Magic of Tunis

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 584, 9 February 1929, Page 18

Magic of Tunis

CWrilten and Illustrated for THE SUN by

H. W. YOUNG)

HORE captivating ly Oriental than many towns east o£ Suez is the City of Tunis in Northern Africa, on the shores of the Mediterranean. The fine, modern, French city, dating from the protectorate of 1912. is reached from the sea by a straight five miles of canal through the Lac de Tunis. But it is the old Arabic town at the back of the new one that attracts the visitor, with its mosques and colleges, and graceful, slender minarets, all enclosed by ancient walls with picturesque gates. A maze of streets and covered lanes, with miles of souks and a teeming population, has all the atmosphere and glamour of The Thousand and One Nights. In these souks of the El Medina quarter—bazaars of innumerable little shops—buying and selling, making and carrying, of wares and food goes on continuously. It is a marvellous ants’ colony of btisy human beings with loaded donkeys jostling their way through the crowds. Many of the callings congregate. You find the perfumers’ souk, the leather workers’, the jewellers,’ the dyers’ and others, and it is all very much as it was when the Saracen ruled the land a thousand years ago. But the conservative Orient, even here, adopts some of the methods of its European protectors. You see a primitive stone-grinding flour mill composed simply of hopper, millstones, and sack, with no refinements for bolting or cleaning, yet this archaic machine, instead of being donkey or hand-turned is driven bv Slectric motor.

No visitor to Tunis can resist the rharm of the souks. These little Shops with ancient Arabic arches reached by vaulted passages or stairways, are the homes of native liandi rraftsmen and their wares. As you pass, you are iqvited, with elaborate rourtesy. to enter. Seated on a flivan, served with cigarettes and

coffee, you admire the beautiful rugs, jewellery, pottery, or embroidery, or sample the gamut of perfumes, if that is your weakness. Soon, through the exotic attraction of the goods and the polite persuasions of the dealer, you have acquired a stock of souvenirs much larger and more expensive than

you had intended. Of course, foreign visitors pay a fancy price for their weaknesses.

On the streets you enjoy the living cinema of many racial types, with their variety of dress, speech and colour. The Moroccans and Negroids are black, sooty aud dark brown; Arabs are all shades of brown; those, of the Berber strain show reddish, paie and creamy brown skins. Besides these are Jews, Italians, Maltese and French. Jewesses wear voluminous white silk robes. Mohammedan

women are known by wool or- cheesecloth robes, capacious white silk trousers, and black or white veils w ith slits for the eyes. The nomad peasant women are simply dressed in loose brown or blue robes with yellow and red cloth headgear. More numerouE every where are the men folk, with their dignified bearing. Many wear the j red or crimson skull cap or fez w-ith a ten-inch-long tassel hanging down, or a brightly coloured scarf twisted round it. Arabs mostly wear the burnous, a loose flowing cloak of silk, wool cr camel hair. Here comes a tall bronze coloured youth, with a bold, free stride. He is swathed in an ample white silk cloak, over a dark red under-jacket, with a flow-ered pattern in yellow. A vari-coloured scarf on his head sets off the clear deep brown of his hand some face. In his little office open to the street sits a Jew 'money changer. He might be the or-lginal of a Rembrandt picture, so venerable and striking is his face. As for the children, they .are fascinating, whether in rags or in silk. A serious faced little fellow about five years old, runs a supplementary bread stall outside his father’s shop. Another little chap rides a donkey w-ith a load of vegetables, pannier-wise, to market. Two shy boys about twelve years, apprentices to a cobbler, with red caps on their short black hair, industriously rasp a id hammer in full view of the passers-by. Another lad balances on his head a tray of greasy pastry, cry iug his: goods in an elaborate sort of plain-song. A family party from the country has come to the city early to sell their produce. A rag-tag menagerie they are. A very old woman, thin and active, clad in all sorts of rags leads the tri be. Five children, including a baby tied on a small donkey’s back, one big boy, five larger donkeys, a calf, a dog, and a number of hens (also tied on a donkey’s back), make up the caravan. It becomes mixed tip with a tramear. The donkeys hesitate and stop and the calf bolts across the street kicking up its heels, followed by the dog and the old woman. General confusion ensues. The big boy is fhe only one not upset. He walks on with slow dignity till the tioupo is re-assembled and rejoins him.

Snake charmers, public readers of the Koran, out-of-door cafes, always full, and open-air markets add to the attractions of Arabic Tunis.