II

Barren enough was my first acquaintance with the land side, weary,

cheerless, desolate, like windy prairies in autumn, uninhabited,

uninhabitable; and I was chilled to the bone when I came back to the

hotel, then in the bud of its first season. It is more sober now, but

then it had a near cousinship to Monte Carlo; it was delightfully

irresponsible, vivacious, gay. One passed to the picturesque

bar and the café, thick with interesting groups; or with equal

ease to the “little horses” with their ever-dissolving banks

of faces, a covey of all nations, round the bell-timed play, and

to the vaudeville stage with gymnasts, French acting, fat Jewess

dancers, and a world lightly enjoying itself, as it looked from

railed low boxes on the spacious floor—men, women, children,

with tables, glasses, straws, and bright-colored things to drink,

waiters, musicians—always a pretty scene, with incidents, and rich

in human relations; or one went more gravely by a stairway to the

privacy of baccarat in its upper seclusion of the visiting card. It

was a pleasant and polite place wherever one might stroll about, and

in every corridor and at all hours the grand toilette of capitals,

men and women—even adventurers—of the world. The old beylic of

Tunis seemed far away; at least, one was still in Christendom.

I stepped out on the sidewalk after dinner, on a broad avenue

with trees. At the brilliant crossing carriages were passing

with drawn screens; and, as they drove slowly by, fingers held

back the curtains, and from time to time glimpses of women’s

figures were disclosed of quite a different type from any within

doors—ladies of wealthy native families taking the air, and

curious to see the French streets by night. So I learned that it

was the eve of Leilet-el-Kadir, the twenty-sixth of Ramadan, the

night of power commemorating the descent of the Koran on earth,

a grand Mohammedan feast; and I went forthwith into old Tunis on

my first voyage of discovery. Festivity reigned. On every hand

were lights of all varieties; the minarets aloft were outlined with

them; in the narrow streets they were as the multitude of the stars

for number, colored and clustered, hung and looped and festooned,

flaring and lanterned, a fine illumination in the obscurity; and

under them an animated throng of all ages, beautifully dressed for

the occasion—a city, a race, and a faith _en fête_.

I sat down at last in the café-crowded Place Halfouine, one of

the principal open spaces or squares of the old city, not large,

and surrounded by low, rather mean, buildings. It was a nightscene,

closed in by shadows, the foreground brightened by irregularly

placed open cafés with tables outside and benches within,

all completely filled with men, drinking, smoking, playing at

simple games, quite orderly, without boisterous noise or muscular

disorder, or joking—admirable public behavior. It charmed by its

novelty—costumes and persons, mass without individuality—the

scene of a new land. What folly to think that there are no more

worlds to discover! The scene was to me as if no one had ever looked

on it before. I observed the faces, the attitudes, the doings of

this strange people as if I had just landed from another world;

and I would gladly have stayed longer, but, with the early closing

habits of Moslems, the square began to thin, and I went with the

rest through the fast-emptying street with a glad feeling that

in a world, now grown altogether too small and neighborly, I had

happened upon one last true relic of the “far away.”

It was four days later, however, that the true holiday came, the

feast of rejoicing after Ramadan is over—Little Bairam. It is

celebrated at Tunis with special zeal. The morning streets were

overflowing with men and children in their best apparel; but the

latter, in particular, beautifully attired. Such gold jackets,

such tiny burnooses, such scarlet and crimson, turquoise and

emerald—and pinks! Such chubby fat faces in their barbaric borders

of clothes—or delicate, refined features, stamped with race, set

off by their greens and blues! Such vivacity, too; pure childish fun

and pleasure in a national holiday! There were strings of open carts

of the rudest construction—like tip-carts for gravel—completely

filled with these children heaped up like nosegays, their brilliancy

of color set off by the rudeness of the common cart. This seemed

one of their principal pleasures—taking a ride. But there were

others. In a packed cross-street I was addressed by two gallant

lads of perhaps fifteen, who were selling tickets at an entrance;

with faces and figures full of hospitable welcome to the stranger,

they invited me in, and I went. Inside was a small, barn-like

theatre with a curtain, a stage and an audience; and there I saw

“the shadows,” pictures thrown upon a screen, and the histrionic

art was thus practised with lifelike effect. I had read of “the

shadows,” but I never expected to see them. I came out after

a while, and the boys saluted me with very cheerful and animated

smiles as I passed them. I spied another show a little farther on;

and this, undaunted by my former experience, I also entered. It

was the puppets—also a traveller’s treasure-trove—the French

gendarme was the universal and unpitied victim, and the plots

were realistic incidents from things as they are. The audience was

almost wholly of children, from six years or less to twelve or more,

many of them with nurses or attendants; they took an active and even

excited interest, and did the necessary reckonings and sums which the

transactions on the stage called for, and shouted out the answers

as at a school exhibition, it might be, though the transactions

in question were not of a sort ever shown at an American school,

and would have evoked much remonstrance; but the children were very

happy through it all, thoroughly enjoyed it, in fact. I went behind

the curtain and saw the puppets engineered; and I left the little

theatregoers with fresh ideas of juvenile amusements.

So all the morning I passed among the gayly decked crowd, with

one and another small adventure, always handsomely treated, aided,

saluted. A people of kind and gentle manners, old and young; and

I am glad that I first saw them so fortunately in their days of

pleasantry and taking pride in their own. The experience threw

an atmosphere of cheerfulness over the land and the people, and

softened many a darker scene of their common days, of their penury

and hardship—their load of life. I could always think, even when

all was at its worst, that they still “had seasons that only bade

live and rejoice,” when many went bravely clad and fed full, and

the whole city was vivid with a spirit of general joy. The fixed

expression of the crowd was one of resigned patience under habitual

control; the gayety, the happiness, the holiday were relieved on a

grave background—a temperament, a character, an essential living,

unknown to me, something secret, profound. It was my first true

contact with Islam. One way, at least, by which a religion may

properly be measured is by its efficient power on those who profess

it; certainly the Moslem faith is very effective on its believers;

the sincerity of that faith is the first thing one learns about

it in practical observation. How often since then have I gathered

with them at this and other fêtes, and seen the carpeted streets

and tapestried walls, the solemn processions, the robes of state,

the fine horses, the men and the arms, all the barbaric display;

illuminations, fireworks, parades; but I have never been so struck,

as in these first Tunisian days, with the spirit of gentle happiness

that made my earliest impression of the race as I met it on the

shore of the sea.