Enfidaville - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

'ENFIDAVILLE' [Dar-el-], a town of Tunisia, on the railway between Tunis and Susa, 30 m. N.E. of the last-named place and 5 m. inland from the Gulf of Hammamet. Enfidaville is the chief settlement on the Enfida estate, a property of over 300,000 acres in the Sahel district of Tunisia, forming a rectangle between the towns of Hammamet, Susa, Kairawan and Zaghwan. On this estate, devoted to the cultivation of cereals, olives, vines and to pasturage, are colonies of Europeans and natives. At Enfidaville, where was, as its native name indicates, a palace of the beys of Tunis, there is a large horse-breeding establishment and a much-frequented weekly market. About 5 m. N. of Enfidaville is Henshir Fraga (anc. Uppenna), where are ruins of a large fortress and of a church in which were found mosaics with epitaphs of various bishops and martyrs.

The Enfida estate was granted by the bey Mahommed-esSadok to his chief minister Khaireddin Pasha in return for the confirmation by the sultan of Turkey in 1871, through the instrumentality of the pasha, of the right of succession to the beylik of members of Es-Sadok's family. When, some years later, Khaireddin left Tunisia for Constantinople he sold the estate to a Marseilles company, which resold it to the Societe Franco-africaine.