Life in Morocco and Glimpses Beyond Part 25

In studying the life of Algerian towns, the almost entire absence of well-to-do Arabs or Berbers is striking. I never came across one who might be judged from his appearance to be a man of means or position, unless in military or official garb, though there are doubtless many independent natives among the Berber and Arab tribes. The few whom I encountered making any pretence of dressing well were evidently of no social rank, and the complaint on every hand is that the natives are being gradually ousted from what little is left to them.

As for European law, they consider this to have no connection with justice, and think themselves very heavily taxed to support innovations with which they have no concern, and which they would rather dispense with. One can, indeed, feel for them, though there is no doubt much to be said on both sides, especially when it is the other side which boasts the power, if not the superior intelligence.

The Jews, however, thrive, and in many ways have the upper hand, especially so since the wise move which accorded them the rights of French citizenship. It is remarkable, however, how much less conspicuous they are in the groups about the streets than in Morocco, notwithstanding that their dress is quite as distinctive as there, though different.

The new-comer who arrives at the fine port of Algiers finds it as greatly transformed as its name has been from the town which originally bore it, El Jazirah. The fine appearance of the rising tiers of houses gives an impression of a still larger city than it really is, for very little is hidden from view except the suburbs.

From a short way out to sea the panorama is grand, but it cannot be as chaste as when the native city cl.u.s.tered in the hollow with its whitewashed houses and its many minarets, completely surrounded by green which has long since disappeared under the advancing tide of bricks and mortar. One can hardly realize that this fine French city has replaced the den of pirates of such fearful histories. Yet there is the original light-house, the depot for European slaves, and away on the top of yonder hill are remains of the ancient citadel. It was there, indeed, that those dreadful cruelties were perpetrated, where so many Christians suffered martyrdom. Yes, this is where once stood the "famous and war-like city, El Jazirah," which was in its time "the scourge of Christendom."

Whether the visitor be pleased or disappointed with the modern city depends entirely on what he seeks. If he seeks Europe in Africa, with perhaps just a dash of something oriental, he will be amply satisfied with Algiers, which is no longer a native city at all. It is as French as if it had risen from the soil entirely under French hands, and only the slums of the Arab town remain. The seeker after native life will therefore meet with complete disappointment, unless he comes straight from Europe, with no idea what he ought to expect. All the best parts of the town, the commercial and the residential quarters, have long since been replaced by European subst.i.tutes, leaving hardly a trace of the picturesque originals, while every day sees a further encroachment on the erstwhile African portion, the interest of which is almost entirely removed by the presence of crowds of poor Europeans and European-dressed Jews. The visitor to Algiers would therefore do well to avoid everything native, unless he has some opportunity of also seeing something genuine elsewhere. The only specimens he meets in the towns are miserable half-caste fellows--by habit, if not by birth,--for their dress, their speech, their manners, their homes, their customs, their religion--or rather their lack of religion,--have all suffered from contact with Europeans. But even before the Frenchmen came, it is notorious how the Algerines had sunk under the bane of Turkish rule, as is well ill.u.s.trated by their own saying, that where the foot of the Turk had trod, gra.s.s refused to grow. Of all the Barbary States, perhaps none has suffered more from successive outside influences than the people of Algeria.

The porter who seizes one's luggage does not know when he is using French words or Arabic, or when he introduces Italian, Turkish, or Spanish, and cannot be induced to make an attempt at Arabic to a European unless the latter absolutely refuses to reply to his jargon.

Then comes a hideous corruption of his mother tongue, in which the foreign expressions are adorned with native inflexions in the most comical way. His dress is barbarous, an ancient and badly fitting pair of trousers, and stockingless feet in untidy boots, on the heels of which he stamps along the streets with a most unpleasant noise. The collection of garments which complete his attire are mostly European, though the "Fez" cap remains the distinctive feature of the Muslim's dress, and a selham--that cloak of cloaks, there called a "burnus"--is slung across his shoulder. Some few countrymen are to be seen who still retain the more graceful native costume, with the typical camel-hair or cotton cord bound round the head-dress, but the old inhabitants are being steadily driven out of town.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TENT OF AN ALGERIAN SHEKH.]

The characteristic feature of Algerian costumes is the head-cord referred to, which pervades a great part of Arabdom, in Syria and Arabia being composed of two twists of black camel hair perhaps an inch thick. In Algeria it is about an eighth of an inch thick, and brown. The slippers are also characteristic, but ugly, being of black leather, excellently made, and cut very far open, till it becomes an art to keep them on, and the heels have to be worn up. The use of the white selham is almost universal, unhemmed at the edges, as in Tunis also; and over it is loosely tied a short hak fastened on the head by the cord.

There is, however, even in Algiers itself, one cla.s.s of men who remain unaffected by their European surroundings, pa.s.sive amid much change, a model for their neighbours. These are the Beni M'zab, a tribe of Mohammedan Protestants from southern Algeria, where they settled long ago, as the Puritans did in New England, that they might there worship G.o.d in freedom. They were the Abadiya, gathered from many districts, who have taken their modern name from the tribe whose country they now inhabit. They speak a dialect of Berber, and dress in a manner which is as distinctive as their short stature, small, dark, oily features, jet-black twinkling eyes, and scanty beard. They come to the towns to make money, and return home to spend it, after a few years of busy shop-keeping. A butcher whom I met said that he and a friend had the business year and year about, so as not to be too long away from home at a time. They are very hard-working, and have a great reputation for honesty; they keep their shops open from about five in the morning till nine at night. As the Beni M'zab do not bring their wives with them, they usually live together in a large house, and have their own mosque, where they worship alone, resenting the visits of all outsiders, even of other Muslims. Admission to their mosque is therefore practically refused to Europeans, but in Moorish dress I was made welcome as some distinguished visitor from saintly Fez, and found it very plain, more like the kubbah of a saint-house than an ordinary mosque.

There are also many Moors in Algeria, especially towards the west.

These, being better workmen than the Algerines, find ready employment as labourers on the railways. Great numbers also annually visit oran and the neighbourhood to a.s.sist at harvest time. Those Moors who live there usually disport themselves in trousers, strange to stay, and, when they can afford it, carry umbrellas. They still adhere to the turban, however, instead of adopting the head cord. At Blidah I found that all the sellers of sfinges--yeast fritters--were Moors, and those whom I came across were enthusiastic to find one who knew and liked their country. The Algerines affect to despise them and their home, which they declare is too poor to support them, thus accounting for their coming over to work.

The specimens of native architecture to be met with in Algeria are seldom, if ever, pure in style, and are generally extremely corrupt.

The country never knew prosperity as an independent kingdom, such as Morocco did, and it is only in Tlemcen, on the borders of that Empire, that real architectural wealth is found, but then this was once the capital of an independent kingdom. The palace at Constantine is not Moorish at all, except in plan, being adorned with a hap-hazard collection of odds and ends from all parts. It is worse than even the Bardo at Tunis, where there is some good plaster carving--naksh el hadeed--done by Moorish or Andalucian workmen. In the palaces of the Governor and the Archbishop of Algiers, which are also very composite, though not without taste, there is more of this work, some of it very fine, though much of it is merely modern moulded imitation.

Of more than a hundred mosques and shrines found in Algiers when it was taken by the French, only four of the former and a small number of the latter remain, the rest having been ruthlessly turned into churches. The Mosque of Hasan, built just over a century ago, is now the cathedral, though for this transformation it has been considerably distorted, and a mock-Moorish facade erected in the very worst taste.

Inside things are better, having been less interfered with, but what is now a church was never a good specimen of a mosque, having been originally partly European in design, the work of renegades. The same may be said of the Mosque of the Fisheries, a couple of centuries old, built in the form of a Greek cross! One can well understand how the Dey, according to the story, had the architect put to death on discovering this anomaly. These incongruities mar all that is supposed in Algeria to be Arabesque. The Great Mosque, nevertheless, is more ancient and in better style, more simple, more chaste, and more awe-inspiring. The Zawiah of Sidi Abd er-Rahman, outside the walls, is as well worth a visit as anything in Algiers, being purely and typically native. It is for the opportunities given for such peeps as this that one is glad to wander in Algeria after tasting the real thing in Morocco, where places of worship and baths are closed to Europeans. These latter I found all along North Africa to be much what they are in Morocco, excepting only the presence of the foreigners.

The tile work of Algeria is ugly, but many of the older Italian and other foreign specimens are exceptionally good, both in design and colour. Some of the Tunisian tiles are also noteworthy, but it is probable that none of any real artistic value were ever produced in what is now conveniently called Algeria. There is nothing whatever in either country to compare with the exquisite Fez work found in the Alhambra, hardly to rival the inferior productions of Tetuan. A curious custom in Algeria is to use all descriptions of patterns together "higgledy-piggledy," upside down or side-ways, as though the idea were to cover so much surface with tiling, irrespective of design. Of course this is comparatively modern, and marks a period since what art Algeria ever knew had died out. It is noticeable, too, how poor the native manufacturers are compared with those of Morocco, themselves of small account beside those of the East. The wave of civilization which swept over North Africa in the Middle Ages failed to produce much effect till it recoiled upon itself in the far, far west, and then turned northward into Spain.

Notwithstanding all this, Algeria affords an ample field for study for the scientist, especially the mountain regions to the south, where Berber clans and desert tribes may be reached in a manner impossible yet in Morocco, but the student of oriental life should not visit them till he has learnt to distinguish true from false among the still behind-hand Moors.

x.x.xIII

TUNISIA VIEWED FROM MOROCCO

"The slave toils, but the Lord completes."

_Moorish Proverb._

Fortunately for the French, the lesson learned in Algeria was not neglected when the time came for their "pacific penetration" of Tunisia. Their first experience had been as conquerors of anything but pacific intent, and for a generation they waged war with the Berber tribes. Everywhere, even on the plains, where conquest was easy, the native was dispossessed. The land was allotted to Frenchmen or to natives who took the oath of allegiance to France, and became French subjects. Those who fought for their fatherland were driven off, the villages depopulated, and the country laid waste. In the cities the mosques were desecrated or appropriated to what the native considered idolatrous worship. They have never been restored to their owners.

Those Algerines only have flourished who entered the French army or Government service, and affected manners which all but cut them off from their fellow-countrymen.

In Tunisia the French succeeded, under cover of specious a.s.surances to the contrary, in overthrowing the Turkish beys, rehabilitating them in name as their puppets, with hardly more opposition than the British met with in Burma. The result is a nominally native administration which takes the blame for failures, and French direction which takes the credit for successes. All that was best in Algeria has been repeated, but native rights have been respected, and the cities, with their mosques and shrines, left undisturbed as far as possible. The desecration of the sacred mosque of Karwan as a stable was a notable exception.

The difference between the administration of Algeria and that of Tunisia makes itself felt at every step. In the one country it is the ruling of a conquered people for the good of the conquerors alone, and in the other it is the ruling of an unconquered people by bolstering up and improving their own inst.i.tutions under the pretence of seeking their welfare. The immense advantage of the Tunisian system is apparent on all sides. The expense is less, the excuses for irregularities are greater, and the natives still remain a nominal power in the land, instead of being considered as near serfs as is permissible in this twentieth century.

The results of the French occupation were summed up to me by a Tunisian as the making of roads, the introduction of more money and much drunkenness, and the inst.i.tution of laws which no native could ever hope to understand. But France has done more than that in Tunis, even for the native. He has the benefit of protection for life and property, with means of education and facilities for travel, and an outlet for his produce. He might do well--and there are many instances of commercial success--but while he is jibbing against the foreign yoke, the expatriated Jews, whom he treated so badly when he had the upper hand, are outstripping him every day. The net result of the foreigners' presence is good for him, but it would be much better had he the sense to take advantage of his chances as the Jew does. Many of the younger generation, indeed, learn French, and enter the great army of functionaries, but they are rigidly restricted to the lowest posts, and here again the Jew stands first.

In business or agriculture there is sure to come a time when cash is needed, so that French and Jewish money-lenders flourish, and when the Tunisian cannot pay, the merciless hand of foreign law irresistibly sells him up. In the courts the complicated procedure, the intricate code, and the swarm of lawyers, bewilder him, and he sighs for the time when a bribe would have settled the question, and one did at least know beforehand which would win--the one with the longer purse.

Now, who knows? But the Tunisian's princ.i.p.al occasions for discontent are the compulsory military service, and the multiplication and weight of the taxes. From the former only those are exempt who can pa.s.s certain examinations in French, and stiff ones at that, so that Arabic studies are elbowed out; the unremitted military duties during the Ramadan fast are regarded as a peculiar hardship. To the taxes there seems no end, and from them no way of escape. Even the milkman complains, for example, that though his goats themselves are taxed, he cannot bring their food into town from his garden without an additional charge being paid!

With the superficial differences to be accounted for by this new state of things, there still remains much more in Tunisia to remind one of Morocco than in Algeria. What deeper distinctions there are result in both countries from Turkish influence, and Turkish blood introduced in the past, but even these do not go very deep. Beneath it all there are the foundations of race and creed common to all, and the untouched countryman of Tunisia is closely akin to his fellow of Morocco. Even in the towns the underlying likeness is strong.

The old city of Tunis is wonderfully like that of Fez; the streets, the shops, the paving, being identical; but in the former a picturesque feature is sometimes introduced, stone columns forming arcades in front of the shops, painted in spiral bands of green and red, separated by a band of white. The various trades are grouped there as further west, and the streets are named after them. The Mellah, or Jewish Quarter, has lost its boundary, as at Tangier, and the gates dividing the various wards have disappeared too. Hardly anything remains of the city walls, new ones having arisen to enclose the one European and two native suburbs. But under a modern arcade in the main street, the Avenue de France, there is between the shops the barred gate leading to a mosque behind, which does not look as if it were often opened.

Tramways run round the line of the old walls, and it is strange to see the natives jumping on and off without stopping the car, in the most approved western style. There, as in the trains, European and African sit side by side, though it is to be observed that as a rule, should another seat be free, neither gets in where the other is. As for hopes of encouraging any degree of amalgamation, these are vain indeed.

A mechanical mixture is all that can be hoped for: nothing more is possible. A few French people have embraced Islam for worldly aims, and it is popularly believed by the natives that in England thousands are accepting Mohammed.

The mosques of Tunis are less numerous than those of Fez, but do not differ greatly from them except in the inferior quality of the tile-work, and in the greater use of stone for the arches and towers.

The latter are of the Moorish square shape, but some, if not all, are ascended by steps, instead of by inclined planes. The mosques, with the exception of that at Karwan--the most holy, strange to say--are as strictly forbidden to Europeans and Jews as in Morocco, and screens are put up before the doors as in Tangier.

The Moors are very well known in Tunis, so many of them, pa.s.sing through from Mekka on the Hajj, have been prevented from getting home by quarantine or lack of funds. Clad as a Moor myself, I was everywhere recognized as from that country, and was treated with every respect, being addressed as "Amm el Haj" ("Uncle Pilgrim"), having my shoulders and hands kissed in orthodox fashion. There are several _cafes_ where Morocco men are to be met with by the score. One feature of this cosmopolitan city is that there are distinct _cafes_ for almost every nation represented here except the English.

The Arabs of Morocco are looked upon as great thieves, but the Susis have the highest reputation for honesty. Not only are all the gate-keepers of the city from that distant province, but also those of the most important stores and houses, as well as of the railway-stations, and many are residents in the town. The chief snake-charmers and story-tellers also hail from Sus.

The veneration for Mulai Tab of Wazzan, from whom the shareefs of that place are descended, is great, and the Asawa, hailing from Mequinez, are to be met with all along this coast; they are especially strong at Karwan. In Tunis, as also in Algeria and Tripoli, the comparative absence of any objection to having pictures taken of human beings, which is an almost insurmountable hindrance in Morocco, again allowed me to use my kodak frequently, but I found that the Jews had a strong prejudice against portraits.

The points in which the domestic usages of Tunisia differ from those of Morocco are the more striking on account of the remarkably minute resemblance, if not absolute ident.i.ty, of so very many others, and as the novelty of the innovations wears off, it is hard to realize that one is not still in the "Far West."

In a native household of which I found myself temporarily a member, it was the wholesale a.s.similation of comparatively trivial foreign matters which struck me. Thus, for instance, as one of the sons of my host remarked--though he was dressed in a manner which to most travellers would have appeared exclusively oriental--there was not a thing upon him which was not French. Doubtless a closer examination of his costume would have shown that some of the articles only reached him through French hands, but the broad fact remained that they were all foreign. It is in this way that the more civilized countries show a strong and increasing tendency to develop into nations of manufacturers, with their gigantic workshops forcing the more backward, _nolens volens_, to relapse to the more primitive condition of producers of raw material only.

There was, of course, a time when every garment such a man would have worn would have been of native manufacture, without having been in any feature less complete, less convenient, or less artistic than his present dress. In many points, indeed, there is a distinct loss in the more modern style, especially in the blending of colours, while it is certain that in no point has improvement been made. My friend, for instance, had the addition, common there, of a pair of striped merino socks, thrust into a pair of rubber-soled tennis shoes. Underneath he wore a second pair of socks, and said that in winter he added a third.

Above them was not much bare leg, for the pantaloons are cut there so as often to reach right down to the ankles. This is necessitated by the custom of raising the mattresses used for seats on divans, and by sitting at table on European chairs with the legs dangling in the cold. The turban has nothing of the gracefulness of its Moorish counterpart, being often of a dirty-green silk twisted into a rope, and then bound round the head in the most inelegant fashion, sometimes showing the head between the coils; they are not folds. Heads are by no means kept so carefully shaved as in Morocco, and I have seen hair which looked as though only treated with scissors, and that rarely.

The fashion for all connected with the Government to wear European dress, supplemented by the "Fez" (fortunately not the Turkish style), brings about most absurd anomalies. This is especially observable in the case of the many very stout individuals who waddle about like ducks in their ungainly breeches. I was glad to find on visiting the brother of the late Bey that he retained the correct costume, though the younger members of his family and all his attendants were in foreign guise. The Bey himself received me in the frock-coat with pleated skirt, favoured by his countrymen the Turks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Albert, Photo., Tunis._

A TUNISIAN JEWESS IN STREET DRESS.]

The Mohammedan women seen in the streets generally wear an elegant fine silk and wool hak over a costume culminating in a peaked cap, the face being covered--all but the eyes--by two black handkerchiefs, awful to behold, like the mask of a stage villain. More stylish women wear a larger veil, which they stretch out on either side in front of them with their hands. They seem to think nothing of sitting in a railway carriage opposite a man and chatting gaily with him. I learn from an English lady resident in Tunis that the indoor costume of the women is much that of the Jewesses out of doors--extraordinary indeed.

It is not every day that one meets ladies in the street in long white drawers, often tight, and short jackets, black or white, but this is the actual walking dress of the Jewish ladies of Tunis.

x.x.xIV

TRIPOLI VIEWED FROM MOROCCO

"Every sheep hangs by her own legs."

_Moorish Proverb._