The architecture of this country is of the Gothic character. The
mosques are built somewhat like our churches: the body of the
mosques are covered with green glazed tiles; the steeples are
invariably an exact square, the sides being ten or twelve feet, not
tapering as those of Coventry, but the top having the same
dimensions as the base. At the top is erected a smaller square,
with a flag-staff similar to a gallows, to which is suspended every
day at noon, a white flag, the signal of preparation for prayers;
but on Fridays, the Muhamedan Sabbath, a dark-blue one is
substituted for the same purpose. Some of the mosques are paved
with white and black chequered marble, some are tessellated
pavements, consisting of white, blue, and green glazed tiles, about
two inches square, a very pretty mode of paving, extremely clean,
and has a very cool appearance; others are terrassed, which is lime
272 and small stones beaten down with wooden mallets. They excel in the
art of making terras. The houses are all flat roofed, so as to
resist the heaviest rains: the declivity of the terrasses is so
imperceptible, that it is just sufficient to give the rains a
tendency to the great conduit or pipe that leads to the mitfere
underneath the house, which is underground, and has a terras
bottom, impervious to the water. Here is collected water sufficient
for the family or household during the year; the lime that washes
into the mitfere from the terrassed roof, purifies the water, and
preserves it from worms and other insects. They have no ornaments
in their mosques; but the place where the Mufti or Fakeer reads
prayers, is covered with mats or carpets; the rest of the floor is
bare, and the respective individuals prostrate themselves on the
bare floor, or on an antelope's or _Elhorreh_[180] skin, or the
skin of a lion or tiger, prepared in a superior manner by the
tanners at Marocco, the leather of which is made soft as silk, and
white as snow.
[Footnote 180: For a description of this curious animal, see
Jackson's Marocco, page 83, Chapter on Zoology.]
The bodies of the dead are never laid in the mosques or near them,
but are invariably carried out of the town, to some coba[181] in
273 the vicinity. The bodies of the dead are washed, and covered with
lawn, and placed on an oblong wooden machine, resembling a box
without a cover, called a _kiffen;_ it has four legs about six
inches long, to uphold it from the ground, and two horizontal
projections at each end, to place on the shoulders of four men,
generally the nearest relations of the deceased, who thus carry the
body to the grave, chaunting with the whole company, amounting
sometimes to some hundreds, _La Allah, ila Allah wa Muhamed Rassule
Allah_, "There is no God but God, and Muhamed is the prophet of
God." This repetition may appear extraordinary to the English
reader; but let it be observed that the Muhamedans never use the
pronoun for the name of the Omnipotent, but invariably the noun.
The body is taken out of the bier, and laid in the ground, the face
upwards, without any coffin or box, the legs towards Mecca, and
then covered with earth, so that it might, at the resurrection,
rise with its eyes towards (_El Kaaba_) Muhamed's mausoleum. No
money is paid for the ground, nor is any expense paid for a
monument: a stick or a stone stands erect at the head, and another
274 at the feet. If the deceased lived a moral, inoffensive, and
exemplary life, the public, at its own expense, oftentimes erects
(_kaba_) a cubical building with a dome at the top to the departed,
and he is thence denominated (_fakeer_) a saint.
[Footnote 181: A coba is a cubical building, about forty or
fifty feet square, having a dome on the top, inhabited by a
fakeer; the ground adjacent to this building is consecrated for
the dead, but is never inclosed. The living reverence the dead
by never, riding over these grounds; but travellers, in passing
stop and repeat a fatha. When the ground has been consecrated
to the dead, and the _coba_ has an inhabitant, who must be a
sanctified person, he immediately assumes the name of fakeer or
priest, and the building, and cemetery attached to it, becomes
a _zowia_ or sanctuary.]
The palaces of this country generally consist of a perfect square
wall, containing from two to forty acres of land, or more; for the
imperial palace at Mequinas covers about two square miles of
ground. At each corner of the square is a cubical building, with an
angular top, of green glazed tiles, having four windows, one in
each side; in the centre of the square is the palace, surrounded by
a colonnade one or two stories high. The pavement is either
tessellated or of chequered marble; some of the walls of the rooms
are also tessellated with arabesque, borders, the ceilings are
painted with gay colours, viz. scarlet, sky-blue, green, yellow,
and orange, in arabesque, and some of them are very elegant. The
houses of the opulent are diminutive imitations of the palaces. The
house of (_the Talb Câduse_) the minister of the Sultan Seedi
Muhamed ben Abd Allah at Marocco, is a building, elegantly neat.
Abd Rahamen ben Nassar's house at Mogodor, is well deserving the
investigation of an European architect, and his magnificent new
house at Saffee, is a model of a particular style of architecture.
Some of the houses of the princes and the military at Mequinas are
275 handsome buildings, and many of the houses of the opulent merchants
at Fas, who have their commercial establishments at Timbuctoo, and
other countries of Sudan, are extremely neat and truly unique,
having beautiful gardens in the interior, ornamented with the
choicest and most odoriferous flowers and shrubs; with fountains of
running water, clear as crystal, delectable to behold in this warm
climate, and such as are not to be seen in any part of Europe.
276
FRAGMENTS, NOTES,
AND
ANECDOTES;
_Illustrating the Nature and Character of the Country_.