Tho number of inhabitants of the state of Tunis is supposed to amount to about two millions and a half; amongst whom there may be 7000 Turks, about 9000 Christians (principally Roman Catholics and Greeks), and perhaps 100,000 Jews. In its former prosperity this country must have contained double this number, if we may judge from the numerous sites of towns of ancient times and of the middle ages which are now uninhabited.
Produce.—All sorts of grain, except oats, are grown, as well tts maize, beans, garbanzos, lentils, the titer, or chick-pea, and the like.
The sugar-cane is easily reared, but the people have not learned to extract the sugar. Tobacco, coffee, and cotton flourish, and might ho turned to profitable account, yet they are imported in large quantities.
Olive-oil is the great staple produce, and is of excellent quality. All the vegetables of Europe are easily raised. Tho artichoke and the gourd, or calabash, are the common food of the people; and the coriander and tomata are grown in great quantities, and serve as a necessary relish in Moorish cookery. Among fruits the first is the produce of the palm- or date-tree. The date is the principal food of the Arabs of the Sahara and the Atlas. Most European fruits, as well as those of warm climates, such as the orange, the lemon, the pome granate, the jujube, the prickly-pear, the fig, the melon, and the grape, are common. The oleander and the geranium, roses, bulbs of various sorts, pinks, and a number of aromatic herbs and rare plants, which render the Tunisians renowned for distilled waters and honey, grow luxuriantly. Game is plentiful, as well as all sorts of poultry.
Wool is produced in great quantities. Tho breed of horses, formerly so celebrated, is now entirely neglected. An extensive tunny fishery is carried on by Sicilians off Capes Farina, Mouastir, and Bon. The Genoese, Neapolitans, and sometimes the French, fish for coral on the northern coast near Tabarea. It is asserted that the mountains near the capital contain ores of silver, copper, and lead.
Antiguities.—There are no vestiges of antiquity in the capital, although ancient columns and capitals may be found in some of its buildings. The ancient sites op the banks of the Mejerdah abound in ruins, particularly at Dukhah (the ancient Thtujga), consisting of temples, au arch, a number of cisterns, baths, barracks, gates, theatres, an aqueduct, and many inscriptions. At Ayedrah is a handsome triumphal arch dedicated to the emperor Septimius Severna, and columns of various beautiful marbles. Tho walls of the town retain their original height in some places, and have three gates ; yet anti quaries have not been able to assign to the place its ancient name. At Kaff (Sicca), which, like Ayedrah, is on the western frontier, is still to be seen n paved street like those of Pompeii, and here likewise capitals, columns, and friezes are numerous. But the most stupen dous monument of ancient times is on the site of Tyadrus, now called El-/em, a village situated midway between Susa and Sfax, and about 20 miles from the eastern coast. Here rises in its pristine majesty an amphitheatre, which is one of the most perfect, vast, and beautiful remains of former times that is known to exist. Its extreme length measures 429 feet and its breadth 363 feet. Of the fourth or upper most story little remains, and one of the entrances was destroyed about 100 years ago : but with these exceptions it is iu a complete state of preservation, with its seats, arenas, and vomitories, nnd retains almost the freshness of a modern erection. Sufetula, now called Steitla, about 120 miles S. from Tunis, is the most remarkable place in Barbary for the extent no less than the magnificence of its ruins. It stands
in a large plain totally abandoned by man. The principal ruins con sist of three contiguous temples, whose ornaments are very rich and of excellent execution, two triumphal arches, another temple, and an aqueduct which spans the clear stream on which the town stood. Kazareen (the ancient Colonic Seillitana), distant only a few leagues from Sbeitla, has also the remains of an arch and other ruins of minor interest. Tho great aqueduct which conveyed the water from the mountain of Zagwan to Carthage, 52 miles in length, may yet be traced by masses of steno nnd cement, which lie, like the vertebra) of a huge winding serpent, along the whole of this distance ; and in its preserved portions it is still a mighty construction, rising in some places to 93 feet. [CARTHAGE.] Ilistory.—Tho town of Tunis, once known by the name of Tunes or Tuueta, is of great antiquity. But whether it was fouuded by a Phoeni cian colony or by the native Africans seems to lie an undecided point. It was taken and retaken several times during the Puuio ware. In A.D. 439 it fell into the hands of the Vandals; but in 533 was rescued from them by Belisarius. It continued to be subject to the Greek emperors until the irresistible arms of the kalifs overran Northern Africa, towards the end of the 7th century, when the conqueror Okbah, or Akbah, with a view to secure the country for them, founded the city of Cairoan, or Kairwan, as a place of refuge against the accidents of war. It was here that the Arabians begau to consolidate their power in Africa, and they became so thoroughly intermixed with the natives, that Christianity was extinguished, and the Africans have remained a Moslem people to the present day. The Arabian viceroys, at first under the name of Ameer, were in fact kalifs of Africa, and established an independent government at Cairoan, which became the capital of the country which now constitutes the regency of Tunis. Here the Aglabits dynasty took its rise in the 9th century. The Aglabites were succeeded by the Zeirides ; and these were in their turn obliged to yield to the Almoravides, who established themselves in Marocco, and soon extended their power over all the provinces of Barbary, including Tunis. But in 1206, Abu Ferez who held the delegated government of Tunis, assumed an independent authority, and from him sprung the race denominated Lugs, who are consi dered the first kings of Tunis, being the first who established a court in the town of Tunis. Their dominion soon spread itself over Constan tine., Bons, and Tripoli; and their vessels infested the Mediterranean, and intercepted the succours sent to the Christians in the Holy Land. Louis IX. of France undertook, in 1270, his chivalric expedition against this new power, which ended iu his own death, and the destruc tion of his troops by disease among the ruins of Carthage. DIuley lla.asem was the last of these kings. Ile was deprived by stratagem of his throne in 1531, by the pirate Khairadeen, commonly called Barbarossa IL, who had been lately acknowledged as chief of Algiers by the Turkish Sultan. Muley-liaasem was restored to his throne as tributary prince by Charles V. in 1535. But in 1574 the Sultan Selim sent an expedition of 40,000 men from Constantinople, under the command of Sinau Pasha; who made the country a dependency of the Ottoman Porte. At first a Turkish Basha was appointed as governor, aided by a divan, or council of military men, and by a body of Janissaries ; but the rapacity of the latter disgusted the Moors, and they obtained permission to elect n Dey from among themselves.