Mohammed is said to have taught that there are in this world three gardens of Paradise, four cities, and four oratories. The three gardens include Mecca and Jerusalem, whilst Kairouan is the best known of the oratories or gates of heaven.
LA GRANDE RUE, KAIROUAN
Kairouan has evidently no doubt about its own sanctity, and tries to live up to its reputation, for it is most serious, full to overflowing with mosques and Zaouïas, or tomb-mosques, which are often both oratories and schools.
An air of austerity seems part of the religious character of this place, as yet untouched by the stir and onward rush of modern life. The easy ways of Tunis, the smooth, smiling faces of the Moorish dandy, the wealth of harmonious colour, are not found here. The men are of a grave, stern race, not given to bright garments, but content, as a rule, with white, or tones of brown. A woman is a rare apparition in the streets, and her closely shrouded form in its sombre black reminds one of a misericordia brother in Tuscany,—though she, poor thing, scurries away as if in search of a hiding-place instead of boldly begging an alms.
The main street, or Zankat Touila, runs from the Bab Djelladin to the Porte de Tunis. Though unusually wide and nearly straight it has a charm of line that makes the irregular grouping of minarets, mosques, and domes, set as they are amidst a tangle of booths, shops, and balconies, into a bewildering succession of ready-made pictures. Both minarets and domes are as white as white can be, like those of any and every city in Tunisia, nevertheless Kairouan, whitewashed as it may be with the same brush, has a few little peculiarities to distinguish it from its fellows. Some of the minarets, for instance, severe to plainness in their construction, have for their sole decoration an inscription in projecting bricks, carried round all four sides, setting forth the creed of the Mohammedans. “There is no God but God; Mohammed is the messenger of God.” Many of the domes, again, differ from those in other places by being fluted, which not only gives variety to the surface, but also a peculiarly graceful curve.
The well-house of El Barota stands in this street; outside it resembles a marabout, but instead of the tomb within there is the sacred well, the only well in Kairouan. The water is brackish in taste, and was discovered after the orthodox legendary method in time of need, by a greyhound scratching up the soil. To add to its sanctity it is said to be in touch in some mysterious way with the still more sacred well of Zemzem at Mecca. This underground communication is in such perfect working order that a pilgrim who lost his drinking-vessel by dropping it into the fountain at Mecca, found it again, on his return to his native city, in the waters of El Barota.
The entrance to the bazaars is through a gateway decorated with black lines, whilst black and white are used alternately round the horse-shoe arch. Inside the bazaar is simple—a whitewashed tunnel, dimly lighted from above, with the usual square, cavernous recesses. Shoemakers, coppersmiths, and tailors are to be found, the latter have already succumbed to the fascinations of a sewing-machine—one of the first signs that the thin end of the wedge of so-called improvement is being driven in. Most of the shops, however, are given up to carpets, the well-known industry of the place. Here, though there is some dread of the coming of aniline dyes and other European enormities, the work is still carried on, as it always has been in hundreds of homes, principally by the women and children. The designs and methods are matters of tradition, vary in different families, and are handed down like heirlooms from generation to generation.
CARPET-MAKING