ARABS, TURKS, AND JEWS
Throughout North Africa, from Oran to Tunis, one encounters everywhere,
in the town as in the country, the distinct traits which mark the seven
races which make up the native population: the Moors, the Berbers, the
Arabs, the Negroes, the Jews, the Turks and the Koulouglis. One may see
all these types, living their own distinct and characteristic lives, all
within a radius of a half a dozen leagues of Algiers' port and _quais_.
The Moors and the Berbers are the oldest inhabitants of the region,
descended, Sallust says, "from a mingling of the soldiers of the army of
Hercules, campaigning in Spain and Africa, with the Lybians and Gétules
of the region."
The _indigène_ Mussulman population of Algeria and Tunisia is divided
into many groups, the chief of which are the following:--
Moors, called by the Arabs the Hadars; not a race apart, but the result
of a crossing to infinity of all the diverse races of North Africa.
Koulouglis, descendants of Turks and Arab women.
Kabyles, the pure Berber race, speaking still their primitive language
uncorrupted.
Arabs, descendants of the pure Arab of east of the Red Sea, but in
reality "Berber-Arabs," as the French know them, who still preserve in
all its purity the Arab tongue, manners, and retain its ancient dress.
The Moors and the Koulouglis tend more and more to lose their
individuality; the Kabyle is practically stationary; whilst the
Berber-Arab is increasing in numbers at his traditional rate,--and here
and there becoming so highly civilized that he wears store clothes and
carries a revolver instead of a gun. He has also learned to drink
absinthe and beer, in the towns, at least those of him who have become
less orthodox.
There are two distinct classes of Arabs, those of the cities and those
of the "Great Tents." The former, by rubbing up with civilization, have
become contaminated, whilst the real nomads of the interior still retain
all their pristine force of character. The Arab hides with jealousy all
particulars of his domestic life, and is a very taciturn individual, as
taciturn almost as that classic type that one meets in south-eastern
railway trains in England, fortified behind a copy of "The Thunderer."
[Illustration: ARAB _of the_ TELL ARAB _of_ ORAN BERBER-ARAB]
The docile, contemplative nature of the Arab permits him to pass long
hours in a state of mental abstraction that would drive a man of affairs
of the western world crazy. The Arab, however, is not hostile to
activity, or even amusement, and will gamble for hours at some silly
little game.
The Arab of the town apparently spends a good part of his time in a
café. He drinks the subtle infusion, grounds and all, in innumerable
potions, and plays at chess, cards or checkers.
For further amusement the Arab is quite content to gaze drowsily at the
singing and dancing girls, the _er rnaïa_ and _ech chtahat_, who make
music, of a kind, and gyrate with considerably more fervour than grace.
All the time his ear is soothed by as howling a discord as one will hear
out of the practice hall of a village band in America or of "La Musique
des Sapeurs-Pompiers" of the small town in France. Two guitars of sorts,
and of most bizarre shape, a two-stringed fiddle (called a _rbab_) and a
half a dozen Arab flutes (_jouaks_), each being played independently,
cannot be expected to make harmony.
The Arab has his story-teller, too, a species of ballad singer or
reciter who, for a price, tells stories, fables, and legends.
Among this class of professional story-tellers are the _gouals_, the
improvisers, and the _médahs_, who are more like revivalists than
mountebanks, and about as fanatical as the shrieking sisters of a
"down-south" camp-meeting.
The Arab himself regards all stolidly, smokes and drink away, and
doesn't leave the café sometimes for days. It's an orgie, if you like,
but less reprehensible than the bridge-playing, drinking bouts of
civilization, which last too often from Saturday until Monday morning.
The Arab of the desert, or the Bedouin, shows to advantage when compared
with the town-dwelling Arab of the coast settlements, and whether he be
Sheik of a tribe or Cadi of a community, is a hospitable, kindly person
with even--at times--a sense of humour, and a guile which is rare in
these days of artfulness. The town Arab, the "dweller within the walls,"
is not primarily wicked or unreliable, but he has mixed with the sordid
ways of commercialism, and his favours--extended always with a
smile--are apt to bear a distinct relation to what he hopes to get out
of you. If he is simply an ordinary individual, or a gamin who points
out your road, his _quid pro quo_ is not likely to be more than a
cigarette, but the merchant of a bazaar who offers you coffee--and makes
you take it, too--charges for it in the bill, if even your purchase of a
"_fatmah_" charm, or a pair of "_babouches_" amounts to no more than two
francs in value,--bargained down, of course, from his original demand of
a hundred sous.
Like the Chinaman, the Arab can smile blandly when he wants to put you
off the track. A smile that begins at the corners of the mouth and
extends so that it makes a wrinkle at the nape of the neck is
disconcerting to all but the smiler. That's the Arab kind of a smile.
With all his faults and virtues the Arab of to-day is not a great
offender; he is only an obstructionist. Indolent, insouciant and
apathetic, the Arab lives to-day as in the past, indifferent to all
progress. If you show him your typewriter, your fountain-pen or your
kodak, he shrugs his shoulders and says simply, "_Maboule! Maboule! You
are fools! You are fools! Why try to kill time!_"
At Msaken, a frontier post in Tunisia, which was established only
fifteen or a score of years ago, and has already attained a population
of ten thousand souls, a protest was actually presented to the
government by the Arab population, asking that the great trading-route
into the desert be not laid down through their city, but that they, the
_indigènes_, be left to peace and tranquillity.
To sum the Arab up in a few words is difficult. He is a frequenter of
that path which lies between the straight way of virtue and the quagmire
of deceit. He is not alone in his profession, but it is well to define
his position exactly. Like the Indian and the Chinaman, the Arab is
deceitful, but scrupulously honest as far as appropriating anything that
may rightly belong to you is concerned, when it comes to actual business
transactions. A bargain once made with an Arab is inviolate. "_Ils ne
sont pas mauvais ces gens, mais ils sont voleurs quand même_," says
every Frenchman of the Arab, unjustly in many cases, no doubt, but true
enough in the general run. You must make your bargain first.
The real Arab--meaning literally a tent-dweller, for, in a certain
sense, the town-dweller is no Arab--loves first and above all his horse.
Next he loves his firearm, which poetically ought to be a six-foot,
gold-inlaid, muzzle-loading matchlock, which would kick any man but an
Arab flat on his back at every shot; actually in Algeria or Tunis the
Arab is the possessor of a modern breech-loader. Next to his gun he
loves his eldest son. Last comes his wife--or wives. Daughters don't
even count; he doesn't even know how many he has. Until some neighbour
comes along and proposes to marry one of them, a daughter is only a
chattel, a soulless thing, though often a pretty, amiable, helpful
being. The Arab of the settlements may be a lover of horse-flesh, too,
but he only professes it; any old hack is good enough for him to ride.
He will descant to you all the livelong day on the beauties and
qualities of some rare specimen of the equine race which he has at the
home of his father, back in the "Great Tents;" but meanwhile he drives,
or rides, a sorry spavined nag fit only for the bone-yard.
North Africa is not only the Land of Sunshine; it is also the land of
the burnous. This soft, floating drapery which clothes the Arab so
majestically, whatever may be his social rank,--miserable _meskine_ or
opulent Caïd,--is a thing fearfully and wonderfully made.
There are burnouses and burnouses, as there are cheeses and cheeses.
This ideal garment of the Mussulman Arab differs at times in form and
colour and quality, but it is always a simple burnous. The Sheik of a
tribe or the Caïd of a village wraps himself in a rich red robe, and the
poor vagabond Arab of the hills and desert makes the best showing he can
with his sordid pieced-up rag of a mantle.
The classic burnous is woven of a creamy white lamb's wool, or that of a
baby camel, though often its immaculateness is of but a brief duration.
The Caïd and the Sheik rise above this, and the nomad often descends to
a gunny-sack, from which exhales an odour _sui generis_; but one and
all carry it off with grace and éclat, as does the Arlésienne the fichu,
and the Madrillienne the mantilla. It is the garment that is worn by the
Arab of the towns, by the lone sheep-herder of the plains, and by the
nomad of the desert.
An Arab shepherd is a happy mortal if he can gain twenty francs a month,
a little _pap_ for breakfast, a dish of couscous for dinner, and a new
burnous once a year. He will spend all his income (for he, apparently,
as all his tribe, has acquired a taste for strong drink, though even he
will not partake of it when it is red) on absinthe, of a kind, and
tobacco, of a considerably better kind, every time he comes to town. How
he clothes himself had best not be inquired into too closely, for
excepting the burnous, he is mostly clothed in rags. The burnous is as
effectual a covering as charity.
The Arab officials, the Sheik of a tribe, the Caïd, and the Cadi even,
are all "decorated" as a sort of supernumerary reward for their services
on behalf of the established government.
One day _en voyage_--in a _compartiment_ of that slow-going express
train which runs daily from Algiers to El Guerrah, and takes fourteen
hours to do what it ought to, and will accomplish, in six, when they
get some American locomotives to take the place of the old crocks now in
service,--we met a young Caïd of a tribe of the Tell who had been
summoned to Algiers to get the collaret of the Legion bestowed upon his
manly breast. He was decorated already, for he was the son of the "Great
Tents" and a powerful man in his community, but he was ready enough to
make a place for another _étoile_. He said in his queer jargon French:
"_Li gouvernement y vian di me donni l'Itoile di Ligien. Ji suis content
d'avoir._" We sympathized with him, were glad for him, and we parted,
each on our respective ways, and by this time he is home waiting and
hoping for the next. What won't a man do for a _bout de ruban_ or a
silver star?
The Arab's French is much like our own--queer at times, but it is
expressive. The following beauties of judicial eloquence, from the bench
of an Arab justice of the peace will explain the situation better than
any further comment. With the Arab the Irish "_bull_" becomes a French
"_goat_."
"_On peut entrer dans un cabaret sans être l'amant de quelqu'n._"
This is good enough French, though the sentiment is of doubtful
morality.
"_Le plaignant a lancé, alors, un coup de sifflet de désespoir._"
A "_sifflet de désespoir_" is presumably something akin to a wail.
"_Le plaignant s'est adressé à la police parce qu'il désirait rentrer
dans ses bouteilles._"
"_Dans ses bouteilles_," may be Arab-French for "in his cups"--or it may
not.
"_Il portera de deuil aussi longtemps que sa femme sera morte._"
She will be dead a long time, no doubt, once having taken the fatal
step.
"_Je dirai encore deux mots, mais je serai très brief._"
Two words! That is very brief.
"_Il n'a laissé que des descendants en ligne collatérale._"
What is a collateral descendant?
The Arabs' struggles with French should give the rest of the world, who
are not French, courage. They seem to care little for tenses or numbers,
but they make their way nevertheless. A Zou Zou, in calling your
attention to something, says simply, "_Regarde_," but you understand,
and so does he when you say "_Regardez_," so what matter!
The Arab nourishes himself well, as well as circumstances will allow,
though it must be remembered that the tenets of his religion call for
abstemiousness. He differs from the Greek of old in that he believes in
a good dinner and a light supper. "_Eh bien!_" said the traveller
Montmaur, "_I will dine with the Arab and sup with the Greeks_."
The Arab is a connoisseur in tea and coffee, and an adept at cigarette
smoking.
Couscous is the _plat du jour_ with the Arab. It is his national dish.
Mutton or lamb (_kebeh_ or _kherouf_) is almost the only meat, and most
frequently the Arab roasts the carcass whole, spitted on a branch. He
roasts it before, or over, an open fire, and accordingly it is all the
better for that. In America we bake our meats, which is barbaric; and in
England they boil them, which is worse. The Arab knows better.
The Arab eats his meat _à la main,_ gnaws it with his teeth, and pulls
it apart with his fingers; the delicate morsel, the titbit, is the
kidney, and he is a lucky Arab who grabs it first, though if you are a
guest in his tent he reserves it for you. Beef is seldom, if ever,
eaten, but camel is in high esteem, the hump (_hadba_) being the best
"_cut_." Pork (_el hallouf_) is abhorred by the true Mussulman. He has
reason! Dried meat or smoked meat, like the jerked beef of the Far
West, is often carried on long desert journeys, when fresh meat is as
scarce a commodity as it was on an Indiaman a hundred days out from
Bombay a century ago.
The Arab eats soup, when he takes the trouble to make it, and he knows
well its concocting. For pastry, too, the Arab has a sweet tooth, and it
also frequently comes into the menu, with honey and dates predominating
in its make-up.
The Arab smokes _kif_ also, a concoction whose iniquitous effects are
only equalled by those of the state-protected opium of Bengal.
These voluptuous epicurean Arabs smoke _kif,_ not surreptitiously, but
guiltily. Carefully they wipe their pipes and cook the little ball of
drug, and offer it to you first with all the grace and seductiveness of
a houri. You don't accept, and they smoke it themselves, and in a short
space drop off into a semi-intoxicated condition, forgetful of the world
in the stupefying smoke which haloes about their heads. Like opium with
the Chinaman, _kif_ is the curse of the Arab.
After the Arabs and the Berbers, the Jews are the most striking race one
meets on the African coast, or even in the interior, where they herd to
themselves in some dingy quarter of an Arab village and ply their
trades of jewellers, leather workers, embroiderers and, of course, as
money changers. They talk Hebrew among themselves and Arabic with
natives, and they are as clannish as Scotchmen.
The Berber and the Jew and the Arab are necessary to each other, whether
they are town dwellers, village inhabitants or nomads. They make
business, each of them, and they don't live by taking in each other's
washing--as does the indigenous population of the Scilly Islands, or by
exploiting tourists--as do the Swiss. Altogether the social system as
worked out by the mixed races of North Africa seems to be a success.
One curses the Jews in Algeria and Tunisia, but then one curses them
everywhere for the same attributes. The Hebrew of Algeria is in no way
different from those of his brethren in other Mediterranean countries,
and here he has a craftsman's mission to fill and he fills it very well.
Catch a Jew and make him into a tailor, a jeweller or a banker, and he
is more adept at these professions than men of any other race on earth.
Are the Jews and Mussulmans men like other sons of Adam? This is a
question which has been asked and reasked since the earliest times
[Illustration: _Jewish Women of Tunis_]
of history, and no one yet seems to have decided the question. When the
Papal See was transferred to Avignon in the Comtat Venaissin (it was for
seventy years rooted in France), the position of the Jews seems to have
been defined, and they were put on a par with orthodox religionists. But
before and since, their status has been less readily defined. Froissart
put it in non-contradictory words when he said that except in the lands
of the church (in the Comtat), these aliens were everywhere chased and
persecuted.
This reference to the church and the Jews recalls the fact that many
Arab slaves of Barbary were owned by the Papal powers in the days when
the traffic was a profitable one for Turkish _pachas_.
The slaves of Barbary were known all through the Mediterranean. Civita
Vecchia in the eighteenth century, directly under Papal patronage, held
a number of them of which the following is a description from an old
record:--
Arab Names Names in the Galleys Nationality Age Health
Papass Papass Tunis 45 Good
Acmet Buffalotto Tripoli 40 "
Mamchet Marzocco Alger 45 "
Mesaud Piantaceci " 35 "
Machmet Mezza Luna " 30 "
Aamor Bella Camiscia Alger 30 Good
Machmet Il Gabbiano " 30 "
Ali Nettuno Tunis 40 Mediocre
Aamor Carbone Tripoli 30 Good
These men in fact were for service in the Pontifical galley.
They were a fine race of servants, evidently!
The Jews are much less numerous in Algeria than in Morocco and Tunisia,
but they take on a very considerable commercial importance in the
picturesque conglomerate ensemble of peoples in the cities like Algiers,
Oran or Tunis; they gather the small savings of the nomad races in a way
that is the marvel of all who know their trade. Furthermore, as French
citizens, they play no small part in political affairs. What they lack
in numbers they make up in power, and the money-lending trade, while
seemingly in disrepute, is quite a necessary one in commercial
communities.
The Jews lend money to Christians the world over, men and nations alike,
and in Africa they do the same to the improvident Arab. Clearly the Jew
has a mission in life; he has found it out, and he sticks to it, and has
ever since that historic hour in the Temple.
Of all the mixed races with which one rubs shoulders in Northern Africa,
it is the Arab who interests us most. It is his country that we are in.
It is the Arab who must be our guide, philosopher and friend. "Ask an
Arab anything you like," say the French, "but ask nothing of a Maltese
or an Italian." Why, they do not tell you, but simply shrug their
shoulders in the expressive Frenchman's way.