Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Tunis

TUNIS, capital of the regency of the same name, in 36° 50′ N. lat. and 10° 12′ E. long., is situated on an isthmus between two salt lakes, a marshy sebkha to the south-west and the shallow Boḥeira to the north-east. The latter is twelve miles in circumference, and on the side opposite Tunis is connected with the Bay of Tunis at the port of Goletta (Ḥalḳ al-Wād) by a short canal. The old town, of which the walls have in great part disappeared, lies between two suburbs, the Ribáṭ al-Soweika on the north and the Ribáṭ Bab al-Jezíra on the south. These suburbs were surrounded by a wall in the beginning of the 19th century. Between the old town and the Marine Gate on the Boḥeira a European quarter, containing the palace of the resident, public offices, the provisional cathedral, and huge blocks of new houses in the French style, has sprung up. At the extreme west of the old town is the citadel, now used as barracks, whose lofty circuit includes the mosque built by Abú Zakaríyá the Hafsite in 1232. To the same century belongs the great mosque of the Olive Tree (Jámi' al-Zeitúna) in the centre of the town, with its many domes and spacious cloister, which possesses a library and serves as a college for some 450 students of Moslem learning. To the north near the walls of the old town rises the dome of the mosque named after Sídí Mahrez, a renowned saint of the 5th century of the Flight, whose tomb gives it a right of sanctuary for debtors. There are many other mosques and chapels, but all are closed against Christians. The palace of the bey, between the citadel and the mosque of the Olive Tree, is partly in bad French taste, but contains some rooms of the 18th century with admirable Moorish decoration in the delicate stucco arabesque work for which Tunis was formerly famous. The chief attraction of the old town lies in its bazaars, which retain their Oriental character unimpaired. Water is supplied to numerous fountains by an ancient aqueduct from Jebel Zaghwan, repaired at a cost of half a million sterling by the late Bey Mohammed al-S;ldik. The principal educational establishments besides that of the great mosque are the Sadikiya college, founded in 1875 for gratuitous instruction in Arabic and European subjects, the college of St Charles, conducted by priests and open to Christians and Moslems alike, and the normal school, founded in 1884 by the bey to train teachers in the French language and European ideas. The population of Tunis is about 125,000, of whom one-fifth are Jews and one-fifth Europeans, chiefly Maltese and Italians.

The environs of Tunis are admirable from the beautiful views they present; the finest prospects are from the hill on the south east, which is crowned by a French fort, and from the Belveder on the north of the town (Jebel al-Tiiba), on which stands a very ancient fortress. Half-an-hour's drive west of the town is the decaying palace called the Bardo, a little town in itself, remarkable for the "liou court" and some apartments in the Moorish style. The port of Goletta, with 4000 inhabitants, is connected with Tunis by a railway 10 miles long. The older or southern part of the town next the canal has a fortress, now used as barracks, built by the Turks on the site of the Spanish fortress destroyed in 1574. The ruins of Carthage lie a few miles north of Goletta. The chief manufactures of Tunis are still textiles, as in the time of Leo Africanus. The manufacture of silk dates from the settlement of Moorish refugees from Spain about 1600. There are also tanneries, a tobacco factory, and some minor industries. The annual exports of grain, oil, stuffs, hides, and essences are valued at 720,000, and the imports, chiefly of cotton goods, at 560,000. There are two French steamers weekly between Marseilles and Goletta, and the coast towns are served and connected with Malta both by French and Italian packets.

History.—Tunis was a Carthaginian city and is repeatedly mentioned in the history of the Punic wars. Strabo speaks of its hot baths and quarries. Under the Arabs it rose to importance, be came the usual port for those going from Kairwan to Spain, and was one of the residences of the Aghlabites. In the 10th century it suffered severely, and was repeatedly pillaged in the wars of the Fatimites with Abu Yazfd and the Zenata Berbers. For its later fortunes see above in the history of the country, of which since the accession of the Hafsites it has been the capital.

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