Street Arab

“ They leave their fiacre in the Place de la Cathédrale, and enter upon the mysterious recesses of the Arab town. Up and down endless flights of steps, up street after street—if streets they can be called, that are not wider than a yard in their widest part—and above their heads the rafter-supported houses lean together, letting scarce a glint of daylight drip down upon the dusky path far below. ”

“ Well, she was telling us only last Sunday that lots of people would be better if they had better surroundings; and that if something could be done to get those little street Arabs more out of the reach of temptation, they might grow up to be good and honest men and women. ”

“ 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 streets are so narrow that it is with difficulty that two horses can pass in them; and the Arabs have no kind of carriages. I was beyond measure surprised at the motley crowd with which I suddenly found myself surrounded, and fancied that I must be in a masquerade; Arabs and Frenchmen, Jews and Italians, Spaniards and Negroes were mixed in picturesque confusion. Next door to an elegant French milliner, an Arab barber was shaving the heads of his fellow-countrymen, and an Italian restaurant, who extolled his maccaroni to every passer-by, was the neighbour of a Moorish slipper-maker. ”

“ Here again was the quarter occupied by the dealers in earthenware, whose gay stores of Arab pottery offered to the eye a mass of rich and varied colour. But after all it was in the numberless coffee-houses and barbers’ shops that I found the chief attraction; for here the Arabs were at home, and their infinite variety of costume, complexion, and attitude was almost bewildering. As our carriage moved slowly along through these narrow, crowded streets, we passed literally thousands of natives whom our driver warned of our approach by hoarse cries. ”

“ The first view of the streets is something of a shock and a disappointment. We have heard of the ancient Arab city, we have seen photographs of narrow lanes with quaint Moorish houses almost meeting over the wayfarer’s head; and yet we find ourselves driving at a hand gallop through wide, modern streets, with their normal garniture of tramways and motor-cars. An occasional snow-white 23mosque, a public building or two of Arabesque style, suggest the Orient; in other respects the streets are those of a very prosperous and busy modern French town. ”

“ Notwithstanding the intolerant spirit generally manifested by the Arabs, those English strangers who embrace their way of life for a time frequently attach them very strongly to their persons, obtaining concessions from them which could scarcely be expected from a people so bigoted in their religious opinions, and entertaining so contemptible an opinion of those who are followers of other creeds. In spite of the faults of his character—for he is frequently deceitful, treacherous, cruel, and covetous—the Arab of the desert is usually much respected by the dwellers in towns. ”

“ I have lived long enough among the Arabs to know what they are, and this is what they are,—harmless, generous, patient, hospitable, religious; they are all this and often much more. If I go from Tclemcen to Oran, do you think I want a pistol? Madame, I need never{266} bear the expense of going to an hotel; every Arab tent or house is open to me; at any man’s table I am welcome to a meal; his children will play with me; his own sons will tend or saddle my horse ”

“ 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. ”

“ These violent sports, which I have already described, mould the nobility for the toils of war and the razzia, to which these children of the desert consecrate all the adventurous ardour and energy that enter into their character.
But as he advances in years, the Arab becomes more sedate. Every white hair in his beard leads him to thoughts of a religious nature. He more and more frequents the society of the men of Allah, and loads them with gifts; and more and more rarely he is seen at the chace, at wedding feasts, and the fantasia. ”

“ 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! ”

“ But, warned by the approaching march of men, instead of making for the main entrance, on reaching the foot of the staircase, they wheeled right and left and made their escape by doors and windows at the back.
During this stampede, the Arab girl had not been idle. She, too, had heard the marching and the bugle, and knew that, if she could but gain the French, her life and honor were secure. She saw that the courtyard was deserted—for all the Arabs, who were not in the room, were crowded on or about the staircase—also that the main entrance to the house was clear. ”

“ It is the unofficial force—the Baker Street irregulars.'
As he spoke, there came a swift pattering of naked feet upon the stairs, a clatter of high voices, and in rushed a dozen dirty and ragged little street Arabs. ”

“ Shoes or sandals, for in truth the latter alone are used in Arabia, are slipped off on the sand just before reaching the carpet, and there they remain on the floor close by. But the riding stick or wand, the inseparable companion of every true Arab, whether Bedouin or townsman, rich or poor, gentle or simple, is to be retained in the hand, and will serve for playing with during the pauses of conversation, like the fan of our great-grandmothers in their days of conquest. ”

“ The Arabs have all these things, skins, money, cattle, so I call my Sheikhs together, and tell them what I want, and they get it: what do I care how? and then people wonder that the Arabs rob in their turn! I tell you, Madame, that the Arab is unfairly treated in every way, and that those who treat him so will suffer for it hereafter. He would assimilate with us if we would only let him. To-day, for instance, I met a friend of mine, an Arab who lives in Tclemcen, and I told him that I would bring some English travellers to see his pretty Moorish house. ”

“ That which is most difficult to bear is the want of water, which, even when it abounds, being collected from holes in rocks and puddles, is quite muddy; yet, in my case, novelty and hunger made me tolerate, if not relish, everything. These are the sources of the liberty of the Arab. Brought up from his birth to bear privations, to which the inhabitants of towns and villages would not submit, he reigns the lord of a territory which nobody envies him: and, whilst he plants his tent at pleasure over a measureless waste, enjoys a freedom bought at a price that few are willing to pay for it. ”

“ The wandering habits of the Arabs are also preserved to the present day. ‘Even now,’ says Gerhard Rohlfs, [233] ‘this volatile people is engaged in constant wandering; the slightest reason is sufficient to make them pack up their little tents and seek another abode.’ Yet this experienced traveller appears somewhat to overdo it when he adds: ‘Their pleasure in roving has its root in the essence of the Mohammedan religion; wherever the Arab can carry his Islâm, he finds a home &c.’ But Islâm has, on the contrary, rather contributed to give the Arab a stable, political, state-building character. ”

“ In the Middle Ages the Arabs led the world in commerce, exploration, art, science, and literature. The secret of their successful conquests was not in the number of their soldiers but in the courage inspired by the Muhammadan religion. Death has no terrors for the fanatical Moslem, for to him it is the vestibule of paradise where the pleasures of earth await those who fight in the holy cause.
By nature the Arab is active, vivacious, and keen-witted. He is proud of his lineage, earnest, and hospitable. The mother not only takes care of the home but educates the children ”

“ A few boulevard-like trees flank a group of transformed and remodelled Arab houses and give a suspicion of modernity, but the general aspect throughout is Oriental and mediæval. A regular ant-hill of hiving humanity: Moors, Arabs, Turks, Jews, Soudanese, and Touaregs, all with costumes as varied as their origins. Here a creamy-white burnous jostles with a baggy blue pantalon, and the cowled nodding head of a Bedouin rests on the shoulder of an equally somnolent red-fezzed soldier of the Bey. ”

“ The human pigment is bewildering. The city Arab is pale as a dweller of the northern towns of Europe: the Kabyl is dark-skinned, blue-eyed: the Ethiop is black as the shadows in the tiny shops. Burnouse and turbans are pied. Vendors shout for the passers-by to stop. And from time to time there is a break in the ceaseless lineage of bazaars: the carved, closed shutter of a Koran school shields the incessant coil of adolescent voices, strident, wild, unmeditative—shouting the words of their Prophet. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Tozeur’s market is a mere alley of inverted V-shaped huts of reed, wherein are sold—after much solemn bargaining and drinking of coffee—all the small wants of the desert Arab, such as a morsel of town-baked bread, hobnails for his shoes, a piece of tanned leather—with the fur on—with which to make a new sole, a hank of thread, a tin pot or pan, or a bandanna handkerchief—which however must have stamped upon its border some precept from the Koran. The Arab’s personal wants are not great, and as he almost invariably carries his worldly goods about with him they are accordingly not bulky. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To the north of the oases lay a belt of sand, and then an immense gravel and lava plain, filling up everything between the eastern edge of Syria and the banks of the Euphrates where Mesopotamia began. The practicability of this northern desert for men and motor-cars enabled the Arab revolt to win its ready success.
The hills of the west and the plains of the east were the parts of Arabia always most populous and active. In particular on the west, the mountains of Syria and Palestine, of Hejaz and Yemen, entered time and again into the current of our European life. ”

“ One enters the ville Arabe by any one of a hundred streets or alleys. At its outmost height you are at the Kasba; when you reach the bottom you are in the European town. To the right or left you reach a sort of encircling boulevard which in turn brings you to the same objectives. It is not so difficult as it looks, and one need fear nothing, night or day, until he reaches the European town and civilization, where thievery and murderings are nightly occurrences.
Here in the old Arab town one is in another world ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Arab quarter is a sight in itself. It is a labyrinth of narrow streets of steps and jumbled houses. You can only pass along two abreast, and the roofs of the houses hang over and almost join. To get to any given house, you must have a guide; for there are scores of streets crossing and recrossing one another, and they are all alike. Achmet conducted me at night to the Rue Ben Ali, and I witnessed a scene the like of which is to be seen nowhere else in the civilized world. I found myself in the courtyard of a Moorish house, open to the sky. ”