Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/195

 KAIRWAN. 169 trades of innBons, joiners, and house painters. Since the French occupation, former Algerian riflemen, Kabylcs and Arabs, have also come to seek their fortunes at Siisa, where, thanks to their knowledge of French, they readily find employment OS interpreters and foremen. The Susa Mussulmans, amongst whom fair types with blue eyes are by no means rare, vehemently declare that they are not Arabs, but natives of SQsa. Amongst the flourishing towns of the environs there are some which contain, in their scattered quarters, a population equal or but slightly inferior to that of Siisa itself. One of these places is Kelaa Kebira, some 8 miles to the north- west ; another is Madkcn, about 6 miles to the south-west, and surrounded by a dense forest of olives. This latter was, till quite recently, a holy place, which Jews and Christians were forbidden to enter. A tramway on the Decauville system, laid over rugged wastes, hills, valleys and sebkhas, connects the shores of Susa with Kaincan, the religious capital of Tunis, which stands on a terrace commanding an extensive view of a slightly undulated treeless district. Founded by the conqueror Okbah in the year 671, at the period of the first Arab invasion of Maghreb, the city of the " Double Victory " has retained a great prestige in the eyes of the Mussulmans, and pilgrimages made to the pretended tomb of its founder are considered to have a special efficacy in purifying the souls of the Faithful. Kairwan is one of the four " Gates of Para- dise," and " seven days' stay at Kairwan are equivalent to one day at Mecca," entitling the pilgrim to be called a haji. The legend relates that, before founding the town, Sidi-el-Okbah proclaimed to all the beasts of the field that a sacred city was about to rise on this spot, and for three days the lions, panthers, wild boars, and other wild animals, both great and small, quitted the place in troops, leaving it free to the followers of the Prophet. The legend also says that impure men cannot live in this holy city, the spirits of the blessed would destroy them if they ventured near the mosques. The Jews being forbidden to reside in the town, their hara, or quarter, stood at a distance of over a mile from the walls. A certain number of Christians, however, protected by a letter from the Pey, were admitted into Kairwan and politely received by the sheikhs, but they were never allowed to enter the sacred edifices. While all the cities of the Tunisian coast had been successively visited by victorious foreign armies, Kairwan was captured for the first time in 1881 by the French. On this occasion, however, the town threw open its gates without attempting a useless resistance. Since then it has become the capital of a military government, and its ramparts, commanded by a kasbah, have been com- pleted by new bastions. Christians now fieely enter its mosques. Of all Tunisian cities, Kairwan, surrounded by ruins, barren tracts, and saline depressions, is one of those which nature has favoured the least ; it has neither running waters nor springs, all the water coming from cisterns, some of which are flushed at the period of continuous rains by the Wed Merg-el-Lil, whose current becomes clearer from basin to basin. The city has no shady gardens, being sur- rounded by more cemeteries than cultivated lands. Thanks to its central position, it nevertheless presents at first sight an imp)siug and even pleasing appearance.