The pleasures of Kairouan are by no means exhausted by merely walking through the streets, visiting the mosques, and wandering outside the walls, not even by watching the life of the people either out of doors or at the cafés.
Sunsets as beautiful as those of Biskra may be enjoyed from the roof. Afterglows, with a depth and glory of red and crimson unrivalled even in Egypt, created by the magic atmosphere of the dry and somewhat dreary plain, which they transform into a land of mystery and romance.
When the moon rises, another scene of enchantment is revealed. The pale moonlight of our island home is unknown in Africa: here the contrast is wonderful, the brilliance positively startles. The first impression on leaving a lighted room is that it has been snowing heavily. Then gradually one begins to grasp the extraordinary depth of the shadows, the absolute clearness of each outline, the suffused glow, the positive warmth that throws such glamour over each common thing. Last of all, one sees that in this moonlight there is colour, soft and low in tone, but yet distinctly recognisable.
As a little change, or perhaps because sunset and moonlight might be thought dull, the authorities kindly decreed that a military tattoo should be held. Gay sounds of martial music, the light tramp of marching feet, the hum of many voices, drew every one to the balcony, to find the street bright with flaming torches. The lights flared up, casting weird shadows over the crowd of eager faces as the wind blew the flames to and fro. The gay uniforms, the lightly stepping, almost dancing feet of the soldiers as they marked time, contrasted strangely with the statuesque pose of the sober citizens, or the wild unkempt figures of men from some distant oasis, or nomads from the desert. How they all enjoyed the show!—soldiers as much as any one else, and the band seemingly most of all.
The terrible rites of the Aïssaouas may be witnessed every night. The sect is powerful in Kairouan, has its own mosque, and they welcome all those whose curiosity is strong enough to overcome their feelings of horror or of self-contempt for wishing to look on at such doings.
The Marabout Aïssa (a name which means Jesus), who came from Morocco, was once wandering in the desert, far from home and friends, and suffered much from hunger. In fact he would have died of starvation had he not been endued with miraculous power, and this enabled him to eat all kinds of impossible food, including snakes, scorpions, fire, glass, and leaves of prickly pear, spines and all. His followers imitate him, or pretend to do so, to this day, having previously worked themselves into a state of frenzy after the manner of the Howling Dervishes. Their feats in this direction, and also with swords and daggers run through their bodies, seem so hideous and disgusting even in the telling, that one wonders how any Europeans can bear to see the sight. Yet numbers do, and get so excited that they forget to be horrified or feel sick till they get home.
A wedding feast is a very different ceremony, so that to be invited to see one in old-world Kairouan is a piece of real good-fortune. After dinner the Arab servants hurried us off, with two French officers and their wives, through the still marvel of a moonlight night. The music of the tom-toms and the trilling cries, half-shrill, half-sweet, of rejoicing women, could be heard long before the house was reached.
The outer gate, decked with boughs, stood wide open, though as yet only the ladies were allowed to enter and cross the courtyard to an inner court full of flickering lights and a bewildering number of restless, ever-moving women. Gay as butterflies they fluttered round us, whilst with pretty gentle ways they patted and stroked our hands and clothes, pulled, pushed, and led us in and out of three tiny rooms, showing us all the preparations, the embroidered linen and hangings, the lights, the robes, the state bedstead, and, last of all, within a circle of elder women seated on the floor, the bride herself. Demure, a little wistful, with a studiously impassive expression, in all her finery of silk and veils, bedizened with jewels, she posed like an image, aloof and very lonely in the crowd.
A DESERT AFTERGLOW