In the Land of Mosques & Minarets

ment of Tunisia, to make it a worthy and helpful sister to Algeria. From a French population

peopled originally from Spain, from Egypt or from peoples from the s

e French. The Bey still reigns, though with a shorn fragment of his former powers. The Bey is still the titular head of his Régen

s and are appointed by the Bey himself. They are charged with the policing of their districts, the collecting of taxes, and are vested with a certain military authority with which

l of the B

ench anti-expansionists called it a "chinoiserie." Call it what you will, Tunis, in spite of its preponderant Italian influence, is fast becoming French. It is also becoming prosperous, which is the chief

sian sovereign became subservient to the French Resident

wer. Ali-Bey resisted nothing French,-even as a Prince,-and when he came to the Beylicale throne in 1882 he gave no thought whatever to the ultimate political independence of his c

ler, but their religious head as well. The latter title still belongs to the Bey. (The present ruler,

ut in all his subjects as well. This toleration even grants them the sanctity of their mosques, and does not allow the hordes of Christian tourists, who now make a playground of Mediterranean Af

that it was a law common to them all that would assure the prosperity of the nation; and that it was he, the Be

she has got it. The French were far-seeing enough to anticipate the probable eventuality which might grow out of England's side-long glances towards Bizerte, and the Italian sphere of influence in Tripoli. Now those fears, not by any means imaginary o

n every way. Their millennium seems to have arrived. France, with the co?peration of the Bey, dispenses the law a

nnical to an extreme. The Spartan or Druidical under-the-oak justice, and worse, gave way to a formal recognized c

ting and receiving the true veneration of all the Tunisian population of Turks, Jews and Arabs. He interpreted

ay the country of his forefathers prospers and its people grow fat. Some day an even greater prosperity is due to come to Tunisia, and then the Beylicale incumbent will be covered with further glories, if not further powers. This will come wh

expansion that is its due, and another Islamic land will c

re, the prince who was to reign henceforth received the proclamation of his powers at the Ba

s own particular "Holy City," Kassar-Sa?d, on the route to Bizerte, where were present all his immediate family. Prince Mohammed-en-Nacer, the Bey t

Kasba. The Mussulman population crowded the roof-tops and towers of the entire city. The military guard of the Zouaves, the Chasseurs d'Afrique, and the Beylicale cavalry formed a contrasting lively note to the sole

rayers, and all the dignitaries of the new court came to kiss the hand of the reigning

of all the princes of the house, each being buried in a sep

defunct Bey by numerous Mussulman devotees. The necromancy of it all is to the effect that he who should pass beneath the body of a dead Mussulman ruler would attain par

ed in a manner little short of tyrannical; but the Arab lived always in expectation of bettering his position, in spite of being either a serf or a ground-down menial. To-day he has only the state of the ordinary French c

m the Beylicale rule short of being hanged if he didn't like his original sentence. To-day, with a mixed tribunal of Tunisian and Fr

orbid this. They keep the indigènes at home for their country's good, instead of sending them away. It keeps a good balance of things anyway

ing her best to protect them and lead them to prosperity, assisted of course by the

r they were Turks or Jews, he banished them, but the French officials consider this a superfluous prodig

on board ship, or he will have to become a stowaway. Very many get this special permission, for one reason or another, but to many it is refused, and for good and sufficient reasons. To the merchant who would develop a commerce in the wheat of the plateau-lands, the bar

ople or Cairo, you may yet walk the streets feeling all the oppression of that silence which "follows you still," and of a patient, lack-lustre s

souks remain as Kinglake and Burton described them in their

rkable degree, and the development of each industry is increasing as nowhere else, not even in Algeria. In 1900 the vineyards of Tunisia

LIVES

E VE

HELINE OL

LUCQUES O

normous profit to its exploiters, and the Tunisian olive and Tunisian olive oil rank high in the markets of the world. Originally ancient Lybia was one of the

ve was greatly in repute. The exotics of the East and of Greece took the olive-leaf for a symbol, but the fighti

s as they did the plateau wheat belt. C?sar even nourished his armies on such other local products as figs an

d after them the vine, and finally the orange-tree, the lemon-tree, the fig and the almond. Each and every one of these fruits requires a different condition of soi

ion, and rain is comparatively unknown. For this reason the date here flourishes better than the olive, which accommodates itself readily to the Sahel and the mountains of the north. Of

ch collectors rave over, though it may be the ordinary variety of cooking utensils

characteristic and beautiful objets d'art; and they are not expensive. The loving marks of the potter's thumb are over all, and his crude ideas of form

mples of jugs, vases or water-bottles, and make his friends at home as happy as if he brought them a string of coral (made of celluloid, which is mostly what one gets in Italy to-day), or a carved ivory elephant of the Indies (made in Belgium of zylonit

the Sahel south of Tunis. Not all the wealth of the vastly productive though undeveloped countryside lies in cereals,

ent, dazzling green, if the industry goes on prospering; and no more will the brick-yards of Marseilles sell their dull, conventional product throughout Tunisia; and no more will the steamship companies grow wealthy off this dead-weight freight. The Italian or Malte

d of Ophir is not some day found beneath its soil, many who have p

ousse and Sfax (the service is now performed by automobile by travellers, or on camel-back; or by Italian or Arab barques by water, for merchandise

profit to its founders. The net profit after the cost of exploitation

with French citizens. A million and a half of francs have already been spent by the government, in addition to free grants o

mmendation will be written in Arabic, and one will not be able to read it, nor will half the officials to whom it is shown en route; but one and all will be impressed by the official seal, the parchment, the heading "Praise to Allah the only God," an