154 A Visit to Tunis [1894 



with stair and passage leading to the harem at two of the corners. 

 The furnishing is simple and Oriental, but without pretence. Terence 

 keeps one young man as house servant, a porter and two women, a 

 widow and her sister, whom being in poor circumstances, he took into 

 his house through kindness, Moslems though they are, without offence 

 in the neighbourhood, and who are his servants, strong, able-bodied 

 women who go silently about the rooms with arms and legs bare and 

 unveiled. 



" After an excellent breakfast, Terence took me to the bazaars, 

 which are more beautiful and more purely Oriental than any I have 

 seen, and then to the Bey's town palace, built, but on a large scale, 

 in the same style as his own little house, which I have just described. 

 In contrast to all this we then passed through the French quarter, mean, 

 noisy, and with stinks beyond description, whereas the Arab town is 

 sedate and clean and quiet. I have never anywhere seen a contrast so 

 entirely in favour of Islam. Tunis has recently been made a seaport 

 by the French, through the device of banking up and dredging a State 

 canal, across the shallow lagoon which divides Tunis from the sea, 

 just as the Suez Canal crosses Lake Menzaleh, it is difficult to under- 

 stand with what commercial object, as there is not sufficient space 

 inside for many ships to lie. A better plan would have been to make 

 the port at Goleta, the site of Carthage, which is near the sea, and is 

 already connected by railway with Tunis. 



" 22nd Oct. — Drove with Terence to the site of Carthage, where 

 Cardinal Lavigerie has built an unsightly cathedral and monastery, with 

 a buvette attached to it for pilgrims to the shrine of St. Louis. St. 

 Louis died here on his last unfortunate crusade and, Terence tells me, 

 is venerated as a saint by the Moslems as well as by the Christians of 

 the district, who affirm that on his death-bed he made profession of 

 Islam. He is known to them as Sidi Abu Said, and they show his 

 tomb at a village of that name hard by. The waiting room, never- 

 theless, of the monastery is adorned with huge cartoons in illustration 

 of his victories and death as a Christian saint, coloured in the vilest 

 form of French ecclesiastic art. The gasconading of these pieces is 

 worthy of Lavigerie, an ambitious prelate who pushed himself into 

 public notice, with the aid of French Chauvinism, intending to become 

 Pope. This, however, was not in the decrees of Providence. 



" From Carthage we went on to Marta, a summer seaside residence 

 of rich Tunisians, and lunched with Drummond Hay, our Consul- 

 General, and his family. They are moving in a few days to Beirout. 

 With Hay I had much talk on North African affairs. He tells me 

 the French are trying to work their frontier round by Merzouk to the 

 south of Tripoli, where they are beginning to open markets, but he 

 thinks that eventually they will find strong resistance in the Senussi 



