Not only were there ports in abundance for the shelter of galleys, but the land behind was all that could be desired. River indeed there was none capable of navigation, but the very shortness of the watershed which precluded the possibility of great streams brought with it a counterbalancing advantage; for the mountains rise so steep and high near the coast that the Corsairs' look-out could sight the vessels to be attacked a long way out to sea, and thus give notice of a prize or warning of an enemy. Moreover the land produced all that was needed to content the heart of man. Below the mountains where the Berbers dwelt and the steppes where Arab shepherds roamed, fertile valleys spread to the seashore. Jerba was a perfect garden of corn and fruit, vines, olives, almonds, apricots, and figs; Tunis stood in the midst of green fields, and deserved the title of "the White, the Odoriferous, the Flowery Bride of the West,"--though, indeed, the second epithet, according to its inhabitants, was derived from the odour of the lake which received the drainage of the city, to which they ascribed its peculiar salubrity.
What more could be required in a land which was, now to become a nest of pirates? Yet, as though this were not sufficient, one more virtue was added. The coast was visited by terrible gales, which, while avoidable by those who had experience and knew where to run, were fatal to the unwary, and foiled many an attack of the avenging enemy.
It remains to explain how it was that the Corsairs were able to possess themselves of this convenient territory, which was neither devoid of inhabitants nor without settled governments.
North Africa--the only Africa known to the ancients--had seen many rulers come and go since the Arabs under Okba first overran its plains and valleys. Dynasty had succeeded dynasty; the Arab governors under the Khalifs of Damascus and Baghd[=a]d had made room for the Houses of Idr[=i]s (A.D. 788) and Aghlab (800); these in turn had given way to the F[=a]tim[=i] Khalifs (909); and when these schismatics removed their seat of power from their newly founded capital of Mahd[=i]ya to their final metropolis of Cairo (968), their western empire speedily split up into the several princedoms of the Zeyr[=i]s of Tunis, the Ben[=i] Hamm[=a]d of Tilims[=a]n, and other minor governments. At the close of the eleventh century, the Mur[=a]bits or Almoravides, a Berber dynasty, imposed their authority over the greater part of North Africa and Spain, but gave place in the middle of the twelfth to the Muwahhids or Almohades, whose rule extended from the Atlantic to Tunis, and endured for over a hundred years. On the ruins of their vast empire three separate and long-lived dynasties sprang up: the Ben[=i] Hafs in Tunis (1228-1534), the Ben[=i] Ziy[=a]n in Central Maghrib (1235-1400), and the Ben[=i] Merin in Morocco (1200-1550). To complete the chronology it may be added that these were succeeded in the sixteenth century by the Corsair Pashas (afterwards Deys) of Algiers, the Turkish Pashas or Beys of Tunis, and the Sher[=i]fs or Emperors of Morocco. The last still continue to reign; but the Deys of Algiers have given place to the French, and the Bey of Tunis is under French tutelage.