Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)/Tunis (city)

TUNIS, a city and capital of the protectorate of the same name; situated at the head of a salt lake, nowhere more than 6 feet deep, which communicates by a narrow channel with the Gulf of Tunis, an inlet 30 miles long. At the outlet of the lake is Goletta, the port of Tunis, whose harbor is a roadstead with good anchorage, and is sheltered from the N. Goletta is connected by railway with Tunis, which is a walled, fortified, and straggling city, whose winding streets are now paved. The whole town has been built of materials taken from the ruins of Carthage, 13 miles N. E. The bazaars of Tunis are good, and some of the mosques are splendid edifices, but Europeans are jealously excluded from them. The Bey's palace is a modern building in the Saracenic style of architecture, internally decorated with great magnificence, but with little taste. The city has many schools and colleges, French and Jewish, and in the Great Mosque is also a Mohammedan college. Tunis has important manufactures of woolen, linen, and silk goods (which are exported to all the Mohammedan countries bordering on the Mediterranean), morocco leather, olive oil, soap, and perfumes. A canal opened in 1893 renders Tunis directly accessible to ocean-going vessels. Pop. about 200,000.