years would transform the most dreary, monotonous Arab town of sun-cured mud walls and roofs into a garden city which would rival Paradise. Perhaps some day the “movement” – as we call the latest vogue in America and England – will strike North Africa, and then we shall have graded streets, lamp-posts on every corner and artificial lakes with goldfish in them. And then where will be the rude picturesqueness of the Arab town which charms us to-day?
Tozeur is not a lovely town, even as African towns go, but it is interesting, comfortable, and accessible, after you have once got to Sfax and Gafsa. It is altogether a little bit of mediævalism which even the life of the Arab of to-day cannot change. And there is scarcely any evidence plainly visible to indicate that Tozeur is not living three centuries back in the past.
The environs of Tozeur offer views of ravishing beauty to the artist or the more sentimentally inclined. From the height of the minaret of Ouled-Medjed one commands a view of the entire oasis of Degach, with here and there a clump of dismantled ruined habitations and on the horizon the illimitable, miraculous desert mirage.
To the direct south is the great chott, so shallow that the trail to Gabès can cross it at its widest part. To the four cardinal points one frames his views of that marvellous African landscape; seen only at its best from within a horseshoe-arched window, the invariable ogive accompaniment of the true Arab replica of Moorish architecture.
The view from the height of Tozeur’s mosque is a replica of that of which Richepin sang. It is not Kipling, but it is good sentiment, nevertheless.
“Loin, loin, toujours plus loin, la mer morte des sables
S’étalait sans limite, et rien ne remuait
Sur l’immobilité des flots infranchissables,
Sur l’immobilité de l’air lourd et muet.”
Coming down to earth, and making our way gropingly back to Mme. Besson’s humble rest house, a storm broke over our heads. It came with the suddenness of night; and sticks and stones and much sand, and hailstones as big as plover’s eggs, fell through a suffocating stillness with blinding force. It was all over in a moment. It came and went like the characters of the stage, without announcement and without adieu, and Tozeur settled down again to its wonted calm.
The muezzin calls to prayer at sundown and night falls brusquely on the silent desert air as if an inky wave had engulfed all before it.
