The Fire of Desert Folk/Chapter 6
AMONG THE DJINNS
THE next day, at an early hour, Mahomet came for us in an open carriage equipped with a linen canopy to shelter us from the sun. We left the town by the Fez gate and for some time rode along past the homes of the rich people of Tlemsen, their villas covered by rambling vines of every description in full bloom and surrounded by well-kept gardens, quiet and shady. As the road mounted, we passed a beautiful building that serves as the cavalry barracks. Beyond it towered the chain of the Tlemsen range, here emerald green and there a warm pink, with its skyline of rounded curves sketched against the pale green of the early morning. Mountain streams, bordered by a heavier and darker vegetation, cut the slopes with white broken lines. At some points one could see on the summits gleaming kuhbas, with the mouths of caves opening on the slopes below them. Smoke issuing from these grottoes showed that they were being used as dwellings. There was no difference here between Hadars and Kuluglis, as in these caves there reign special laws, special traditions, special saints and a magic art, even more heathenish than that of the towns. Flocks of sheep and herds of cattle grazed on the mountain, while groups of figures moved about the entrances to the caves, men in white or brown bournouses and unveiled women in dark-blue abaiyias, which led one to surmise that they were in all probability from the Sahara.
Before we had gone very far from Tlemsen, we were abreast of the ruins of a city wall with the remnants of gates and towers, around and among which now grow rich vineyards, fig-trees, pomegranates and olives, watered by an irrigation canal from the mountains.
"This is Mansura," said Mahomet.
I had read of this Mansura, in which a stormy page of the history of Tlemsen was enacted. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the reigning sultans in Tlemsen were of the Abd el-Wadite dynasty and had continually to fight in defence of their country and capital with the Merinide sultans of Fez. It was at the end of the thirteenth century that the Moroccan ruler, Abu Yakub, appeared for the fifth time before the walls of Tlemsen and, as though to make it incontrovertibly evident that he had no thought of returning without having accomplished the conquest of the city, he caused to be built an immense permanent camp, containing a magnificent palace, extensive steam-baths, inns, a mosque and other buildings. Only the most fragmentary ruins still persist, but, even so, they give clear testimony to the grand scale of these buildings and of the besieging sultan's ideas in constructing this camp of El-Mahalla el-Mansura, or the Camp of the Victors. Now only the name Mansura remains.
The city had been under siege eight years and eight months, when suddenly the Morocco sultan was murdered by his eunuch, whereupon his grandson at once proclaimed himself heir to the throne, raised the siege and hurried back to Fez to establish his kingly rights. The Arab historians say that more than one hundred twenty thousand men perished during the investment of Tlemsen. It is, consequently, not to be wondered at that the inhabitants totally destroyed Mansura as soon as the besieging forces left.
The strange and bloody events enacted around this unusual camp gave birth to innumerable legends concerning this very ground which the French colonists are now tilling. But these men from over the sea pay no heed to these stories and only laugh at the djinns, who fasten so strong a fear upon the natives that they go with the greatest reluctance as laborers to these French farms at Mansura.
Thirty years after the murder of Abu Yakub the Merinides returned. The sultan, Abu'l-Hasen, commenced a new investment of the town, reconstructed Mansura and after some years finally captured the Algerian city. Once the place fell, he abandoned his residence in Mansura for a new and more magnificent palace which he caused to be erected within the town. Then in 1348, when the Tlemsen sultans regained control, they once more ordered the destruction of Mansura, carried off the more valuable building materials and appropriated the art objects to adorn their own palaces. There among the ruins of Mansura it is still easy to find bits of pretty majolica, colored glass from the palace windows and the mosque and even bits of silk and brocade.
The mosque, or rather its minaret, has best withstood the blows from man's hand and the destroying ravages of time. Towering up to one hundred twenty-five feet, it is of an architectural type quite unique in the world of Moslem Africa. Whereas minarets have usually an entrance only from the court of the mosque, this one at Mansura has an opening through the outer face, which served at the same time as an entrance to the mosque itself. A very pleasing doorway, framed in sculptured marble, is still in a good state of preservation. I had a feeling that the marble was of later date than the other construction, yet I was not quite sure of it.
This minaret was destroyed in a very strange manner, appearing as though a stroke of lightning had cleanly split it from top to bottom. From the court of the mosque all of the interior is visible, showing remnants of the stairs up which the sultan, Abu'l Hasen, rode on horseback to the top of the tower and, as a simple muezzin, summoned the Faithful to prayer. This extraordinary crumbling away of just half the minaret gave rise to a legend told in the neighboring villages, which Guiter wrote down in its purest form from the text of the Arabian scholar, El-Hadj Sadok.
According to this legend the sultan ordered two competing architects, a Moor and a Jew, to submit plans for the minaret. When the sultan found their drawings equally beautiful, he assigned to the Moor the construction of the half of the minaret facing the court of the mosque and to the Jew the half facing outward. The joint task was finished and elicited general praise. A magnificent ceremony for the opening of the mosque to the Faithful soon was held. There, after the ceremony, the sultan summoned both the architects and said:
"Your work is beautiful. I do not know how to recompense you." While the rivals remained silent, the sultan ordered some bags of gold brought to him and said to the Moorish architect:
"Take this gold and be the richest man among my subjects." Then, turning to the Jew, he added:
"And as for you, infidel dog, I ought to pull out your heart, because you have defiled the holy place with your footsteps; but I am pleased with your work and shall, therefore, grant you your life, if it be proven that this is Allah's wish. My men will take you to the top of the minaret; from there you must disappear before the morning light. If you have not done so, you shall die. Now go!"
The Jew was led away, distraught by the cruel ingratitude of the master. Shut up in the minaret, the architect puzzled as to how he should escape and, being a man of invention and resource, made for himself a pair of wings out of boards, fastened them to his shoulders and sprang from the minaret. But, as he had made the wings in a hurry and the work was not of the best, they broke with him, so that he fell on a near-by hill, which to this day is known among the inhabitants as "the Jew's Hill," and was killed. As he lay dying, he cursed Mansura. Instantly a terrible storm arose and a bolt of lightning struck the minaret, cleaving it into two distinct parts and tumbling that which the Moor had constructed into the temple court. From the very moment of the curse djinns swarmed in from everywhere and began to pursue, persecute and kill the Moslems with such maladies and madness that none of the Arabs could remain in the place, which is even now never passed by the children of Allah without a prayer or a magic incantation on their lips.
It was, however, quite evident that the family of the French colonist living there among the ruins of the ancient mosque knew nothing of bad spirits. Or, perhaps, these were gracious and favorably inclined toward the two young daughters who served us excellent milk and paid us pretty compliments, as they blushed under the unmistakable favor of Mahomet's eyes.
From Mansura the road climbed higher and higher, pushing the horizon farther and farther back and giving to the eye an ever-increasing landscape. We could see the mosque of Abu Median in El-Eubbad, the emerald oasis of Tlemsen, the towering wall of the mountains, the broken line of the old enceinte of Mansura and the mysterious minaret, where the djinns are so numerous and the pretty women of the French colonists arrange their luscious grapes in the attractive baskets made by the hands of the Arab women from Hennaya. Showing in the distance appeared the scarlet and green plain of Terni and the precipitous slopes of the Safsaf ravine, there where the river forces its way through the rocks like a powerful, blue-scaled snake, pushes them back and finally slips away into the plain, to aid the French colonists and rich Arabs in turning the dreaming forces of this soil into bread, fruit, and wine.
Soon, on the other side of the hills which the road was crossing, our carriage began to descend into the valley, where we found not only the agricultural station and model farm but also further results of the work of civilization being done by the white man. Black and brown natives were being taught to understand what could be produced on the lands of their fathers and grandfathers, who had in turn taken it from some unknown and longdisappeared owners. The number of Arab agriculturists, Berbers and even nomads migrating here from camps far away in the south or from the steep slopes of the Atlas, increases every year. New areas are constantly being put under vineyards, orchards and grain, side by side with the modern breeding of cattle. The Arab forgets his old nomadic life and is even abandoning his ancient wooden plough for the more modern French and American implements. Western civilization is triumphing here in this African Switzerland, and no one gives thought to the possibility of a fanatical Mahdi inciting the local population, in the name of the Prophet, against the white masters of this prosperous colony. In this part of Algeria the natives will not be attracted by pan-Islamic propaganda, for they see that European civilization and the houses of worship of the infidels do not at all stand in the way of pilgrimages to the mosques and to the kubbas of holy Walis, which are undertaken by crowds of pious men with all the splendor and ceremony prescribed by the Koran and by custom. This Western civilization makes the outward life of the Faithful more agreeable, leaving the inner one unchanged and entirely subject to the Law of the Prophet and the dictates of his representatives here on earth, the Marabouts.
We passed a Negro village, a collection of adobe houses, more like swallows' nests or ruins than dwellings for men. Little pickanninies of the black parents whose forefathers were imported from the Sudan ran out between the prickly Berber figs that sheltered the village from the road. In the shade of a fig-tree beside the village path I noticed two women, one well along in years and the other quite young, brightly gowned and wearing heavy silver ornaments round their necks and down over their breasts. My hunter's instinct caused me to reach for my camera and stalk my victims, who I saw from a distance were wildly gesticulating and had not yet scented the approaching danger in the already-poised apparatus. Wishing to be sure of my aim, I quietly moved up a little closer and only then discovered that the older woman was beating tire younger, tearing the rag of a shirt she wore, hammering at her head with one hand and scratching with the other her onyx-black neck and breast. I was amazed that the older woman carried out her chastisement in absolute silence and that the younger one offered but a weak defence, only occasionally groaning and striking back with little spirit.
What can it be? Perhaps it is a mother punishing her daughter for having wandered farther than the prickly hedge, where some passing Arab merchant or young French planter became enamoured of her beautiful, statuesque figure and enticed her away; or possibly the old woman is the first wife of her husband and the younger a subsequent one. Perhaps the master of the house has for her forgotten all his other wives and showers upon her all his love and favor, and for this the abandoned mate of earlier years is taking her revenge.
But my kodak was quite indifferent to the underlying reasons for such an unusual scene and was already prepared to immortalize this strife in the records of the age, holding there the vicious, black face of the old hag beside the bloody breasts and the terrified eyes of the young ebony beauty, when suddenly the whole operation was interrupted by a short, guttural exclamation that came from behind me. Involuntarily I swung round and faced a black man, sporting an old spahi's vest with brass buttons, wearing a big turban and leading a donkey, evidently just returning from town. The expression on his face left no doubt that he was angry with me for wishing to "steal the souls" of those In his village, yet it did not frighten away my intention to accomplish the theft. But, alas! It was too late, for I turned back only in time to catch a glimpse of the bright dresses of the women disappearing around a turn in the path and to hear the soft patting of their bare feet.
"You vagabond!" I thought angrily of the intruder and swung round to snap him as my only revenge.
As we continued our way, I soon forgot about the unsuccessful kodak hunt under the spell of a change so sudden and so picturesque that It seemed as though we had been transported to another latitude. High walls of luxuriant, really tropical vegetation flanked and arched the road, covering it with a deep shade and swathing it in refreshing coolness. Immense bushes of hawthorne, tamarisk, lilac and jasmine mingled with olive-trees, fig-trees, centennial elms, sandarico and plane-trees to form a veritable jungle, covered over and interlaced with Virginia creepers, hops and other vines, all ablaze with purple and pink blossoms. Narrow paths, lovely corridors of sifted green light, ran out in various directions through the thicket, that swarmed with wild pigeons, thrushes, starlings and other singing birds. The carriage stopped suddenly before a native building with an open verandah that was carpeted with clean mats.
"You would like, perhaps, to take a cup of Moorish coffee," suggested Mahomet. "It will not come amiss, as we shall be late in returning to town."
In a moment we were taking our places on the clay floor, which had been covered for us by a Kairwan carpet, brought out from the owner's rooms. Under the verandah there was also a group of Arabs, talking together in low, serious tones. As we watched, they became silent and bent their heads, when one of their number, a fine-looking old man with a long beard, began to speak. Mahomet whispered to me:
"He is a Marabout, a great scholar and miracle-worker, and is deeply respected here."
In the meantime the owner of the coffee-house had placed before us a round copper tray, carrying small china cups and individual copper pots with long, wooden handles. For each cup the coffee is separately prepared in these copper receptacles on a special stove over coals as red as those in a smithy forge. As we poured and tasted the brew, we found it to be strong, aromatic and sweet, thick with finely pulverized dregs, really more of a warm sorbet of coffee than the ordinary beverage as we know it. Finding it was a most agreeable drink, I ordered a second cup.
"Will it not act on your heart?" asked the careful guide.
"Oh, no," I answered, quite sure of my heart, which had tried and withstood all sorts of emotions incident to the Bolshevik regime, innumerable fights, high mountain passes, hunger, cold, prison, opium, poisonous Chinese alchohol and Indian hashish. However, pride ever goeth before the fall, and I found that the Moorish coffee made a stronger impression than all these former experiences and caused it to pound so hard that I could not catch my breath and was only restored to my normal condition after a long draft of cold water.
Just as we were leaving the place, two Arabs galloped past us on bay horses. These men in their turbans, large trousers and slippers are rather uninspiring when on foot; but, when they sit astride their high, richly ornamented saddles on real Arab steeds, they show again their old blood of rider and warrior—their heads are raised, their faces become proud, their eyes flash fire and in their feet, that rest so sure and firm within the large stirrups, one feels resides the strength necessary to back up the strong cuts of the sword, when the horse is in the gallop. We watched these men until they rose in their stirrups and went whirling round a turn in the road. I heard afterwards that Tlemsen and its environs are famous for their fine horsemen and, as recorded by A. Bel, Si Ahmed ben Yusuf, the poet, has sung of the town:
Oh, Tlemsen, town of matchless riders! Your streams, your air and the costumes of your women Place you above all the towns of Maghreb.
As for riders, streams and air, it is all very well; but, when it comes to the costumes of the women, this is quite another matter. Most unattractive wrappings cover not only the face, feet and the entire forms of the Tlemsen women, but even the eyes, Only occasionally, when men are around, is one of them unveiled for a short glance and then covered again by the protecting cloth. At the outset Zofiette was irritated by this, but finally became accustomed to it and gave up looking for "African beauties," calling them all "bundles of dirty linen." Hers was, I think, a true and entirely warrantable description.
For something over an hour after we left the Marabout and his circle of friends, we drove through the plain, admiring the advanced state of the agricultural development. At one place near the road we saw a long snake that had been killed and had had its head smashed. Our driver told us that it was a Naja and that this species was closely related to the well-known cobras of India. I think that he was probably right, for I later had occasion to observe these Najas in the south near Bu Saada and in Marrakesh, where I participated in one death-raid upon a goodly specimen.
After leaving our good road, we rattled across the stony bed of a dry stream, dragged through a sandy stretch that was lined with Berber figs and long-leaved cactuses, known in Spain as "pita clumbos" and related to the Aloë family, and finally drew out into the large village of Ain el-Hout, belonging to the Uled Ali tribe. It is a well-known place of pilgrimage for the inhabitants of Tlemsen, as the tombs of famous Marabouts from the family of Idris I, a powerful sultan related through his mother to the Prophet, are located there.
Our guide first took us to the spring of Aïn el-Hout, which is a large basin surrounded by an adobe wall and containing limpidly clear water that is fed up into the reservoir through the green clay at the bottom. Waterplants of the family Cladophorae were growing in the middle of the basin and afforded shelter for schools of small trout, the sight of which drew from Mahomet the following story:
"You see how many fish there are in the basin. From where could they have come, in view of the fact that the water bubbles up from the earth and does not run in from any surface supply? There is a legend which gives us the explanation. One of the young sons of a Tlemsen sultan of the thirteenth century was passing this spring on his way to a hunt, when he discovered a beautiful maiden with a pitcher of water in each hand just turning away in embarrassment, because she was unveiled and did not know what to do. The prince jumped from his horse, seized the girl in his arms and kissed her, whereupon she blushed violently, dropped her pitchers and strove to cover her face with her haik, but all to no avail, as the young prince was the stronger and persisted in his amorous demonstrations. Fearing she would be carried off, the girl broke from him and threw herself into the water, where she was transformed into fish. From that day the spring has been called, Aïn el-Hout, the Fountain of the Fish, and has been considered sacred and possessed of healing powers."
From here Mahomet led us on foot out of the village and into a deep ravine of the Safsaf River, where we found a hot spring flowing from the mouth of a cave, which was encircled with thick bushes and reeds. It is called by the natives "the miraculous hammam." We also found fish playing about in this spring, frequently breaking the surface with their jumps and darts after insects. I later heard from Algerian zoologists that they had found blind fish in the hammam, which had evidently come out with the water from its hot subterranean sources, a phenomenon similar to that which I noted in Lake Nogan Kul in Northern Mongolia and referred to in my book entitled Beasts, Men and Gods.
As the sun had already gone down before we left the spring and we had still a long and difficult road before us, we scrambled down the rocky path back to Aïn el-Hout, lighted the lamps on our carriage and returned to Tlemsen.
We spent the following day roaming about the town. In one quarter we wandered into a caravanserai, where we found a motley crowd of men who had come from every direction and over great distances, strings of camels and dozens of donkeys, all in a conglomerate mixture with wooden cases, bales of wool and other merchandise. Everywhere about the court Arabs, Berbers, natives from the Sahara and other heterogeneous types were bartering wares, playing cards, eating and drinking tea and coffee. Yet all this went on in a setting of almost incredible silence, quite different from what it would have been with an equally numerous gathering of white men. Acquaintances, as they met, greeted one another with the customary salaams, the younger ones kissing the hands of their older friends; grave Marabouts, whose hands or shoulders or the edges of whose bournouses were kissed by their followers, laid their palms upon the heads bent down before them in token of their greeting and blessing; friends also kissed each other on the cheeks, as is the custom in Poland.
Near the caravanserai we turned into a small street where coffee is roasted and ground, horses are shod, ropes are made and bags for the transport of merchandise on camels are strongly stitched, where, in a word, everything that is needed by the owners or drivers of caravans is prepared or offered for sale.
Farther along in Kaldoun Street one finds many small dentist's offices, where the local specialists use all sorts of medicaments and magic means—which are, however, under the strict control of the French authorities—as well as talismans and incantations, though at present they more often effect a cure by the ordinary chirurgical means of extraction. These Arab dentists use quite different instruments from those of the European practitioners of today, including small levers such as were in use during my childhood by the assistants of Russian country doctors, and forceps of their own invention; and some of the Arab doctors, who have no special equipment for dental work, perform feats little short of miracles in pulling out teeth with their own forcep-like fingers.
Though this Kaldoun Street is so named because it is the abode of the "extractors of teeth," one finds here also the Moorish baths, an institution that plays a large part in the hygiene of the Moslem countries. Here the Faithful wash, rarely but well. Their baths over, they sleep and rest after their hard work upon the land or their journeys of long months from the distant oases of the Sahara to this holy town of Abu Median and of the blessed Lalla Setti. Here in the baths the Berber bone-setters, banned by the French medical profession and police, often practice secretly on cases of toothache, dislocations, skin abrasions and snake or spider bites.
Massage of an extraordinary nature is also given. When I looked into one of the bath-rooms, I saw a stout native lying on the tiled floor, surrounded by clouds of rising steam and with a tall, thin masseur dancing on his back to the accompaniment of his own groans and sighs. The attendant ran up and down and jumped upon the back and legs of his prostrate patient, occasionally stooped to pour over him another pail of boiling water and then began to tread the man's shoulders with his knees and to pummel his neck with his fists. Then he ordered him to roll over and recommenced these same dancing and boxing performances in direct frontal attack with ever-enhanced sounds of battle. With my knowledge of the East this struggle was not a new sight for me, as I had seen the same in Persia, in the Caucasus and in Constantinople and had even tried it, offering my own back as a stage for this original form of ballet. In these Moorish baths I noticed some blind masseurs, types which I have also seen in the bath-houses of Japan, where one often finds sightless attendants.
Then we passed through some suks, or commercial streets, where the merchants offered for sale everything that is produced in the Tlemsen district—grain, fruit, vegetables, bournouses, fezes, turbans, slippers, saddles, charcoal, pots and pans. Near by, in improvised factories, yarn was being prepared and dyed red, green and yellow; furniture, pitchers, basins, straps and ropes were being made; elsewhere hides were being treated and logs cut up into planks and boards.
In the bazaar the crowd of Arabs, Berbers and Negroes that had come in from the country were pushing one another about to get in and bargain for the French wares being sold by the Jews in their small shops, where bright heaps of ribbons, artificial pearls, gilded copper necklaces, bracelets, ear-rings, looking-glasses, combs, thread, pins and a hundred other small articles lured the natives on. The women were especially attracted to these collections and often cautiously unveiled a second eye in sacrifice to these shopping opportunities.
Everywhere there were heaps of vegetables and fruit—grapes of many shades, pomegranates, golden pears, red apples, olives, splendid-looking plums and apricots, melons as transparent as amber, malachite-colored watermelons and immense cucumbers like twisted green snakes—and all of them struck the eye with their conglomerate mass of colors gleaming in the sun.
Some hundred paces beyond was the donkey-market, where these patient, sad, long-eared, faithful, wise and indispensable servants of the African native were being probed, studied and tried in every possible manner. Along the sides the rubbish merchants spread their wares upon stray mats on the ground. Was there anything that could not be found here? There were bits of iron which it was hard to imagine any one could possibly need, broken pots, copper basins with holes in them, lanterns, bent and dented, a sewing machine in its late decline, a broken kerosene lamp, half of a knife, rifle triggers, dirty rags from bournouses, a whole pile of greasy, once-red fezes and discarded soldiers' blankets, shoes and coats. But somehow one can also find here a handful of arrowheads shaped by the primitive dwellers in the land, a bit of stone with the remnant of a Roman inscription, an ancient statue, a really fine old sword of the Andalusian Moors or a cameo from Carthage or Blida.
As we were again passing through the Jewish quarter, our guide presented us to a grave, old Hebrew merchant in a brown bournous and a black skull-cap. When I asked him about the life of the Jewish colony in Tlemsen, he declared to us that only an ardent faith and the determination to maintain it in its full vigor had enabled the Jews to endure and live through the persecutions and difficulties of the centuries in Africa, but that the Mosaic laws had undergone gradual changes. Today an African Jew, like his Moslem neighbor, believes in djinns, has his saintly Marabouts and indulges in magic practices and rituals in connection with his fetish-worship. The kubba of the Jewish Marabout, Rabb Ankwa, is the object of many pilgrimages of African Jews to Tlemsen. Near the kubba is a miraculous spring, from which the pilgrims, after having kissed the holy stone on the sacred tomb, drink the healing water with a pinch of soil thrown into it.
When I put to my new acquaintance the further question as to why, instead of the traditional fez of the country, he wore a black velvet skull-cap, the same as the Jews wear in Poland, he smiled and gave me the interesting response that this fashion has probably existed since the sixteenth century and had a quite adventitious origin.
"It was in this wise," he continued. "An Algerian pirate captured a boat that was loaded with these little caps, which we call 'berretta,' and his masters, not knowing how to profit by such spoil, secured an order through the Moslem authorities that all Jews were to wear berrettas. From that day to this the custom has persisted so that this cap has become known as the distinctive mark of a Jew. It is possible that this custom was carried into Europe from here, as it spread from Algeria in both directions into Tunisia and Morocco."
The Jewish women very often wear, as their favorite decoration, necklaces of silver and gold coins counting pieces from all countries with a predominance of the louis d'or of Napoleon III, though one can also find among them many Spanish and Russian coins.
After luncheon we took leave of pretty Tlemsen with a little tinge of sadness and entrained for Ujda. We were sorry to say good-bye to Mahomet ben M'Hammed, with whom we had become very friendly and whom we had found to be a most intelligent and agreeable guide.
As the train swung round a curve, the minarets of Tlemsen, the picturesque settlement of El-Eubbad and the ravine of the Safsaf appeared for the last time as our final, fleeting picture of the town of holy Walis and of vicious djinns, only to be blotted out a moment later by a curve in the road.