The French now began to exact a very heavy contribution from those tribes which were willing to submit—forty francs and a gun from every adult sometimes represented the whole wealth of the possessor, and the payment often entailed misery if not absolute beggary. These proceedings interfered considerably with the progress of any attempt at pacification. Another great mistake was committed; the clans which asked and received _aman_ were at once deprived of their arms; the result of this step was quickly felt, for the “submitted tribes” were soon defeated by their armed co-religionists, or again compelled to join in the rising. A third and more important blunder was the appointment of “Colonel” Joseph Allegro to the _Caidat_ or Governorship of Southern Tunis. The part he had played in the Khamír rising, while ostensibly receiving the Bey’s pay (or as the Arabs have it, eating the Bey’s salt) at Bone, was now notorious, and its effect on the minds of the Tunisians could not be effaced, even by his ostentatiously embracing the Moslem faith, as he did shortly afterwards. Apart from personal courage, this man had no single qualification for a place of trust and responsibility, and his very presence amongst the Arabs afforded a continued provocation to fanaticism and resistance. On the 21st November the news reached Tunis that the elaborate concentric movement of Generals Philibert and D’Aubigny and Colonel La Roque had ended in the escape of Ali Ben Amar, who with a chosen band of followers evaded their pursuit, and after joining Ali Ben Hlifa, finally made good his retreat to Tripoli. The doubtful wisdom of several of the steps taken by the French authorities during the marches into Southern Tunis, to which I have previously alluded, now seems to have culminated in a manifesto published by “Giannino,” the French Vice-Consul and Pro-Roustan of Sfax. On the 20th November he issued a circular “calling the attention of the consular agents to the approach of the French column from Kairwán, and to the _razzias_ which it might be necessary for the French troops to execute against the Arabs during the march, and requesting the Europeans to withdraw all their property from the interior, in case it should otherwise be destroyed along with that of the natives!” As no European had been able to reach the districts in question during the past six months, this demand can only be qualified as a _mauvaise plaisanterie_. As I was now anxious to meet the _colonne Logerot_ on its arrival at Gabes, I left Tunis on the 26th November to journey along the Sahel to Susa, Sfax, Gabes, and afterwards to Tripoli, which had now, according to the _Agence Havas_, supplanted Kairwán as “a focus of Moslem intrigue and sedition.” CHAPTER XXXIX. A JOURNEY TO SOUTHERN TUNIS.