I. M. D.Le marché aux Tapis.The Souks. Sfax.21.2.23.
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Le marché aux Tapis.
The Souks. Sfax.
21.2.23.
At the far end of this narrow way was the Street of the Coppersmiths with its clang of beaten metal and glow of heaped copper. A yard out of it was crammed with mules and donkeys, their bulky saddles piled in a gay heap in the archway leading to it. Now and again a laden beast came up the street, its driver shouting to the crowd to make way. Tattered heaps by the side of thewall stirred and groaned a petition for alms, the poppy red of a Spahi’s cloak and his blue pantaloons made a sudden chip of colour. And everything was soaked in sunlight.
Midway down the street was a curious white minaret, topped with metal like a sort of pagoda. At its foot collected groups buying and selling. The yellow roadway was sharply cleft with clear-marked shadows, and a carpenter in a brown burnous sat on the floor of his shop making axles for cart wheels, a froth of thin shavings heaped round him. Then a brightly painted cart with high wheels came past, cleaving a way for itself in some mysterious manner. Once it and its shouting driver were past, the crowd flowed together again like water that you have divided for a moment with a stick, the beggars picked themselves up from the corners to which they had rolled for safety, and life went on as usual.
The weather was very uncertain, and now set in for a cold wet week. I wandered about with my sketch-book in the covered Souks and finally Rached settled me in a small shop with the air of conferring a great favour upon the owner. It dealt in a variety of goods—silks, buttons, shot, etc. An elderly Arab dressed in a soft dove-coloured burnous was a customer, and asked if he might offer me a cup of coffee. I accepted with thanks, whilst in a hissing whisper the guide conveyed to me the importance of mynew friend. We talked a little through Rached as interpreter.
The old man told me he was going to Europe in the spring, for medical treatment as well as for business. He was a dignified figure in his ample draperies, with thin fine features. Rached told me afterwards that he was a big silk merchant, and intended going to London to inspect silk materials. He and the Kaïd were to travel together, with Rached as interpreter. A fleeting mental picture of the trio progressing down Regent Street made me smile inwardly. Certainly their interpreter would be equal to any emergency, but how will those dove coloured draperies fare, and that calm dignity ever survive the Tube or the rush for a motor bus? The merchant had three wives, one from Constantinople—“une jeune femme très riche,” another from Tunis, and a third from his native town of Sfax. “Elles sont toutes excessivement jolies” asserted Rached, but I reflected that in a country of veiled women, probably all men’s wives are beauties. With some interest I asked how many children there were, but there is only one girl. “And imagine to yourself how rich she will be,” sighed the guide, who loved money. But he loved still better the flinging of it about with a lordly air, so I hardly think his own daughter will ever be a great partie.
After a short time I began to understand the geography of the native town, but there were still mysterious alleysthat seemed to lead nowhere, shady relatives of the bigger streets. Close to the city wall was the street of the Pretty Ladies. Like trap-door spiders one stood in each doorway, dressed in gay silks, her cheeks rouged, eyebrows painted to meet in a single line, and tiny black patches on her face. Most of them were not beautiful. But one doorway opened into a sort of alcove with a stone seat running round it, and here we caught sight of three pretty girls in earnest conversation with one young man. They were dressed in light silk striped with colours, heavy silver anklets clashed as they moved and their perfumed hands were heavy with rings. One turned and glanced at my English companions, shooting a glance at them from her long-lashed painted eyes, then drawing her silver veil closer round her with a mock modesty.
All round the ramparts ran a pathway, and from this height one looked across the town to the harbour or to the sea of olives that stretched for miles into the country. It is a prosperous town and the land round it very rich. When the almond blossom was out, and all the orchards on the outskirts of the town a smother of blossom, I motored about 15 miles into the country, and all the way we ran through groves and groves of carefully kept olives, till from a small tower we looked across their grey and silver stretches to the white distant town of Sfax along the bay.
From Sfax I went by train to Gafsa, an inland oasis town lying most picturesquely in a sandy plain, surrounded by rocky mountains that rise sheer from it. It is about three miles from the station of the same name, and the drive to it leads from the bare plain to the thick olive groves and the clustering palms that form the oasis. It is just a little Arab town, with the usual handful of French government offices and the fort. There are several mosques, and from the minaret of one I watched the magnificence of the sunset across the plain. There are more than thirty-eight springs about here, so the place does not lack water, and every stream is full of small water tortoises. The remains of the Roman baths are still to be seen. A group of village women were washing their jars in the clear blue-green water, whilst small boys offered to dive for coins.
I. M. D.A village Marketplace
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A village Marketplace
The cultivation of olives is the chief industry of the place and I went to see a native olive press in the evening. The air was thick with the heavy cloying smell of oil, and in the long low building men were turning a press from which oozed a dark fluid. A smoky lamp was the onlylight, and their dark glistening arms and faces showed up fitfully as they moved. In the dim light they might have been denizens of the nether regions, busied over some horrid rite. From the shadows came the sound of muffled feet, where the gaunt pale figure of a camel circled interminably, turning a stone mill that crushed the fruit. Huge barrels, shining greasily, stood about filled with pure oil. The ground was slippery and uneven, and a heap of the crushed skins and pulp lay in the yard outside, staining the earth a dull crimson.
I seemed to be the only European traveller in the little town, and my first attempt at finding a hotel had not been very happy. There had been a doubt as to which to recommend me, and I had engaged a room by telegram in advance, but my heart sank as my dilapidated carriage drew up at it. It looked like a small drinking booth, with a floor of beaten earth and a few ricketty tables. From the background appeared a sodden-looking old man, who had evidently been sampling the hotel wine freely. He took me across a muddy yard inhabited by dejected hens and showed me through a rough room full of women ironing clothes, into a dreadful bedroom strewn with untidy garments. Out of it opened another which he offered me. But one glance was sufficient for me and I fled.
The next attempt turned out to be another little café place, but it had a block of buildings down the streetwhere guests were put up, and which was clean and neat. No one else, not even a servant, lived in it. I was given two enormous keys, one for my bedroom and one of the front door, and after dining in the little café, where a wooden screen separated me from the Arab clientèle who were drinking coffee and playing cards, I returned to my fastness. It struck chill and bare as I locked myself in. Not a sound. Luckily the furniture was too meagre to give cover for thieves. There were about ten other rooms in the building, all empty ... no servants and no means of calling one. I woke late in the night, thinking I heard a sound in the passage. The night was pitch dark and silent, and the village seemed dead. From somewhere came the drip-drip of water. I listened, but could hear nothing else, and when I woke next, daylight was struggling through the curtains. All the accessories for a splendid ghost story had been there, but fortunately there was no actor for the chief part.
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The oasis is very beautiful and my guide said that in the time of orange blossom one is forced to muffle one’s face because of the overpowering scent. It may be true. He was a sallow melancholy Arab youth, who had served at Salonika and had lost an arm there. He did not talk much, but warmed up on the subject of his wound and gave me a horribly realistic account of it. “And why,” he asked, “were the English fighting the French?” Itried to enlighten him, but with little success. He had been well cared for in hospital at Salonika by a lady who was very good to the wounded. French? He did not know. Perhaps she was, or English or German. Anyway she talked French and she had wept over his wounds and had given him chocolate and had taught him to write with his left hand. So her memory is still cherished in this remote little town of Tunisia. His cousin had also been sent to the War and they were always together. They had not then felt so alone. His cousin had made him promise that ifhe were killed Yousuf must see he was buried as a good Moslem, and must write and tell his family. Should it be Yousuf who fell, then Ali would carry out the same good offices for him. They were together when there was a loud explosion and his cousin fell upon his face. The boy ran to pick him up and found him dead, and casting up his hands in despair, at that moment he himself was struck and his arm torn off. When he came to himself the stretcher-bearers were carrying him away. And he said “Take also my cousin, for I must see that he has proper burial,” but they answered “We must take you first,” and so he was carried into the darkness and never saw Ali’s body again. “What could I have done? They would not listen to me, and I know not how my poor cousin was buried. Ah! he knew that he would not live,” said Yousuf. “When we first put on gas-masks, then Ali wept, for he felt Death touch him. And so it happened.” He was silent.
As we rode, a sudden storm of rain came up. The mountains were blotted out, and a tiny marabou stood out startlingly white of a sudden against the blue black of the clouds. Two pigeons flew across them looking like bits of white paper, a heavy drop or two fell, digging deep into the loose sand, the palms stood motionless waiting, and then with a great rush came the rain.
From there I was going on to Tozeur, and the only trainleft at the dreadful hour of 5 a.m. Motors were non-existent, so I had to start for the station soon after 4 a.m. in a cross between a hearse and a bathing machine known as the hotel omnibus. I shared it with various muffled figures who emerged sleepily one by one from blank shuttered houses on the way. Usually they first had to be wakened by loud thumps on the door and shouts that we could not wait for them. It felt like a dream, and I wondered if perhaps I had got into some enchanted place which I could never leave again. Supposing we were to miss the train, how often might not this performance be repeated? I became aggressively English and determined. At the last stopping place I declared if I were kept waiting any longer I should complain to the Contrôle Civile. I was rather vague as to the power I was threatening to unleash, but the mere thought of it roused the driver and Yousuf to a frenzy of action. They rushed simultaneously upon the barred door and kicked and knocked to such purpose that the last traveller appeared blinking and still arranging his turban. And then when we got to the station, the train was late and we had half an hour to wait.
As I steamed away across the wide stretches of tawny plain with the dark blur of the oasis of Gafsa in the distance and the mountains already turning purple in the sickly dawn, the unreality of the place seemed to accentuate itself in my mind. Had I really been there? Reallywandered through the oasis, and watched the troops of camels coming along the dried river bed? Really heard the call of the muezzin across the sleeping Arab town? Or had it all been a dream? I scarcely knew.
It was wet when I reached Tozeur, and I stumbled down sandy roads in a chill rain, to the hotel. It was more the oasis of one’s imagination than anything I had yet seen. Beyond the thick grove of palm and fruit trees and the little native town built of earth bricks there stretched a great waste of yellow sand, in which the modern station buildings stood absurdly by themselves. To the east there glistened the vast Shott, a kind of quicksand with a salty crust. There are safe tracks across it for camels and mules, but a step to right or left may engulf the unwary traveller. In the distance it looks like an immense lake, the salt surface shining like water, and after rain it does become a shallow lake in places. It has been a terror to travellers for many generations, and rumour exaggerated its dangers. One of the earliest accounts of it was written in the fourteenth century, by Abou Yaga Zakkaria, who told terrible stories of hundreds of camels being swallowed up and leaving no trace, through straying from the safe path. All round it stretches a sandy solitude, broken only by the dark palm groves of Tozeur, and far away, those of Nefta.
I. M. D.Grain Market. Tozeur.
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Grain Market. Tozeur.
All this part is called the Djerid, and here one feels the intense solitude of the desert. It is on the edge of theSahara. In summer the heat is terrific, and the air vibrates as above an oven. The small town is surrounded by a sea of sand; the streets are ankle deep in it, and it stretches as far as one can see. It is picturesque, the houses built of earthen bricks set in patterns and with arched and tunnelled passages. ‘Town’ is rather a misleading term; it is just a collection of buildings clustering round a market-place, the roads wandering off vaguely from it into the desert.
The oasis is beautiful, streams of blue-green water everywhere, and a tangle of fruit trees amongst the slender trunks of the palms. It is about 2,500 acres in extent, the dates being renowned for their flavour. Alas! all were exported, and as unprocurable as fresh fish at a seaside resort. A minaret near a door covered with green tiles caught the eye, but most of the buildings were low and only remarkable for the picturesque way in which the bricks were set, forming attractive designs. The grain market was held under a modern roof, but the rest was in the open air, and the wide space was covered with an immense crowd. The women dressed in dark blue cotton with one white stripe the length of it, and they held the head covering across their faces. There is a large admixture of negro blood, which has spoilt the Arab type.
The population is occupied almost entirely in the care of the date palms. When first planted the small tree iswatered once a day and sheltered from cold winds. It begins to bear a little when 10 or 12 years old. From the age of 20 it produces an annual harvest of fruit and at 30 it is at its greatest vigour and continues in full bearing for another 30 years or so. Then its produce lessens by degrees and it is used for the extraction of palm wine ornagmias it is called; but this is only practised on trees whose yield is poor, or which are already worn out.
Truly the palm is the Arab’s friend. The fruit is his staple food; its leaves are made into baskets and panniers, or serve as hedges, its stem for gate posts and the beams of houses; while the fibrous stuff that is near the root is made into rope, mattresses and a sort of cloth. Even the date stones are eaten by camels. The Arabs have a saying that were a camel to walk into a palm grove, he could come out completely equipped with bridle, saddle and panniers and even with the palm leaf stem as a whip. It is in a palm-leaf cradle that the desert Arab is rocked to sleep as a child; his life passes below its shade, and it is under boards of its wood that he takes his last rest.
Twenty-four kilometres from Tozeur is the little town of Nefta. I motored there on a beaten road across the stretches of sand. To our left the Shott shone like a great lake, streaked with faint grey and purple. As far as we could see, the desert stretched away interminably till it met the horizon. The track followed the telegraphposts, and we passed a few groups of Arabs with their camels, plodding along at a pace which they can keep up for days at a stretch. One seemed to be moving for ever through an immense space, almost with a feeling of being hypnotised. Then, ahead, there was a dark blur in the expanse. “Voilà Nefta!” said the chauffeur.
It is entirely an Arab town, the flat-topped houses and the clothes of the inhabitants all of the same colour as the surrounding sand. Thick groves of palms cluster along the streams that flow from a quantity of springs. The oasis is called the ‘corbeille’ and is aptly named, for it lies in a hollow over which the village, straggling along two small heights, looks down. The palms grow all up the edges of this cup, and through their stems one sees the glow of sand against a pale blue sky. Springs of clear water bubbled up everywhere in the oasis and round the feet of the palms was the tender green of growing things. Bushes of white jasmine scented the air. And within a stone’s throw of this verdure is the vast emptiness and silence of the desert. Far, far on the horizon, like the tender tints of Venetian glass, was the pale blue and rose of distant rocky hills.
The tiny hotel was in the market-place, and from its verandah we looked down on an animated scene. Camels laden with firewood came in from the far country, driven by uncouth-looking men wrapped in ragged cloaks, theirfeet covered with rough shoes made of camel’s hide tied round the ankle. Tiny children, naked but for their one hooded garment, crept to warm themselves by the fires where cooking was going on. The people seemed very poor, their clothes tattered and scanty. Small booths were set up in the market-place, where unappetising meat was sold, and flat loaves of bread. One shopman dealt in primitive rings set with beads, sheathed knives and the flat mirrors that the Arab woman loves to wear hung round her neck. Far into the night I heard the sound of voices in the market-place below, and caught the occasional flicker of a fire.
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Nefta seemed full of children, queer little elfin figures in their pointed hoods with their thin unchildlike faces. There had been three bad harvests in succession, andeveryone was poor and hungry. I watched a tiny boy of about four years old who was left on guard over a heap of grass straw that his father had brought for sale. The little creature took his task very solemnly and hour after hour he sat there gravely, his trailing garment folded over his bare feet. It turned very cold as the sun went down, but still the small Casabianca stuck to his post. It began to grow dusk, and yet he sat there motionless, his eyes fixed on the bundles of straw. I thought how pleasant it would be to slip a coin or two into his frozen hands and started out full of this benevolent intention. But the sight of me was more than the poor little hero could stand. He had faced cold and hunger and the danger of possible thieves, but the terrifying sight of a white woman in strange garments was too much for him. He stood his ground bravely for a moment, but as it became certain I was coming straight to him, he fled, but hovered nearby in terror and perplexity like some shy bird whose nest is approached. I held up the money for him to see, but he did not understand. It proved useless to try to coax him back, and I went away, watching from a distance for his return. Like the bird, he slipped back to his post in the dusk as soon as he thought me safely gone, and now I waited till his father had appeared and then tried again. Again he wavered and turned to run as I drew near, but the father understood my gestures and caught him, smiling,by a flying end of his cloak. And so he stood, frightened but valiant, whilst I closed his tiny cold hand over the coins. I left him still bewildered, and could only hope the money served to buy a hot supper and perhaps firewood for the family.
Next day I rode along the route to Tougourt, in Algeria, a nine days’ journey by caravan. There seemed nothing to mark the road from the ocean of sand. It was edged in some places with a low parapet of banked sand and dry grass. Far below us was the dark mass of the ‘corbeille’ and above it the village of Nefta with its irregular line of houses, pricked here and there by a minaret and dotted with the white bubbles of marabou. On the other side, desert. The red-roofed douane on the frontier between Algeria and Tunis, looked like a child’s forgotten toy. Far off the minute silhouettes of distant camels paced slowly across the immensity. The air was clear and thin. One seemed alone in the world.
And suddenly, there at our feet we saw the delicate faces of tiny crocus-like flowers gazing at us from the level of the sand itself. Flushed with a faint lavender, the slender stamens stained with orange, they seemed indeed a miracle. From what nutriment had they woven their frail loveliness? The sand was friable and bare, the cold winds of night must pass like a scythe over these lonely places. But mysteriously, defying the vast world, minute tremblingroots must have crept from the small bulbs, mooring the little plants to a firm anchorage. And the first few drops of warm rain had brought them to a fragile flowering. Crushed by the spongy feet of passing camels, unregarded, ignored, they spread their delicate carpet, earnest of the later more bounteous gifts of Spring. And in this land of life reduced to bare necessities, of a people living from hand to mouth, of the harsh nomad existence led by Bedouin tribes, these little flowers seemed a message linking us to a more gracious existence, a land of kindlier aspect, of softer skies, with its largesse of blossoms of which the desert knows nothing.
The little oasis town of Gabès is on the coast, quite in the south of Tunisia, the line to it being made by German prisoners during the War. After leaving the broad belt of cultivation that stretches some way out of Sfax, with its olives and corn and fruit trees, the train ran through bare open country with scattered flocks of cattle, sheep or camels grazing on a sparse and wiry grass. Here and there a few Arabs were laboriously tilling the soil with wooden ploughs drawn by lean bullocks or camels. The latter are harnessed by means of a broad band of sacking across the front of their humps, attached by ropes to the plough. But soon these signs of cultivation ceased, and I looked out on a sandy and desolate waste, only broken occasionally by tracts of rough grass, stretching to a far dove-coloured sky. We reached Gabès in the dark. All night a storm raged, and I heard the thunder of waves on the shore and the wind and the rain lashing the palm trees of the oasis. The next day it was still stormy, and the public garden opposite the hotel was bruised and battered, whilst the palms looked dishevelled and untidy with their hair all over their eyes.
Gabès is a very small place, just the French military cantonments, one street, and a few houses and shops. A little river flows into the sea here, and on its other bank is the oasis, full of running water and palms and fruit trees. I rode for a long way through it. Arabs were at work amongst the vegetable gardens or tending the palms. Some of the trees are tapped for the juice, which is made into an intoxicating drink. When drawn off, it is colourless and clear and very sweet. The top of the palm is cut off, a hole made down the centre and a jar put into it. This fills itself every twelve hours or so. The tree is treated in this way every two years three times, and it does the growth no harm. One can see by the notches in the stem where it has been cut.
About a mile and a half from Gabès are the queer little villages of Jarette and Vielle Jarette, the latter built largely of stone from Roman ruins. They consist of a perfect rabbit warren of native houses with passage-ways leading from one to the other, buttressed with old stone pillars. Huge blocks of carved stone, fragments of acanthus, etc., are built into the walls. I went into one minute interior, where two girls sat on the earth floor weaving at a hand loom, whilst another was grinding corn in a stone hand-mill. They took a deep interest in me and fingered my fur coat in astonishment. They were broad featured, with very thick wavy hair, and werecovered with jewellery. My guide Mansour tells me the Arabs cannot understand why European women wear so few gems.
“Your ladies do not trouble to make themselves beautiful, do they?” said he. “With us, the women take so much trouble that even the plain make themselves handsome.”
He was an excellent guide, energetic and intelligent, talking French well, and had been a good deal with Englishmen on various shooting expeditions, so understood English ways.
I found the market-place of Jarette very interesting to sketch. There was always a great crowd in the morning, selling meat, vegetables, grain, tiny dried fish, poultry, etc. The walls were mostly mud coloured and the men in clothes the colour of earth, too, with only now and again the bright red or blue of a woman’s veil, or the striped skirt they wear in Gabès. But the brilliance of the sun made the whole scene sparkle and glow. The alley way in which I sometimes sat was roofed with palm leaf, through which one saw chinks of deep blue sky. The walls seemed to throb with refracted light, and at the end of the shadowed tunnel was a vignette of the busy market-place, sharp and clear in the intense sunlight. Figures squatted round wares arranged on the ground, others strode past carrying bags of grain. Here a negro was selling oranges, or abutcher auctioning pieces of horrid carmine to an intent crowd. Small boys looking like gnomes in their pointed hoods, with brown faces and bare legs, tiny girls carrying solemn-eyed babies, the black mysterious figures of veiled women, or a group of lightly veiled village girls coming past with a swing of drooping earrings and shapely arms holding burdens on their shoulder, swinging blue and red draperies, long dark eyes, and the blue tattoo marking on chin and cheek considered beautiful. Working away at my sketch I got a vague yet distinct picture in my mind of them as they passed; and the little donkeys, ridden by figures sitting on the rump and keeping up a flail-like motion of yellow slippered feet against their dusky sides, and shouting “Aarr-r-rh!”
All was bustle and excitement, and under the shelter of my roofed way were stacks of green vegetables and the cool purple and cream of turnips. The sunshine permeated everything outside, flooded market-place and crowd in a torrent of light, not golden, but a brilliant clear light in which things stood out sharply etched and distinct. A North African winter sunshine, amazingly brilliant, yet without much heat. The sun had not yet become the tyrant of summer, when men fly from his rays, and night becomes little less breathless than the day, when palms hang motionless in the sultry glare and people leave their mud dwellings for the shade of the oasis, when the glitteringsea breaks on a blinding beach, and the earth lies panting and scorched. These are the days, I suppose, when the mind turns with longing to the grey washes of rain in England, to the cool depths of summer woods and the freshness of clear springs amongst green ferns. For the shadow of a rock in a weary land.
On my way back from the market-place one day I passed an old sand-diviner, who sat wrapped in his neutral-coloured robes by the roadside, foretelling the mysteries of the future to a negress who squatted in front of him, evidently come on behalf of her mistress. On his knee he held a large book, and in front of him was the little wooden tray spread with sand, in which he made mysterious signs with his fingers. He was a kindly-looking old man, wrinkled and brown, his grey beard giving him a reverend appearance. He gave me permission to sketch him, and went on with his fortune telling. Sometimes he would look at his book and then peer with his mild eyes into the blue of the sky above his head, whilst the woman watched his movements with apprehension. I finished the sketch of him and he was delighted with it, and said:
“Put under it that my name is El Haj Hassim ben Abdallah Na Hali and that I can tell all things. I know all the stars by name and the power they have over each man’s fate. Nothing is hid from me.”
I. M. D.El Haj Hassin ben Abdulla Na Hali: Sand Diviner.Gabès. 11.1.23.
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El Haj Hassin ben Abdulla Na Hali: Sand Diviner.
Gabès. 11.1.23.
I told Mansour to ask him if he could tell what hadpassed in my life, and listened, smiling, for his answer. First he must know my name and the name of my mother. After repeating them with great difficulty he smoothed the sand in his tray and marked it six times with his finger. Then he looked up to the sky for a time, and spoke:
“This lady has a hard head; she does not easily believe. She loves to see new things and to travel to strange lands. Six countries has she already seen and yet more will she visit. Many times has she crossed great waters, once in peril of her life. She has been married, and he who was her husband is dead. Six men have been her friends—” (A little nervous as to the possible signification of the Arab word ‘friend,’ I hastily repudiated the last statement)—“and one will take her to a far country and will leave her there. It is spoken.”
Fortunately my hard head prevented my being much perturbed by the unpleasantness of the last part of the prophecy, but I was much charmed by the old man and his simplicity. Every day he sits there, his gentle face bent over his book, and from far and near people come to consult him. Mansour was distressed that I had not taken his speech more seriously.
“Of a truth he knows everything; I when young went to consult him, for I was greatly in love with a beautiful girl whom I wanted to marry. So great was her beauty that I could neither eat nor sleep for the thought of her.But the Sand-diviner said: ‘Lo, my son, put all thought of her from thy mind, for she will never be thine, not even wert thou to lay a bag of gold at her feet would she look upon thee.’ And it was even as he said. She would not look upon me. And for the space of five months I was grievously ill because of the love I bore her. Thus do I know the Sand-diviner speaks truth.”
We trudged along the dusty road in silence and then I ventured to ask if he had married someone else, and the cheerfulness of his answer relieved my anxiety. Yes, he was married, and his wife was “une vraie Arabe,” for she made herself beautiful for him, and three times in the week she went to the baths and perfumed herself, “and this she will continue to do,” he remarked, “till she has children. Then will she have no other thought but of her babes, for is not this the nature of women?” he ended philosophically.
He told me later that he had had three wives (he was a man of about 28, I think) and his first two he had divorced because they did not get on with his mother. “But one of them I shall marry again when my parents are no longer alive, for I am very fond of her, and she is waiting for me.” He explained to me that the first duty of a Moslem is to his parents. He brings his wife back to the paternal house, and unless there are too many children they live there till the death of the older generation. In any case a son mustsupport his parents all the days of their life. It is not forbidden to a Moslem to marry a Christian, there is much in the Bible that is also in the Koran. But never may the Mohammedans have anything to do with the Jews. They are an accursed people, a people set apart——
On my way to sketch one day, I saw an Arab funeral at the graveyard and watched for a time. The body, wrapped in folds of stuff and covered with a red cloth, lay on a light bier carried shoulder high, followed by a procession of men intoning verses from the Koran. There was a service held at the grave side, the professional mourners sitting in a circle chanting and swaying backwards and forwards. In this case it was the funeral of a woman, but no women were there, their presence not being allowed by custom. The foot of the grave had been bricked round and the corpse was taken from the bier and laid sideways in it, being then bricked in and the earth filled in on the top. The leader of the procession went round giving money to each of its members, and one by one the mourners condoled with the eldest son, kissing him on the shoulder.
Mansour watched from afar, for the dead woman was the mother of a friend of his, and he should have been attending the funeral.
“Life is but a short gift,” he said, “and soon over. To each of us must come an hour like this. We come from the dark and we enter the dark again.”
He told me the near relatives of the deceased must take off all jewellery, must fast for two days, and for the space of several months must not cut their hair nor attend entertainments of any sort. I asked how soon a man usually re-married after his wife’s death and was told in about six months’ time. He was shocked at our English custom of two years of widowhood. “It is not good for man to live alone,” he remarked sententiously.
On the death of one of the family, the women shriek and tear their faces with their nails. Everything is taken out of the room and the body is wrapped in a fine cloth and laid on a mattress on the ground, with its face towards Mecca, where it is visited by relations and friends. The burial takes place within twenty-four hours of death. When the corpse is lifted on to the bier, all children who are too young to talk are taken away from the home, there being a popular belief that they might hear the three cries said to be given by the dead when leaving his dwelling place, and so become dumb. Many willing helpers give assistance in carrying the bier, the Koran promising the remission of ten sins for every step taken in this way. It also promises forgiveness of a sin to all who follow in the procession. A piece of reed is placed in the tomb, containing copies of the prayer recommending the soul of the dead to the angels who will enquire of him regarding his orthodoxy. The assistants, before the grave is filled in,say, “Thou hast come from the earth, and to the earth thou returnest, whither we shall follow thee.” They each throw a handful of earth into the tomb, and it is then filled in, the gravedigger, when his work is finished, crying, “May he be forgiven!” The near relatives may cook no food for three days after the death, but may eat of what is brought to them. On the third day, readers of the Koran recite verses of it in the house of mourning, and the ceremonials are then finished.
There had been great excitement for some days past amongst the Arab children in the little oasis town. Mysterious vans had arrived by the train which crept once a day across the wide stretches of desert country, looking in the distance like a caterpillar with gleaming eyes before it drew up in the dusk at the tiny station. The children hung about watching till they were dispersed by an important-looking official.
It had not been so very long ago that the train itself had been a new excitement, bringing a whiff of modern civilisation to this small outpost on the edge of the desert. This was as far as the railway had reached as yet, and the station buildings had a somewhat bewildered air, set down in space with nothing but desert beyond them, and only the frail thread of the line to connect them with the far-off stir of modern life. And now it seemed it was bringing something tangible and wonderful. There were placards in French and in Arabic announcing the arrival of a Grand World Circus, and performances were to be held three nights running in the town.
The small Arabs talked of nothing else. What was acircus? It leaked out that there were wonderful European boys who rode on winged horses with flowing tails; there were men who walked in mid-air on wires as fine as the threads of a spider’s web. There were animals that could talk. There were clowns. What were clowns? Above all, there was a marvellously beautiful princess who also walked in mid-air, light as thistledown and graceful as a houri. A town crier with a drum paraded the only street shouting out the attractions of the circus and distributing handbills printed in Arabic. Grave men studied these solemnly over their tiny cups of black coffee, whilst the children edged nearer and nearer, gleaning crumbs of information. “Lo, the cost of a seat is one franc; it is much money,” said one greybeard to another. But again and again the words of the handbill drew their eyes back. “Hassan hath seen such an exhibition at Tunis, and he saith it is more marvellous even than the paper sets forth.”
Early every morning the children collected in the station square watching for what might happen. One day there were bales of stuff lying on the ground, and men were hard at work driving in poles and tent pegs and little by little a great tent rose in the square itself and a watchman took up his position in front of it to prevent all from entering. Next a party of strangers arrived and excitement grew to fever point. The new comers lodged at a tiny hotel and few caught sight of them. From a smaller tent close bythe large one came the sound of horses stamping, and a boy lying full length on the ground and peering under the edge of it, declared his face had been brushed by a long and silky tail that touched the ground. Then it was true about the wonderful horses! Excited small boys chattered hard, and the booking of seats became furious. Along the dusty roads came knots of peasants from outlying mud villages, fingering their cherished coins. The fat Frenchman at the table outside the tent took a stream of money all day long and smiled, well pleased.
Down by the grey-green river where the women beat and pounded linen in the clear running water, there was talk of little else. Their husbands and brothers and sons would see the circus. They themselves, being women, could not go. But that did not prevent their being intensely interested in the coming event.
“It is said they be in league with the Evil One and thus it is they can walk in mid air,” said one woman, busily wringing out a dark blue strip of muslin. “Allah send that our menfolk come to no harm in going to see them.”
“It is truly spoken,” the others answered, and there was a pause for a moment in the unceasing chatter, whilst a passing breeze stirred the palm leaves in the oasis across the stream and set the sandy soil whirling in small eddies.
It was a day in mid-January and already the almond blossom was beginning to show a delicate flush among thepalm stems, and the naked grey fig trees were putting forth small emerald leaves. On the wide seashore the waves were coming in gently, pushing a ring of creamy froth ahead of them, and there was a softness in the air and a greater warmth in the sun’s rays. The short African winter was almost over.
As the evening drew on, flaring naphtha lamps made a blaze of light at the entrance of the circus tent, and hours before the entertainment was to begin a crowd began to collect, the more fortunate clutching their tickets, the rest prepared to wait outside through the whole performance on the chance of catching a glimpse of the wonderful sights within.
Darkness came with its usual rush and through the curved leaves of the eucalyptus trees in the hotel garden shone the faint glimmer of stars. As we stepped into the open air the far-off beat of the sea seemed a steady pulse in the night. Our feet fell softly on the sandy road, and ahead of us was the glow of the circus. A packed crowd surrounded it, the light catching on dark faces and flowing draperies. Huddled in their cloaks they were impassive in appearance, but in reality deeply stirred. All eyes were turned to the tent, from the chinks of which came a heartening orange glow that spoke of the hidden glories within, whilst the shaky strains of a band made themselves heard at intervals.
The setting of the entertainment was meagre in the extreme. The Box Office sat on a chair by a ricketywooden table, and occasionally rushed forth to chase away inquisitive boys who were approaching too near the mysteries. Inside there were three or four tiers of rough seats round the low canvas edging that circled the ring. On one side were the reserved seats, occupied by French officers of the small garrison and their wives, glad of even this simple distraction, shopkeepers, railway officials, and the richer Arabs. On the other side were rows and rows of natives packed as closely as possible along the benches, whilst the children sat on lower seats still, staring round them at the tent and up to the dim gloom of the roof, where a trapeze hung motionless. The ring was uncovered beaten earth, and naphtha lights illuminated the scene with a crude glare.
When all the seats were filled, the band, composed of a violin, a cornet, and a most useful drum, set up a martial air. There was a tightening up of the tense excitement amongst the children, and to a burst of ardour on the part of the drum, a grey horse cantered easily into the arena. His flowing tail almost swept the ground and from his arched neck rippled a long and silky mane. Striding after him came the Master of the Ceremonies, with his long whip and air of distinction. And with him came a scrap of a boy in a fringed khaki costume that strove to give him a Red Indian air. A scarlet handkerchief was knotted round his head. Round and round the ringwent the horse, with an easy regular canter, until the crowd broke into exclamations of admiration. Had such an animal ever been seen before in the little town? “Truly it was such a steed as the son of a prince might ride,” said one to another. Then there was a fresh stir of interest as the tiny khaki figure ran to meet it, seemed to cling for a moment against its side, then threw a small leg across its back and sat upright, waving an acknowledgment to the applause. To the crack of the Master’s long whip that rang out like a pistol shot, the horse kept up his easy canter, whilst one by one the boy performed his tricks, standing on one leg, lying full length and picking up flags from the ground as he rode past, jumping over hurdles, etc., his small face set and grave under the folds of the scarlet handkerchief, intent on performing his task correctly. The crowd clapped delighted, till at last he and his steed disappeared in a storm of applause. Then talk rose again in a buzz. “Verily Hassan spoke truth when he said we should see marvels,” and there were murmurs that the turn was over too quickly. In the more expensive seats they discussed the show patronisingly and declared it not at all bad. Someone said it was a small family affair, this French travelling-circus, and that the performers worked hard and made it pay. “A wretched life,” he added.
Meanwhile from my seat near the gangway I could watch the performers as they came on and overhear snatches oftalk. As the grey and its rider went out they passed a knot of people talking together. “Canst thou manage it, Etienne?” said a woman’s anxious voice, and at the same moment two clowns appeared laughing and bandying jokes. One of them, the elder, was so drawn and haggard, it seemed with pain, that it could be marked even through the thick white make-up on his face. He was in the usual baggy white costume; whilst the other, tall and young, was dressed absurdly in a short black jacket, with a turndown collar and flowing red bow tie, and wide checked trousers. His face, with its twinkling humorous eyes and wide slit mouth was reddened to the hue of a rosy apple, whilst his fair curly hair stood up in tufts above it. It could easily be seen he clowned for the love of it. He chaffed the audience, even drawing laughter from the Arab part of it, asked absurd questions of the Master of the Ceremonies, tried to perform feats of horsemanship and failed grotesquely, only to do something finally much more difficult than he had at first attempted.
But after a time a certain restlessness began to make itself felt amongst the audience. Good as the clowns were, the crowd was looking for the appearance of the Enchantress, the wonderful Princess of the Air. Expectation, whetted by what had already been seen, became more and more keen.
At last there was a stir outside, a pause, a crashing of chords on the part of the Band, and running forward withquick little steps, smiling to left and right, her dark hair hanging down her back, her candid eyes seeming to beg a kind reception from the crowd, she appeared.
She was dressed in scarlet tights, her arms bare to the shoulder, and by her side trotted a small boy, dressed too in red. With all her bravery of gaudy apparel and in spite of her professional ingratiating smile, there was still so much of the honest bourgeoise wife and mother about her that she struck one as incongruous. What queer chance had shaped her life to this? She came on with an air of competent quiet assurance. She was a large woman, with well-shaped sturdy limbs, and a wedding ring gleamed on her plump hand. She stepped into the arena, smiling all round, and I saw her surreptitiously pat the small boy’s foot as she lifted him into the trapeze and followed him herself.
Then came a really wonderful performance. She swung at a perilous height, knelt on the swaying swing, hung head downwards from it by her knees, her long hair streaming in a straight sweep from her head. The applause was tremendous. Sitting astride the bar she kissed her hand to the audience, then she and the small boy went on with their evolutions in mid air. Sometimes he threw himself into space, to be caught by her hanging hands, or he stood on her shoulders whilst they swung dizzily backwards and forwards above our heads. And all the time she had that air of an honest bourgeoise conscientiously givingthe audience full value for their money. This Enchantress of the Air, this wonderful Princess the rumour of whose exploits had set a small town dreaming of romance, about whose scarlet-clad figure in the eyes of the Arab audience still clung the glamour of far-off cities and of unknown lands beyond the sea: for many a night she would haunt the dreams of the wide-eyed children in the audience, with that magic that had been first roused by the music of her high-sounding names, then strengthened by her strange apparel, and the ease and sureness which she displayed. Could one use such a word in connection with her solid person, one might say she had ‘flashed’ upon their consciousness, a being from another world, something jewelled and rare. And still she looked down, smiling, from the height above us.
The haggard looking clown had a part too to take in the acrobatic performance. He came to rub his feet in a heap of chalk near the gangway, and I could see tiny points of perspiration pricking through the make-up on his face. I knew he feared lest he should break down and I watched anxiously as he joined the performers. First he handed a chair up to the woman as she stood on the swing, and balancing it by two legs she sat on it, turning and twisting whilst all eyes were rivetted on her. Her calm and assurance seemed to uphold and steady the man. He and she and the boy did wonderful acrobatic tricks, but even at that distance I could mark the tension about his whitened face.Once or twice he missed his spring, but she remained serene and quiet and smiled encouragement to him.
The performance was gone through steadily, and then came the last pose, that set the nerves tingling. He stood on the swinging bar, she on his shoulder, and above her the small figure of the boy with a foot on either side her head. The veins stood out on the man’s neck from the immense strain, and though it was only for a moment they stayed, arms stretched out like a swaying human ladder, it was a relief when they slid safely to the ground.
Next came a ‘turn’ again with two horses. The Enchantress stood in the gangway next me, resting, her arms folded. She told me the Infant Prodigy was her son, and that she had four other children, one of them the boy rider we had seen. She spoke frankly and pleasantly. Yes, it was a hard life; they went from town to town, staying a few nights in each, but they earned their living, and after all, “il faut travailler, n’est ce pas?” She smiled, and moved away. An honest soul in that large figure, undoubtedly; kindly and conscientious. Her firm cheeks glowed with colour, her dark eyes had a direct gaze, and her bare arms were shapely and white. Her natural setting seemed some small shop in a provincial town, or perhaps the parlour of a country inn.
Later, she came on again, but this time it was the Infant Prodigy who was the chief performer. The Master of the Ceremonies appeared in flannels, balancing a long pole onhis shoulder, and up this the little figure crept inch by inch, till at last he sat on the top, a tiny spot of crimson in the glare of the lamps. His mother watched him anxiously whilst the rest of the troupe stood round looking on. At a given signal the music stopped and the boy cautiously let himself head downwards along the pole, clasping the top of it with his feet. There was a sharp intake of breath all round the tent. One small foot felt for a ring at the top of the pole, and sidled its way through it up to the ankle. Then the little creature spread himself out, only touching the supporting pole with the tip of one hand.
All this time, in the dead silence, the man kept the pole balanced, moving slightly backwards and forwards, moisture running down his face with the effort. There was an attempt at applause, but it was checked. The moment was too critical. At last the child straightened himself up again almost imperceptibly, gently drew his foot free from the ring and slid triumphantly to the ground, whilst the clapping broke out with redoubled vigour.
It was the last item on the programme and whilst the Master made a flowery French speech to the audience, the Enchantress reappeared—a cotton gown over her professional garments, and methodically went the round of the tent making a collection in a china plate. In this dress she became matter-of-fact. It was hard to connect her with the scarlet figure that had held our interest chained so short a time ago.
People began to leave, streaming out into the darkness. The artistes were clearing away the few stage properties whilst the musicians wrapped up their instruments, and turning back as I left the tent I saw the little Prodigy slipping his hand into his mother’s and trotting off to be put to bed.
The air outside struck chill after the stuffy heat of the tent. From the distance came a faint sound of native music and fireworks celebrating an Arab wedding. Hooded figures muffled in cloaks passed silently as ghosts. The sharp rustle of palm leaves made itself heard in the darkness, and clear on the night came the notes of a bugle from the military cantonment on the edge of the little town. Groups of Arabs stood about discussing the wonders of the evening with those who had not been able to get a seat, whilst small boys hung wistfully about the entrance, loth to leave the enchanted spot and to return to everyday life.
Long after the circus has left the country, and the Prodigy has grown up, there will be talk of it in the mud houses along the river bank and in the village market-places. And as the tale spreads from one hearer to another, its marvels will become ever more and more wonderful, and slimmer and more beautiful the heroine, till she and the satin-coated horses and the small boy-acrobat will take their places amongst that gallery of half-mythical figures, almost divine, of whom stories are told round flickering village fires in the dusk.
There is a beautiful stretch of sand along the small Bay of Gabès strewn with shells and pieces of coarse sponge, brought in by the tide. Sponge fisheries are found further south, but the variety at Gabès itself is of no good. There are tunny fisheries here, and also a trade in shell fish carried on with Marseilles. The little river is frequented by native fishermen who use hand nets which they throw with great skill. The net is circular and draws up close together when in the hand. When thrown it opens wide on reaching the water and sinks owing to its leaded edge. After leaving it for a few minutes the fisherman pulls it in, the strain on the cord closing the mouth again. As a fisher is stationed at every few yards, I do not think the fish population can be a large one.