Ianthe M. Dunbar

There is a beautiful stretch of sand along the small Bay of GabÈs strewn with shells and pieces of coarse sponge, brought in by the tide. Sponge fisheries are found further south, but the variety at GabÈs itself is of no good. There are tunny fisheries here, and also a trade in shell fish carried on with Marseilles. The little river is frequented by native fishermen who use hand nets which they throw with great skill. The net is circular and draws up close together when in the hand. When thrown it opens wide on reaching the water and sinks owing to its leaded edge. After leaving it for a few minutes the fisherman pulls it in, the strain on the cord closing the mouth again. As a fisher is stationed at every few yards, I do not think the fish population can be a large one.

Women Washing

I. M. D.

Further up the river the women collect to do their washing, and make picturesque groups in their blue and red garments. They use both hands and feet to pommel and wring the clothes, and beat them with the stem of a palm leaf. Some have soap, but many use only a kind of earth, and all the washing is done in the cold running water of the stream. They chatter like a flock of paroquets, some knee deep in the water, others squatting on the bank, amongst them many negresses with their short hair twisted into innumerable small plaits across their foreheads. I thought them to be Nubians, from their features and dark colour and the style of their hair dressing.

One came up to where I was painting, a tall, good-looking girl, very black, carrying herself with the graceful nonchalance of her race. A flat basket laden with newly washed clothes was on her head, and she stood comely as a statue, backed by the tawny sand and the dark green of the oasis, the firm outline of her shoulders and breast showing through the blue stuff drawn round her. Heavy silver anklets clashed as she moved. When near me she smiled and said something in Arabic. Mansour, translating into French, said she asked where I came from, and if I would take her as a servant with me to England. I had a swift vision of the scandalised horror with which my Devon household would view her arrival in the character of maid. “Tell her,” I said, “that she would not like England. There is not enough sun there. She would be cold and unhappy.” But still she smiled. I gave her a coin, and she went away regretfully, walking like a queen, evidently still yearning for the post of lady’s maid in a land paved with gold and silver. Whilst I went on with my painting, Mansour told me these negresses are great travellers. They will cheerfully leave their country and fare into the unknown, and they make excellent servants. I think the Arabs have no feeling against the black races.

Meanwhile the Arab women were busy over their washing. “That girl over there,” remarked the guide, “is my cousin. I recognise her by the tattoo marks on her leg.” I had been told that these designs were often peculiar to a family, and Mansour’s remark seemed to bear this out. Most of the women were tattooed on the shin as well as on the lip and forehead, and sometimes on the tip of the nose. They only made a pretence of veiling themselves when he looked their way, and I gather that in the south of Tunisia the harem system is not very rigidly enforced. They seemed very happy, laughing and gossiping amongst themselves, spreading out broad strips of coloured stuff, red or orange or indigo, on the stones to dry, whilst the bright hues were reflected in the clear green water, and small brown children in abbreviated shifts played solemnly close at hand.

“Never do women cease talking together whilst they wash linen at the water’s edge,” said Mansour, “and it is strange how barely one day can pass without something requiring to be cleansed,” he added meditatively.

Behind us were the low mud walls of the village, with the towers of the minaret and the domed mosque rising above them, and a flock of black lop-eared goats came round the corner driven by a ragged youth. On the far side of the stream countless palms were inter-threaded with the branches of fruit trees, and in and out amongst the oasis ran little dusty roads between mud walls topped with thorns or spiked palm leaves, to keep off trespassers. By every path flowed runnels of clear water, pied wagtails stepped daintily about the edges, a film of green showed where the early crops were beginning to come up, and I could picture to myself the joy it must be in another month or two to step from the bare desert into this paradise of blossom and leafy shade.

Riding through the oasis one day we came suddenly upon a small white marabou or holy tomb set at the angle of two pathways. A solitary figure knelt in prayer at the entrance, whilst the mule he had been riding cropped the herbage by the stream, with a trailing rein. It was very silent, except for the far sighing of the palm trees above our heads.

Slowly we went on our way and came to a small village as the afternoon was growing late. The notched stems of date palms were like purple grey pillars on one side of the path, and an old man was coming back from work in the fields, his sand-coloured burnous slung round him in such fashion as to make a sack in which he was carrying a bunch of green vegetables. His sinewy neck and arms looked almost copper colour in the evening light; the faded blue of his coat repeated the note given by a wisp of smoke that floated across a low wall. The dust lay thick on the road, muting the footfall of passers-by. Already the shadows were growing long, draped figures were collecting round the well to draw the evening supply of water. In the distance was the cloud of dust that meant the return of the village herd with his flock from their day’s pasturage, whilst outside the low building where coffee was sold and drunk, men swathed in the long folds of their burnous sat and discussed the happenings of the day. And again I felt the simplicity and dignity of the East.

As we came back across the wide stretches beyond the oasis, it turned cold and clear. There was hardly a tinge of colour in the sky till the golden line of the sun had almost disappeared. Then it was as if the dark hawk of night had flown upon the bright day. The whole of the West was littered with tiny golden feathers torn from his breast, whilst the sky was dyed a sudden red with blood. The distant palms stood out black as velvet against the brilliant background, and as it faded, fingers of light stretched far into the pale green-blue of the heavens. Then as quickly as the effect had come, it was gone. The landscape turned a steely grey and the trees a blur of dull green. Only the strip of sea in the distance kept its intensity of colour in a world that seemed all at once sucked empty of life.

From GabÈs one can go by car to see Matmata, a village about two hours’ run from the former place, where all the inhabitants live under ground. The road led across stretches and stretches of bare sandy country, tufted here and there with low bushes, across rocky nullahs which become raging torrents after rain, till at last it climbed up and up a zigzag road and reached the top of a summit from whence we looked down on nothing but further and further bare hills. Below us lay the village, a crumpled succession of irregularities in the uneven ground. It looked as if some giant child had been playing in the sand with a spade.

On getting nearer we saw entrances here and there in the banks to which were fitted rough wooden doors. We went into one and found ourselves first in a hollowed passage which led through a stable to an open space on to which opened two or three caves in which the inhabitants lived. They are scooped out by tools and are large and roomy, with smooth walls and roof worked with a kind of plaster. Each room contained a large rough wooden bed, a shelf or two along the wall, perhaps a child’s cradle swung on ropes from the ceiling. They were all scrupulously swept and clean. In one a woman sat on the floor nursing a baby, in another one was weaving rough cloth on a loom. We also saw an underground cafÉ which was full of men, though from outside there was no sign of life.

Tunnelled passages led from one set of dwellings to another in some cases, and we went along one to reach a shop stocked with provisions.

The recent storms had wrought havoc with the architecture and the villagers were busy building up walls that had been undermined by the rain. They were of the usual peasant type and seemed hardworking, cultivating olives and the small fields from which they reap a laborious crop. The French head of the gendarmerie told us there were 15,000 of these people, all living underground. The caves are said to be warm in winter and cool in summer, and they certainly compared favourably with many native huts. The cave-dwellers have lived in this fashion from ancient times, and I am told that Pliny refers to them in his account of the Roman settlements in Tunisia. Were one to walk through the neighbourhood one could never guess at the labyrinth of dwelling places below one’s very feet. But knock at one of the doors and a furious barking of dogs warns the hidden inhabitants of the approach of a stranger. We were fortunate in seeing the womenfolk about their work, owing to Mansour having troglodyte relations. As a rule they are hastily concealed on the arrival of visitors, and I fear that fate befell the more beautiful amongst them when we appeared, judging by the singularly unattractive assortment presented for our inspection: a great disappointment, since I had heard much of the good looks of the feminine cave dwellers. Those left for us to see comprised an aged beldame covered with wrinkles, a sickly-looking half-witted girl, and a by no means merry widow. One can imagine the mixed feeling with which the beauties of the family receive orders to retire into hiding, baffled curiosity warring with a natural complacency at being credited with the possession of dangerous attractions.

On the way back we passed one of the road patrol, wrapped in a thick cloak from which a rifle stuck out, riding a weary horse, and carrying the mails. He rides once a day from the fort at Matmata to GabÈs, sign of the law and order established in the remote country districts, and midway on his round he passes the other patrol on the outward way. Were he to be attacked by a gang of robbers he would be hard put to it to defend himself. But the people have an awed respect for the power of the law. When telegraph posts were first set up in the desert to the south, the inhabitants were ignorant of their use, and the arrest of an escaped prisoner from the capital as soon as he reached his native village seemed to them to savour of the miraculous. “It is thus,” explained the sergeant of police, “the wire on those posts stretcheth even unto Tunis, and as a dog, however long his tail, will bite him that pulleth it, so when we touch the wire, no matter at what point, the jaws at the other end will bite.”