Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/232

 by the Um-Tebul mines, the other penetrating to the camp of Ain-Draham, in the very heart of Khumiria. A single line of railway will soon bring down to the quays of Tabarka, tannin, cork, timber from the neighbouring forests, and the iron, lead, zine, and silver ores from the Nefza highlands. A second line, starting from the same mining region, which is one of the richest in the world, will run to a small port, well sheltered by the rocks of Cape Serrat. Ancient shafts and piles of rubbish, called "hills of iron" and "mounds of steel," show that many of these mines were probably worked in the time of the Romans. A number of families, who escaped captivity at the time of the capture of Tabarka by the Tunisians in

1742, have settled in various parts of the coast, where they are still known as Tabarkans; nearly five hundred fugitives also succeeded In reaching the island of San-Pietro, near the coast of Sardinia. About nine hundred persons were reduced to slavery, and even till quite recently this trade in Tabarkan men and women is said to have been carried on. At Tunis these refugees remained for nearly a century, deprived of the rights conferred upon Europeans, until, in 1816, the Sardinian consul took them under his protection.

To the south rise the metalliferous and well-wooded mountains, whose products must one day prove a source of wealth to Tabarka, although large tracts of forest have already been wasted, and have disappeared altogether to the south of