Although Kairwán is only six days’ journey from London, it was a month ago quite as much a _terra incognita_ as many of the great towns of Central Africa. Few still existing cities have played so important a part in the world’s history, yet the world knew it not. Only a hundred miles south of Tunis itself, and but forty miles away from the great and busy highway of the Mediterranean, Kairwán, secure in its exclusiveness and its sanctity, has slumbered away the 1200 years of its existence, until it suddenly finds itself in the presence of a foe that it is powerless to resist, and discovers that even its most venerated shrines and sanctuaries can no longer be hidden from the gaze of unbelievers. It would be difficult to describe the precise offence which Kairwán has committed to merit the signal punishment it has received. For centuries it has been the centre of the great nomadic tribes which surround it, and in the early days of the Tunisian insurrection the old spirit of its inhabitants may have momentarily revived. If such was indeed the case, the Kairwánis must have soon realised their own impotency. The bombardment of Sfax and Gabes conveyed to them a very practical lesson; and the religious authorities of Kairwán in council were not likely to rely on their own legend—that their crumbling ramparts and ruined bastions were shot and shell proof. In vain they begged their more courageous disciples to retire from the city: the latter refused to act contrary to the theoretical teaching of their _Ulemas_; and it was only when the French columns were actually visible, and the destruction of the city imminent, that the nonagenarian Bash-Mufti of Kairwán succeeded in persuading the Zlass chiefs to rapidly retire to the neighbouring mountains, and then saved the town from certain destruction by sending a frightened _muezzin_ to wave a square yard of white calico from the crenellated minaret of the mosque of the conqueror of Africa. [Illustration: KAIRWÁN. 1. Grand Mosque of Okhbah. 2. Kisla (Citadel). 3. Záonia Abd el Kadir el Ghiláni. 4. Djáma bou thletha Biban. 5. Záonia Tidjania. 5. Bab et-Tunis. 6. Covered Market. 7. Three Mosques in chief street. 8. Governor’s House. 9. Záonia Sidi Abíd. 10. Bab Djelladín. 11. Záonia Aïssouriá. 12. Gate of Peaches. 13. New Gate. 14. Mosque of Olive tree. 15. Mosque Amîr Abáda. 16. Road to Záonia Sidi Essaheb. 17. Cistern. 18. Citadel Gate. 19. Mounds now fortified. 20. Great Cemetery. 21. Market extra muros. A. Faubourg Jibliyeh. B. Faubourg Kabliyeh.]