Carthage and Tunis, Past and Present

In Two Parts. By AMOS PERRY, late United States Consul for the City and Regency of Tunis. Providence, R. I.: Providence Press Company.

THE past of Tunis and Carthage, so far as concerns any new light thrown upon it by Mr. Perry, might as well have been sketched in ten pages as in two hundred, and even in two hundred the narrative might have been freed of a good deal of fatiguing and confusing detail, and presented with a somewhat livelier air. When, however, you come to the second part of his work, in which the author treats of the actual condition of the country, you are aware of an original value not attaching to memories of the Punic wars, the Mohammedan conquests, and the Crusades. In no other case does Time seem to have so completely brought round his revenges as in that of this Mussulman potency, which now exists only bygrace of the commerce it once preyed upon, which is bullied by every state in Christendom, and practically controlled by the Foreign Consuls. Conceive of the pleasures of Christianity and Judaism in a city where nearly all the public buildings were constructed by Christian slaves under the whip of the Moslem task-master, and where Jews were habitually taken by the beard and smitten heavily upon every light pretence, but where now Christians and Hebrews breathe their tobacco-smoke in the faces of true believers, fainting at the end of a long fast, — and thus add another day to their penance ! The good old days are past in Tunis, and humanity is the better off for the fact : no more corsairs ravaging the seas ; no more descents of Barbary kidnappers upon defenceless European coasts; no more compulsory purchases of white cotton caps by Jews ; no more vile oppressions of those people in person and pocket. It can now happen in Tunis that an Israelite wears the sacred green color in his belt, and that the prudent Mussulman, to avoid the religious obligation of resenting the insult, feigns not to see it. The Christians hold the power, and the Jews hold the purse : what can the faithful do but tacitly despise them, and bitterly believe in their perdition ? It is questionable whether the happiness of the only enterprising and industrious people in the country would be at all enhanced by the overthrow of Moslem rule.

Mr. Perry gives us some very interesting chapters on the different races, their customs and beliefs; on the state of woman and the ruinous effects of polygamy; on some hopeful tendencies of Mohammedans of European race towards Christianity through admiration of Christian civilization ; on the climate and the industrial resources and characteristics of the regency ; on the government; on the archæological interest and the ruins of ancient cities. And, on the whole, the book is well enough written, —with no great strength of philosophy certainly, and an unquestioning faith in the marvels of story, yet with some shrewdness of observation in the study of modern Tunisian life, and a laudable moderation of tone. The second part of the work is in fact entertaining and profitable reading. The chief lesson of it all is one now familiar enough, namely, that Islam is sick in every part, perishing of inherent and incurable corruption, yet with such conditions that it is hard to tell whether it were better to prolong its agony, or to extinguish it at once as a political system. Few virtues remain to it, and the appearance of few. The Jews and Christians of Tunisia, who are not always miracles of uprightness and purity, are yet respectable in comparison with the depraved and unnaturally vicious Moslems. The idea of Mohammedan society, as presented in this and other books of good authority, is one that includes most of the hidden iniquities of Christian civilization in an explicit and recognized form, and the practice of many almost unknown to it.