And thus they crowd together for half-an-hour, whilst all ordinary business seems suspended. Nothing could be done with such a clatter, not to mention the heat. Oh, how the Arab gutturals, the impossible consonants (quite impossible to unpractised European lips) were interjected and hurled, so to speak, to and fro! How much was said to no purpose, how incoherent it all seemed, and how we wished for a few vowels to cool the air!
In half-an-hour a calm has set in and the steady business of the day is allowed to go forward; we may now smoke our pipes in peace, and from a quiet corner watch the proceedings almost unobserved, asking ourselves a question or two suggested by the foregoing scene. Is expression really worth anything? Is the exhibition of passion much more than acting? Shall grey beards and flowing robes carry dignity with them any more, if a haggle about old clothes can produce it in five minutes?
And so we sit and watch for hours, wondering at the apparently endless variety of the patterns, and colours of the fabrics exposed for sale; and perhaps we doze, perhaps we dream. Is it the effect of the hachshish? Is it the strong coffee? Are we, indeed, dreaming, or is the auction a sham? Surely that pretty bright handkerchief—now held up and eagerly scanned by bleared old eyes—now rumpled and drawn sharply between haggard fingers—is an old friend, and has no business in a sale like this? Let us rub our eyes and try and remember where we have seen it o before. Yes—there is no mistaking the pattern, we have seen it in Spain. It was bound turbanwise round the head of a woman who performed in the bull ring at Seville, on the occasion of a particularly high and rollicking festival of the 'Catholic Church;' it was handed out of a diligence window one dark night on the Sierra Morena, when a mule had broken its leg, and the only method of getting it along was to tie the injured limb to the girth, and let the animal hop on three legs for the rest of the way. It found its way into the Tyrol, worn as a sash; it was in the market-place at Bastia in Corsica, in the hands of a maiden selling fruit; it flaunted at Marseilles, drying in the wind on a ship's spar; and the last time we saw it (if our memory serves us well) it was carefully taken from a drawer in a little shop, 'Au Dey d'Alger' in the Rue de Rivoli in Paris, and offered to us, by that greatest of all humbugs, Mustapha, as the latest Algerian thing in neckties, which he asked fifteen francs for, and would gladly part with for two.
It was a pattern we knew by heart, that we meet with in all parts of the world, thanks to the universality of Manchester cottons. But the pattern was simple and good, nothing but an arrangement of red and black stripes on a maize ground, and therein lay its success. It had its origin in the first principles of decoration, it transgressed no law or canon of taste, it was easily and cheaply made (as all the best patterns are), and so it travelled round the world, and the imitation work came to be sold in, perhaps, the very bazaar whence the pattern first came, and its originators squabbled over the possession of it, as of something unique.
But we can hardly regret the repetition of these Moorish patterns, for they are useful in such a variety of ways. Wind one of the handkerchiefs in and out amongst dark tresses, and see what richness it gives; make a turban of it for a negress's head; tie it nattily under the chin of a little Parisienne and, hey presto! she is pretty; make a sash of it, or throw it loosely on the ground, and the effect is graceful and charming to the eye. In some Japanese and Chinese silks we may meet with more brilliant achievements in positive colours; but the Moors seem to excel all other nations in taste, and in their skilful juxta-position of tints. We have seen a Moorish designer hard at work, with a box of butterflies' wings for his school of design, and we might, perhaps, take the hint at home.
But we must leave the Moors and their beautiful fabrics for a while, and glance at the Arab quarter of the town. We shall see the Arabs bye and bye in the plains and in their tents, in their traditionary aspect; but here we come in contact with a somewhat renegade and disreputable race, who hang, as it were, on the outskirts of civilization. Many of them have come from the neighbouring villages and from their camps across the plains of the Sahel; and have set up a market of their own, where they are in full activity, trading with each other and with the Frank. * Here they may be seen by hundreds—some buying and selling, some fighting and not unfrequently, cursing one another heartily; others ranged close together in rows upon the ground, like so many white loaves ready for baking. Calm they are, and almost dignified in appearance, when sitting smoking in conclave; but only give them something to quarrel about, touch them up ever so little on their irritable side, and they will beat Geneva washerwomen for clatter.
* This market-place is a sort of commercial neutral ground,
where both Arabs and Kabyles meet the French in the
strictest amity, and cheat them if they can.
Take them individually, these trading men, who have had years of intercourse with their French conquerors, and they disappoint us altogether. They are no longer true followers of the Prophet, although they are a great obstruction to traffic, by spreading carpets on the ground in the middle of the road, and prostrating themselves towards Mahomet and the sun. Trade—paltry, mean, and cowardly as it so often makes men—has done the Arab irreparable harm: it has taught him to believe in counterfeits and little swindles as a legitimate mode of life, to pass bad money, and to cringe to a conqueror because he could make money thereby. He could not do these things in the old days, with his face to the sun.
The Arab is generally pictured to us in his tent or with his tribe, calm, dignified and brave, and perhaps we may meet with him thus on the other side of the Sahel, but here in Algiers he is a metamorphosed creature. The camels that crouch upon the ground, and scream and bite at passers-by, are more dignified and consistent in their ill-tempered generation than these 'Sons of the Prophet,' these 'Lights of Truth.'
And they have actually caught European tricks. What shall we say when two Arabs meet in the street, and after a few words interchanged, pass away from each other with a quickened, jaunty step, like two city men, who have 'lost time,' and must make it up by a spurt! Shall we respect our noble Arab any more when we see him walking abroad with a stereotyped, plausible smile upon his face, and every action indicating an eye to the main chance? *