Kairouan

“ Kairouan, the Mohammedan Holy City of{409} Tunisia, lies sixty kilometres southwest from Sousse.
Kairouan dates only from the Mussulman conquest, having been founded by the propagator of Islam in Africa, Okba-ben-Nafi (50 Heg. 671 A.D.) . Kairouan became the capital of what is now Tunisia in the ninth century, and Tunis itself was its servitor. Up to this day Kairouan has guarded its religious supremacy as the Holy City of the Eastern Moghreb, and accordingly is a place of pilgrimage for the faithful of all North Africa. ”

“ If a European should hear him he would probably be taken back to Kairouan—to face the body of Dancherman. If an Arab should answer he would be unable to tell the man what he wanted; and he, too, might take him promptly back to Kairouan as the only solution of an un-Arabic dilemma. ”

“ But the crowded streets and souks, or covered arcades, were the chief attraction of Kairouan. Nearly all the men wore a burnous with a hood that came over the head. The [11] women did not wear the ugly face covering seen in Tunis, but they were so closely wrapped in voluminous black or white draperies that they looked like walking bundles. Occasionally an eye peered out from amongst the folds, but one wondered how they could see to make their way. ”

“ In the effort to get away from the hotel, go anywhere before the woman could recover and accuse him, he promptly lost himself in the Arab section of town. It is not good to wander alone at night in the native quarters of such towns as Kairouan. And, rushing hopelessly down one street and another, he was numb with fear of his surroundings. ”

“ Sousse and Sfax are populous, busy maritime cities, largely Europeanized, but still retaining an imprint quite their own. Kairouan, just westward from Sousse, where the railway ends, is the chief tourist shrine of Tunis outside Tunis itself and Carthage. But beyond, except for an occasional stranger who would hunt the gazelle, the moufflon, or the wild boar, none ever penetrate, save those who are engaged in the development of the country, and the military, who are everywhere. ”

“ Tickets for the mosques are obtained at the office of the Contrôle Civil (p. 373) or at the hotels. The overseers of the mosques mostly speak Arabic only. The guides, who are quite unnecessary, are very importunate.
Travellers in haste should endeavour to secure a cab (as yet only one) , drive to the Contrôle Civil, the Barber’s Mosque, and back to the Porte de Tunis (p. 377) , and there begin their inspection of the town.
Kairwan or Kairouan (243 ft.; pop. 22,000, incl. about 800 Europeans) , the oldest capital of Ifrikia, is a town of purely Arabian type, the most curious in Tunisia. ”

“ The populace is up and stirring, and you can hear the cries of the donkeymen and water-carriers from under the sycamores and acacias that shade the road to Boulak. Over the rich palm-gardens, the blue streak of the river and the plain beyond, you see the phantoms of two pyramids in the haze which still curtains the Libyan Desert. Northward, beyond the parks and palaces of Shoobra, the Nile stretches his two great arms toward the sea, dotted, far into the distance, with sails that flash in the sun. From no other point, and at no other time, is Cairo so grand and beautiful. ”

“ My friend Mohamed in the bazaar shook his head dolefully when he heard I was going, and declared that even he would not be safe in Kairwan. The fanatics of that holy city were so intensely excited against all who had bowed the knee to the infidel, that they were prepared to fall upon any of the Arabs of Tunis, and to slay them for having permitted their venerable city, “the Burnous of the Prophet,” to be defiled by a foreign occupation. ”

“ And perhaps I may as well say here that Cairo is the wildest, freest place in Christendom. The confluence of Upper and Lower Egypt—the Delta and the Nile—here on the edge of the desert, it is the [Pg 314] veritable jumping-off place where all conventions melt away. It is the neutral ground where East and West meet—each to adopt the special privilege and license of the other—madly to compete in lavishness of dress and the reckless joy of living. In the language of the Reprobates, "One gets his money's worth in Cairo, if he makes his headquarters at Shepheard's and sits in the game." ”

“ Even to-day the president of the Kairouin, the Mokaddun, whose office is hereditary, treats all as equals, the prince and the beggar having the same right, and that is to take life easy,—very easy. Instances of nervousness from overwork have never been heard of in the Kairouin. Once matriculated, the student is not expected to pass examinations, and is a privileged character, his presence in the city being a source of revenue to its inhabitants. ”

“ We are away up over the river Nile, and far above the minarets of the mosques that rise out of the vast plain of houses below. We are at a height as great as the tops of the Pyramids, which stand out upon the yellow desert off to the left. The sun is blazing and there is a smoky haze over the Nile valley, but it is not dense enough to hide Cairo. The city lying beneath us is the largest on the African continent and one of the mightiest of the world. ”

“ In Cairo it was not necessary to warn us, for everybody knows what liars and thieves Arabs are. Not a day went by on those donkey excursions on the Nile that the men did not have their pockets picked. The passengers on the Mayflower lost enough silk handkerchiefs to start a haberdasher’s shop, and every woman lost money. In Cairo, whether you go to the bazaars or to a mosque to see the faithful at their prayers, your dragoman tells you not to have anything of value in your pockets, and not to carry your purse in your hand. ”

“ There was then a constant trade carried on between Cairo and Abyssinia, through the desert; and also from Cairo and Suakem on the Red Sea. Besides, great caravans, formerly composed of Pagans, now of Mahometans, passed from west to east, in the same manner as in ancient times, to buy and disperse India goods through Africa. Saif Araad, not having it in his power to give the patriarch other assistance, seized all the merchants from Cairo, and sent horse to interrupt and terrify the caravans. ”

“ Cairns became a municipality in 1885.
CAIRO (Arabic Misr-al-Kahira, or simply Misr) , the capital of modern Egypt and the most populous city in Africa, on the Nile, 12 m. S. of the apex of the Delta, in 30° 3′ N. and 31° 21′ E. It is 130 m. S.E. of Alexandria, and 148 E. of Suez by rail, though only 84 m. from the last-named port by the overland route across the desert, in use before the opening of the Suez Canal. Cairo occupies a length of 5 m. on the east bank of the Nile, stretching north from the old Roman fortress of Babylon, and covers an area of about 8 sq. m. ”

“ It is said that no capital in the world contains so many rare and costly gems as Cairo.
In the evening he crossed the great bridge of Isma’il Pasha to the island of Gizireh, staring at the procession of carriages, camels, automobiles and donkeys that at twilight followed on one another’s heels. In the carriages and automobiles rode Syrians, Turks, Copts and Arabs, clothed in conventional European dress, save for the red fez everywhere prevalent. The burnous and native dress had been abandoned by these aristocrats, and this met with Kāra’s full approval. ”

“ There is not much in the way of public buildings to admire at Cairo, but I saw one handsome mosque, to which an instructive history is attached. A Hindustanee merchant having amassed an immense fortune settled in Cairo, and soon found that his riches in the then state of the political world gave him vast power in the city—power, however, the exercise of which was much restrained by the counteracting influence of other wealthy men. With a view to extinguish every attempt at rivalry the Hindustanee merchant built this magnificent mosque at his own expense. ”

“ Nor is, in the chase of romantic diversion, the beautiful Fazzi neglected; the people being inclined to connive at the trivial transgressions of the future pillars of Moslem scholarship. Thrifty parents know how and when to be absent when the young lords from Insala, Nubia, Tunis, Tripoli, Egypt, Taradunt, or Timbuctu are sure to mark their transit through apartments of supposed inviolable privacy by a trail of gold-sand. Such are the traditions of the Kairouin, realized down to this day. ”

“ The first impression of Cairo is bewildering. None of the Oriental cities east of Port Said is at all like it in appearance or in street life. The color, the life, the picturesqueness, the noises, all these are distinctive. Kyoto, Manila, Hongkong, Singapore, Rangoon, Calcutta, Bombay and Colombo—each has marked traits that differentiate it from all other cities, but several have marked likenesses. Cairo differs from all these in having no traits in common with any of them. It stands alone as the most kaleidoscopic of cities, the most bizarre in its mingling of the Orient and the Occident. ”

“ Leaving Cairo on the 15th of April, they sailed up the Nile to Korosko, whence they crossed the Nubian Desert on camels, with the simoon in full force and the heat intense to Berber. Here Mr Baker, finding his want of Arabic a great drawback, resolved to devote a year to the study of that language, and to spend the time in the comparatively known regions to the north of Abyssinia, while he explored the various confluences of the Blue Nile. ”

“ We took the cars and came up here to ancient Cairo, which is an Oriental city and of the completest pattern. There is little about it to disabuse one's mind of the error if he should take it into his head that he was in the heart of Arabia. Stately camels and dromedaries, swarthy Egyptians, and likewise Turks and black Ethiopians, turbaned, sashed, and blazing in a rich variety of Oriental costumes of all shades of flashy colors, are what one sees on every hand crowding the narrow streets and the honeycombed bazaars. ”

“ Cairo, as a city, is most picturesque, with its commanding citadel, and its hundreds of mosques with their slender spires and conspicuous minarets; while surrounding all this in the desert lie the ruins of older cities and of tombs and temples innumerable. The Desert of Sahara reaches to the very gates of the city on the east. The city lies between that and the Nile; then comes a narrow strip of green about ten miles in width, and after that the boundless Libyan Desert. The Pyramids stand upon the very edge of this desert, so that it is sand, sand, sand! ”

“ There had been European ladies in bright spring costumes; Sheikhs in flowing robes of flowered silk; Egyptian Ministers of State in Western dress, and British Advisers and Under-Secretaries in Eastern tarbooshes; officers in gold-braided uniforms, Foreign Ambassadors, and an infinite number of Pashas, Beys, and Effendis.
Besides these, too, there had been a great crowd of what are called the common people, chiefly Cairenes, the volatile, pleasure-loving people of Cairo, who care for nothing so little as the atmosphere of political trouble. ”

“ Kairawān is built in an open plain a little west of a stream which flows south to the Sidi-el-Hani lake. Of the luxuriant gardens and olive groves mentioned in the early Arabic accounts of the place hardly a remnant is left. Kairawān, in shape an irregular oblong, is surrounded by a crenellated brick wall with towers and bastions and five gates. The city, however, spreads beyond the walls, chiefly to the south and west. Some of the finest treasures of Saracenic art in Tunisia are in Kairawān ”

“ Moorish craftsmanship is worth stimulating, and doctors are welcomed for their science. Both schemes would redound to the credit of Christendom and be in accordance with the best traditions of the Early Church.
In the other Barbary states (Algeria, Tunis and Tripoli) a few Catholic missions have been established, and the North African Protestant Mission has an advanced post at Kairwan in Tunis. Here many routes converge, for Kairwan is a great centre of pilgrimage and taps the religious thought of all the Saharan tribes. ”

“ The real Cairo has been sacrificed to the Nile. Comparatively few among travellers in the East see the place under the best conditions; for upon their arrival they are preoccupied with the magical river voyage which beckons them southward, with the dahabeeyah or the steamer which is to carry them; and upon their return from that wonderful journey they are planning for the more difficult expedition to the Holy Land. It is safe to say that to many Americans Cairo is only a confused memory of donkeys and dragomans, mosquitoes and dervishes, and mosques, mosques, mosques! ”

“ Kāra wandered about the streets. Cairo is a marvel to the most blasé traveler; it could not fail to impress an inexperienced native. But the Egyptian masked the astonishment under an expression cold and reserved and a manner dignified and undemonstrative. No one must suspect he was fresh from the desert and the Nile country. The shops of the jewelers especially attracted his attention, and he stopped many times to examine the splendid gems displayed in the windows. ”

“ The most powerful brotherhoods at Kairwan are those of the Aïssawa, the Tijaniya, and the Ghilaniya, Like so many other "holy places," Kairwan is also one of the most corrupt, and the class of the Tunisian dancing girls is mainly recruited from this city of mosques and religious confraternities. The inhabitants of the city of Okbah glory in living, as parasites, at the expense of the Faithful; they have consequently greatly degenerated, and are mostly afflicted by zymotic diseases. Cancer, scrofula, and infirmities of every description give the people a
General view of Kairwan. ”