Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/165

 THE BERBERS AND ARABS. 185 in the fifteenth, others at the commencement r)f the seventeenth century, and to whom cultivated hind in the suburbs of the cities was assigned as special quarters, have left in but few towns and villages descendants who can be distinguished from other Arab townsmen. Some few noble families, however, have j)reserved their genealogies, or have even retained the keys of their mansions in Seville or Granada; these are still spoken of as Aiuluhs or AiulaloH, that is to say, " Andalusians." Moreover, a few towns and villages are mentioned where workmen of Spanish origin carry on a special industry, and wl>cre the traditions of their trade have enabled them to keep alive the memory of their origin. The skilful gardeners of Testur and Teburba, on the lower Mejerda, know that their fathers dwelt on the banks of the Jenil and Guadalquivir ; at Ncbel, on the east coast, the pottery industry is maintained by these exiles, who have retained the name of Andalusians, and who, from father to son, have religiously transmitted the fictile vases brought from Malaga by their fugitive ancestors. At the time of Peyssonnel's voyage, a hundred years after their expulsion from the Iberian peninsula, they still spoke Spanish and dressed in the ancient Andulusian fashion. A certain portion of the " Moorish " population of Tunis is also composed of renegades of all nations, who were brought into tlie country as slaves at the time of the slave trade. The town peoples, and especially those called Tunsi, or Ulad Tunt^, i.e. " Children of Tunis," are much lighter in colour than the nomad tribes ; some few are even of an olive colour, the general hue of the skin resembling that of the Spaniards and Southern Italians. The face is usually olive, the nose long, the eyebrows thick, the beard dark and scanty ; they are of middle height, with well- shaped figures, and graceful and dignified in all their movements. Individuals are never seen amongst them with the slight development of the calf so noticeable amongst the Semites of the Arabian peninsula as well as amongst the Hindus ; few also are met who present such an obese appearance as their fellow-citizens, the Spanish Jews. The majority of the Tunisians are religious, but perfectly free from fanaticism. They are staid, dignified, and benevolent in disposition ; and however much they may be corrupted by a commercial career, they are, as a rule, far honester than their Christian and Jewish rivals. In the days when piracy and the slave trade flourished, the Tunisians were noted for the kindness with which they treated their slaves. It is very probable that the " captive maidens of Tunis and Bizerta," who passed their time spinning yam in the dwellings of the Christian pirates, were less happy by far than the Christian women who became the prisoners of the Tunsi. Except amongst the merchants, there are very few Tunisians who avail themselves of the Prophet's example to espouse more than one wife at a time. In industry, taste, aptitude for business, and finally in educa- tion and literary culture, the Tunisians are considere<l to be the superiors of all the other Moors, who, however, can claim the palm for better morals. Before the Turkish rule, and when the southern tribes cncampfni on the commercial routes had not yet become brigands, Tunis was the great market for exporting the goods of all the peoples of the Sudan. The Negroes of the Niger and Lake Tzad con- sidered all merchandise other than that manufactured by the Tunsi as unworthy