Arab village

“ CHAPTER XXIX—The Temple On the skirting of the desert lay a small Arab village—a place of a few dilapidated huts, accommodating not more than a score of inhabitants. For the most part these were people sunk to the lowest depths of poverty, living in a state of dirt unimaginable to those who are not acquainted with the Arab. ”

“ A cluster of mud or adobe houses, whose one-storied rooms lie beneath the impending leaves of the palm, constitute the Arab village to the inhabitants of which is apportioned the proprietorship of the oasis. The Arabs here are naturally not nomads, but permanent fixtures, to whom a life in the desert has little of that Africa associated with it which is the proper service of the Arab of the caravan. ”

“ It is impossible to describe, and so we will not attempt a description; the play of light and the darkness of the shadows are surpassingly beautiful, and some of the columns and broken walls seem even more gigantic than at other times. There is an Arab village close to the ruins, but not within the temple itself; the only inhabitants are owls and jackals, who resent your intrusion with their peculiar cries, and seem to consider themselves the rightful heirs of the kings so long dead and gone. ”

“ But perhaps we had better reserve our pity for the home land. One does not see in the Arab village the ignoble squalor of a town slum, nor the dreary, hopeless poverty, nor the evil look of degraded people, nor the miserable intemperance. ”

“ The population of the City of the Hundred Gates now consists of a few Arab families, who form four villages of mud huts clustered round those gigantic columns and mighty obelisks, a single one of which is sought for by the greatest sovereigns of Europe for their palaces and museums as the rarest of curious treasures. Often, indeed, have I seen a whole Arab village rising from the roof of a single Egyptian temple. Dendera is an instance. The population of Gornou, in number between three and four hundred, reside solely in the tombs. ”

“ The young lads of the village are as sturdy little fellows as one could meet anywhere, with clean and muscular limbs, of bold and independent carriage, and with none [80] of that shrinking timidity, which makes the children of an Arab village retreat behind the shelter of their dogs at the approach of a Roumi.
The inevitable dhiffa was, of course, awaiting us here; we had always to get through two daily; there was a strong family resemblance between them all, the staple dishes being the same, a sheep roasted whole, and piles of couscousou, washed down by beakers of milk ”

“ We live on the frontier of the territory of Abusir, an Arab village long bearing but a doubtful reputation, between Kafr-el-Batran, at the foot of the pyramids of Gizeh and Saqâra. By Arabs (’Arab, pl. ’Urbân) I mean, according to custom, those inhabitants of the land who have settled in the valley of the Nile, at a late period, and have built villages with some show of right. ”

“ They are now all dry, and the villagers have to send many miles for their drinking water. All this country belongs to the Hauran, and we are now in a Haurani village called Ghízeh. The people are evidently not pure Arabs, as many of them have light eyes.
We are being hospitably entertained by the village Sheykh, who is an old acquaintance of Mohammed’s father’s, and insists on setting all he has got before us,—coffee, a plate of rice, barley for the mares, and, what is more precious just now, water for them as well as for ourselves. ”

“ The floor is the earth, where all sexes and ages sit on the ground, while in an enclosure scarcely separate from the family, sheep and goats, and dogs and asses and camels, lie down together.
The only pretty feature of an Arab village is the doves. ”

“ Most of the wells and fountains we see on the way had been similarly well cared for in ancient times, but are now fast falling into decay. We will give you a little idea of an Eastern village:—Place a honeycomb with the cells perpendicular, cover the top of some of the cubes to represent a flat mud roof, leave others open to represent small stable yards for all the domestic animals in creation, camels included, and you have an Arab village of one-storeyed huts, scarcely distinguishable at a distance from the hillside on which it is plastered. ”

“ In the absence of a fixed home, without a city, or even a village that is permanent, there can be no change of custom. There is no stimulus to competition in the style of architecture that is to endure only for a few months; no municipal laws suggest deficiencies that originate improvements. The Arab cannot halt in one spot longer than the pasturage will support his flocks; therefore his necessity is food for his beasts. The object of his life being fodder, he must wander in search of the ever-changing supply. ”

“ Throughout all its history the east-Jordan land has witnessed the constant transition of Arab tribes from the nomadic life of the desert to the more settled civilization, of agricultural Palestine. Here on the eastern heights that overlook the Jordan valley and the land of Canaan the traveller still finds the Arab tents and flocks of the nomads beside the plowed fields of the village-dwellers. ”

“ In the first place, the village itself was out of the question, partly because Arab houses, as a rule, do not consist of more than one room, and even when one has turned out their human inhabitants, it still remains tenanted by so many others of a carnivorous character, though minute in size, that existence becomes a burden; and partly because they are pervaded with a singular odour of burnt manure, which the natives use as fuel for the ovens in which they bake their bread, and which is too pungent to be agreeable to unsophisticated nostrils. ”

“ A little way further south than the garden of Count Landon, on the Touggourt road lie the scattered native hamlets known to the French as La Vieille Biskra, the crumbling houses of a ragged population. Here is the very ne plus ultra of Arab untidiness. But the play of sunbeams through the palm trees’ grateful shade turns squalor into beauty. Arab villages are often half in ruins. Their irregular construction of blocks of dried mud gives them the aspect of the homes of animals rather than of men,—the creation perhaps of some gigantic ant. When it rains they not infrequently fall down. ”

“ And sure enough a little later we were able to make out some eight or nine big black tents, grouped around the remains of a ruined village with the wreck of a castle on its tel. Several such ruined villages are found here and there about the desert, but the inhabitants have long since been badgered out of them by Turkish tax-collectors and Arab raiders. The Arabs, though delightful hosts and most romantic features in a landscape, are not desirable neighbours. They submit to no control whatever ”

“ In the plain itself we can just distinguish by the doubtful twilight several blackish patches irregularly scattered over its face, or seen as though leaning upward against its craggy verge; these are the gardens and country houses of ’Obeyd and other chiefs, besides hamlets and villages, such as Kefar and ’Adwah, with their groves of palm and ‘ithel’ (the Arab larch) , now blended in the dusk. One solitary traveller on his camel, a troop of jackals sneaking off to their rocky cavern, a few dingy tents of Shomer Bedouins, such are the last details of the landscape. ”

“ Small villages—mere collection of three or four huts passed at El Jaart and Um Geren. Fut 113⁄4 2823⁄4 Eleven and three quarter miles from Fula Hamadai, village named Fut was passed. Country here more open and lower bush; going better, and road crosses river bed; dry and long grass. Fauwel 4 2863⁄4 Fauwel is reached. Large Arab settlement; much water in river, and an open expanse 13⁄4 miles surrounded by reeds. Geese and waterfowl. Homr Arabs here very wild, but possess many cattle, goats and sheep. ”

“ He saw the tents of his tribe, and the children sporting in the sand:
"There were his young barbarians all at play."
What wonder that he loved the spot? Poor and wretched as it was, it was his home, and he would not part from it for all the delights of civilization.
But it is not only the feeling of home, but the feeling of liberty, that attaches the Arab to his mountains and deserts. He loves the freedom of the wilderness, which is more to him than soft raiment and kings' houses. From long wandering there is a restlessness in his very blood which cannot be tamed. ”

“ The mere fact of these people living in permanent stone villages is sufficient to prove them descendants rather of the original Berber races than of their Arab conquerors. Soon the valley widens out into the plain of Sers, by far the richest and most highly cultivated that we have hitherto seen; olive groves are numerous, and stone villages commence to replace the woollen tents of the nomad Arab. ”

“ The peasant sows, but who reaps? yet even he loves his country. The Arab's fare of milk and meal, and dates, with liberty, is it not better than feasting without? His goats' hair tent is healthy and clean, protects him [43] from all weathers, and contains those who are dear to him. Accustomed to gallop in freedom over trackless wastes, even the air he breathes in other lands oppresses him, and is too close and confined for his expansive feelings. The desert for the Arab, the town for the drudge. God is great! ”

“ Family life among the Arabs is best studied by looking at child-life in the desert and at the position of women among the Bedouin and the town-dwellers. In no part of the world does the newborn child meet less preparation for its reception than among the Bedouin. A land bare of many blessings, general poverty and the law of the survival of the fittest, has made the Arab mother stern of heart. In the open desert under the shade of an acacia bush or behind a camel, the Arab baby first sees the daylight. ”

“ At our feet lies the wonderful Arab town, whose domes and minarets rise high above the dwellings which screen the streets from view, but whose seething life is evidenced by the dull roar which reaches you even at this distance. It is a city of sunlight, rich in buildings of absorbing interest and ablaze with colour. As for the people, ignorant and noisy though they are, they have much good-humour and simple kindness in their natures, and it is worth notice that a stranger may walk about in safety in the most squalid quarters of the city, and of what European capital could this be said? ”

“ The French love broad streets, lofty houses, big windows, open spaces, and above all straight lines. The Arab town is a labyrinth of narrow lanes, twisting and curling according to no sort of plan, in fact to all appearance so inextricably confused and so full of blind alleys that one might suppose 49no living man capable of mastering their meanderings. But a stranger need be under no apprehension of being lost. He has only to keep ascending to reach the Kasbeh, the old Turkish fort at the top of the town, or descending, a course which sooner or later will bring him back to civilization. ”

“ The Arab never carries his burdens himself, as do other peasants. It is beneath his dignity; for no matter how ragged or rusty he is, his burnous is sacred from all wear and tear possible to be avoided.
Except for its great market back of its modern ugly mosque, there is not much to see in Arba. Here is even a more heterogeneous native riffraff than one sees at Maison Carrée, Blida, or Boufarik. And indeed it is all “native,” for the Turks and Jews of the coast towns are absent. The trading is all done in produce. ”

“ The town itself is a wretched heap of ruins and miserable huts, and none but Arabs of the lowest description would think of inhabiting it, owing to the scorching heat of the climate and the total want of every convenience of life, excepting water, under which it labours. The natives themselves are squalid and unhealthy in their appearance, and the lower classes are equally depraved in their habits with those inhabiting most Arabian towns. ”

“ Here one may break his journey and get an aspect{311} of the mingling life of the desert and the town Arab, which is astonishing in its complexity. The town Arab lives much as we do ourselves,—at least some of his species do,—wears, sometimes, a Norfolk jacket and shoes, which he calls “forme Américaine,” and travels first-class on the railway when he takes his promenades abroad. The other still clings to his burnous and takes off his shoes at every opportunity, travelling by camel caravan, as did his ancestors of a thousand years ago. ”

“ One village succeeds another, each alike smiling and sordid under its crown of foliage. The terraces of the Libyan hills, away beyond the Western Nile, scarcely rise above the horizon, and lie like a white edging between the green of the plain and the blue of the sky. The Arabian hills do not form one unbroken line, but a series of mountain masses with their spurs, now approaching the river, and now withdrawing to the desert at almost regular intervals. At the entrance to the valley, rise Gebel Mokattam and Gebel el-Ahmar. ”

“ Fidallah, situated on the limit of a fine corn plain, at three-quarters of a mile from the sea, intended as a magazine for grain before Mogador was built; a walled square, of about two hundred and fifty paces, now encloses a respectable mosque, the ruins of European merchants' houses, and an Arab encampment; possibly three hundred inhabitants, Moors, Arabs, and Jews; half a mile to the westward, a rocky peninsula point, projecting one mile east-north-east, forms a sandy bay a mile and a half deep, offering a fair and well-sheltered roadstead to small merchant-ships. ”