EARLY HISTORY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 25 August 1924, Page 8

EARLY HISTORY.

TUNIS AND HER PEOPLE. A MELTING-POT OF THE RACES. PHOENICIANS, JEWS, ROMANS, AND MANY OTHERS. A few leagues to the north of Tunis lies La Marsa, which is a delicious seaside place of snow-white houses partly hid among the pine trees. The present Bey of Tunis often lives in the great palace, declares Henry “Baerelin in a dispatch to the Manchester Guardian from Tunis. Fortunately for himself his predecessor chose another one in which to die. It is tlie custom that the house where this occurs should not become the residence of his successor. So the Bey drives happily along the one or two roads of this little place—the coat of arms upon his motor-cars is something that would make the horses shv in European countries—and the ladies of the palace can at least enjoy tlie smoothness of the roads, though in their cars and carriages the curtains must be down. La Marsa is a very tidy spot between the red cliffs and the .shimmering sea. Here in the summer months the Resident and many of the chief French pud native officials come to live. And on the outskirts of La Marsa is the British Consulate, a large Jiouse many years ago allotted to us by a friendly Bey. On the electric tram-line from La Marsa to., the town' it has a private station, where the trams will only stop if they are asked to do so—after nightfall this is done by lighting from the house a row of lamps along the avenue and one, a red one, over the small platform. In this pleasant country-house the ConsulGeneral lives the whole year* round; his office is in. Tunis. And in the house there is an excellent example of the variegated nature of the population of this French Protectorate.' Nearly thirty years ago a Consul’s wife came with a maid whose- home was Finland,- she acquired in Tunis an Arabian husband, who had been the cook of an Italian gentleman, had been with him in Italy and learned the language. This Finn-Arabian couple, who address each other in Italian, have been at the British Consulate all these years. Unfortunately they have not been blessed with children. But they are a good example of the way in which the country is composed of divers races.

The primitive inhabitants we call the Berbers, though there is nothing which they had in common but their language. Those who settled chiefly in the north of Tunis were of European origin, they having come from Spain 5000 or 6000 years ago, or else from Northern Europe. Those who settled chiefly in the south of Tunis had come up from the Sahara. AVe ■ still descry survivors, here and there, of these two groups ; but while the Berbers did not coalesce with the Phoenicians or the Romans they have now, much more than in Algeria oi* Morocco, formed with the Arabs a conglomerate mass. When the Phoenicians landed it was for the-purposes of commerce; yet the Berbers were quite nailing to accept their gods, as afterwards they gave their worship to the gods of Rome. It seems that the Phoenicians were the first to introduce the negro. They went down to Nubia in caravans and brought this precious booty back. The first appearance of the Jews in Tunis goes back to this period. & A? f° r the fresh blood brought to I unis by the Romans, this was limited to colonists,, not very numerous, from Italy and veterans who had assisted in destroying Carthage. These were given lands to cultivate. But in the reign of Titus there was a great influx, after the destruction of the Temple, of the Jews. Several tribes of Berbers took this opportunity of changing their religion, and to-day one still finds remnants of the Jewish Berbers who will only enter into marriage with their co-religionists. They jive among their brethren who are Moslem, and they dress in the same fashion: „ When the-country was invaded by the \an dais, in the. fifth century of the Christian era. They have not left many traces of their features. In view, however, of their reputation we may mention that some years ago most excellently hue gold ornaments were found and are among the treasures of the great museum in the Bardo Palace a lew miles from Tunis. But the Vandals could not organise, and thus it came to pass that the Byzantines settled m the country. They maintained themselves from 534- to 647, during which time the Imperial authority was often slighted by .the Berber. But although. the Byzantines regime was so precarious, one still can recongise in the south-west of Tunis, round about Tozeur, the Greek tvpe of the Eastern Empire. I lien we come to the Airab invasion, of which none before the fifth, iu 695 Jett a permanent mark. On that occa-sion-a thousand Coptic families were brought from Egypt and settled in lums and Carthage, mainly with tlie object of building the first Moslem arsenal and the ships the were needed . r Ihe prospective raids upon the islands and shores of the Mediterraueam These immigrants were followed bv Persians, Egyptians, and Syrians. But in 707 Moussa Ibn Nocair, tlie conqueror of Spain, arrived,, and found that manjy of these Moslems had been put to flight or murdered bv the Berbers, so he caused a verv large number oi Arabs to come en masse, under the Obaidite dynasty (916-982) the numder of Moslem immigrants decreased, as the princes of that dynasty held unorthodox religious views; hut on the other hand, a considerable number of Christians from the Latin countries, such as architects and aa IS , tS %' ve /.' e mvited to settle in Tunis. Most of all were the Christians urged C0 I nie . k.V the Sanhagites, whose attitude is comprehensive when we rethat many of the mothers of these princes were Christians and were allowed to practise their religion without any interference. Under the feanhagites we find two events of ethnical importance; the arrival in 1091 of the Sicilian Maslems who fled from before the Norman kings and the much more tremendous arrival of the Hilalian h ' om kSTPC -sent by the Fatimite Jviiahf against the vassal of Tunis. The gieat historian, Ibn Khaldoun, likened these half a million men to innumerable clouds of grasshoppers. Their path was strewn with utter ruin. One of the chief consequences was that many oi the Berbers fled into the northern mountains, where we still find their descendants

L) 13/1, after the capture of Seville bv the Spaniards, tberc arrived in I unis a great flood of Moors, and this i' <m o/wv?n mitil 1609 • Tn one year nearly 80,069 were distributed in Northern I unis and around the capital. At Zagbouan we find the very famous windmills of La Mancha. Simultaneously there were expelled from Spain the Andalusian Jews, and by a tacit and pathetic understanding tliev followed their former Moslem fclloweitizens and settled down again ho*ido them.

Enough has been said to show how variegated is the population of this country. But many other strains were

added. The Tunisian corsairs carried off from Italy and France and Spain great cargoes of Christians, while ships belonging to other States were often intercepted. The Turkish domination brought with it an army of janisaries, collected from the most various sources. These would marry as a rule and stay in Tunis. If, therefore, in this country we find that a Moslem uses Christian symbols we are not astonished—for example, the Bedouins, men and women, have a cross tattooed upon their brow or chin or cheek, a custom which to-day has lost all meaning. And despite the fact that Islam is monotheistic, we find that there still exists the worship of the holy men, tlie marabouts.