El Djem And A Holy City

( Originally Published 1923 )

AGAIN, with an automobile, I took to the road; for good highways exist wherever France has anything to do with the development of a country. They are marked by friendly milestones which rapidly slip past as you bowl along over the splendid roads. These milestones invite and encourage one for-ward, recording, as they do, a lesser and lesser distance to your objective point. Cactus hedges fence the highway, which passes through a rather flat country lying near the sea, a fertile land capable of great productiveness when irrigated. Here and there were seen the scattered tents of the Nomads, and the white dome of a mosque or Marabout tomb in the distance appeared bright in the brilliant sunshine.

We passed through the old town of Sousse by the sea, the interesting native quarter of which is surrounded by a great, old, crenellated wall. A few antiquated guns still point their muzzles toward the sea, and a minaret rises above the wall, commanding a view of city, sea, and surrounding country. Just beyond Sousse were seen great orchards of old, gnarled and twisted olive trees. Continuing for miles through an open country, slightly undulating, we finally rose over the crest of a low hill and in the distance beyond, but directly before us, we saw the outline of the great Colosseum of El Djem. Alone, it stands a great Roman monument, surrounded by hundreds of square miles of practically barren flat country. It dominates the landscape like a lone mountain rising from a surrounding plain. Its very isolation makes this great amphitheater particularly impressive. As I drew near, its enormousness surprised me. It has four great tiers, and is nearly a quarter of a mile in circumference. The seating capacity was but little less than that of the Colosseum of Rome ; sixty thousand people were able to look down from its galleries to the arena below, where were en-acted the sports and scenes, even the sacrificing of human lives to the wild beasts of Africa, a pastime for those Roman pagans. Its silence bespeaks the glory of a past power, and by its majesty impressed me more than the perusal of volumes of Roman history. The only life visible was in the adjoining lesser ruins, in which dwelt a few Arabs in hovels under improvised roofs built over the remaining walls where once stood a proud Roman city. Those Romans were great builders. They built for the ages, and these great monuments stand as mute testimonials to their achievements. It is a grave we here visited, a monument to a dead Empire; and the lesser tombs of the Marabouts nearby—all suggested the silence of death.

We were told that the great stones used in the building of this mammoth structure were quarried and hauled by oxen from a quarry twenty miles away. One wonders what prompted the Romans to build in such an isolated barren land, unless in earlier days a much different climatic condition existed, or possibly Roman irrigation projects furnished the magic that made these sterile soils blossom like the rose.

Kairouan (resting place) is one of the sacred cities of Islam and after Mecca and Medina it is the most sacred place in the eyes of the Mohammedans of northern Africa. Until quite recently no one but a Mohammedan could come within the holy city. A glimpse of domes and minarets from outside the walls must suffice the infidel in the days before the French took possession; and while Christians may now enter even the mosques from which they are excluded elsewhere in Tunisia, this privilege is still denied to Jews.

The place was founded in 67o A.D. by Sidiben-Nafir, the Mohammedan warrior and saint whose mosque tomb we visited at Sidi Okba, not far from Biskra. It is a walled city with towers, bastions, and five gates, and is situated in a barren, sandy plain. Thanks to these French road-builders, a perfect highway, like a brown ribbon, stretches across the barren land to this ancient Mohammedan city. Along the road-side are seen the occasional tents of the nomadic Arabs, white-robed figures, "sons of the immortal desert that gave them birth."

Outside the gates of the city, in a rather modern village, is located a hostelry for the traveler; not good, but I have been domiciled in much worse. A permit having been obtained, a local guide annexed, we passed through the rather, narrow, high, studded gate into the city of many mosques and shrines for the faithful of Islam, who are called to prayer by the muezzin standing on the balcony of the minaret with arms out-stretched, crying—"There is but one God, and Mohammed is his Prophet, come to prayer," and so forth.

Let us visit the Souks and the three most important mosques. We pass along streets centuries old, which are walled in on both sides by high walls. The houses present a blank façade with an occasional doorway that leads to an inner court-yard, around which are built the habitations of the natives.

It is the Souks of Kairouan that quicken the pulse of an artist. Here, also, these passage-ways are covered by vaulted ceilings and shafts of light are admitted through openings in the roofs. These narrow, dim streets are filled with costumed crowds, as though they had stepped forth from the legend of Arabian Nights; little shops, filled with articles for sale; dark-skinned merchants sitting idly therein or bargaining with their customers with an avidity unbecoming their Arab dignity and Oriental languidness; groups of patriarchal old Jews with turbans and flowing robes, reminding us of Biblical pictures, —a civilization still buried in the past.

In quite another part of the city, in fact outside the wall, is the Mosque of the Barber, so called for the reason that there is supposed to be buried one who acted as Mohammed's personal tonsorial artist. It consists of sacred courts and rooms, some richly adorned with glazed tiles and arabesque ornamentation in low relief, so delicately wrought that it has the appearance of lace in varied designs hanging against the walls. The ceiling over a cloister surrounding one of the courts is of old cedar, decorated in soft subdued colors. Altogether, this was by far the most decorative interior that I have seen in any mosque in northern Africa.

The Mosque of the Swords, Amor-Abada, interested me only because of its six pleasing fluted domes, which is the dominant note of all mosques.

We next arrived before the gate of The Grand Mosque—Djama-Kebir, founded by Sidi-ben-Nafir and held in great veneration by Mussulmen. The exterior is of thick, buttressed walls of stone and mud, and is of a drab color. Admitted by the gate-keeper, upon entering I was impressed by the large, open, rectangular marble-paved enclosure, which in appearance was not unlike those of India. This court is surrounded by cloistered sides, arch after arch sup-ported by classic columns of diversified designs, many beautifully chiseled, the spoils of the ancient cities of Carthage, El-Djem, and Cæsarea.

On the north side of the court, stands the massive minaret, diminishing in size as it rises. From its balcony an interesting view may be had of the surrounding country and the low flat dwellings of the city, within which are sealed the inhabitants and mysteries of a people unchanged through the centuries.

On the south side of the square is the prayer chamber, which is filled with a maze of columns that support the vaulted roof. These columns and other carved stones are fragments of other temples and dwellings of earlier days, structures that have gone forever. Their very presence suggests antiquity. Kneeling or sitting on the floor of the dimly lighted prayer chamber, in the deep recesses or shadows of the columns,

were seen here and there the faithful of Islam religiously devout, in their genuflections toward Mecca and in the reiteration of their form prayers, originality of thought and the spontaneous flow of mind and spirit all subordinated to a creed that is chained to its ancestral past, a religion lacking in the spiritual inspiration of a Christ. As stated by Joseph Thomson, the African explorer,—"It was difficult to grasp the fact that absolutely the most religious nation on the face of the earth was also the most grossly immoral. In no sect is faith so absolutely paramount, so unweakened by any strain of scepticism, as among the Mohammedans of Morocco.

"Among no people are prayers so commonly heard or religious duties more rigidly attended to. Yet, side by side with it all, rapine and murder, mendacity of the most advanced type, and brutish and nameless vices exist to an extraordinary degree."

A. MacCallum Scott thus tersely sums up the apathy of the Mohammedan—"Kismet, fate, is the universal law, and men are but the creatures of destiny." Omar Khayyam poetically ex-presses it thus :

"'Tis all a chequer-board of nights and days
Where Destiny with men for pieces plays;
Hither and thither moves and mates and slays,
And one by one back in the closet lays."

However, be it Jew, Christian, or Mohammedan, "Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us ?"

One thing I observed everywhere, that in any and all countries there is to be found the desirable citizen who is endeavoring to improve the conditions and welfare of the community. There is always a place for the Good Samaritan, and be he Jew, Mohammedan, or Christian, his acts of kindness, sympathy, and benevolence to mankind are after all carrying out the in-junction of "Bear ye one another's burdens" and "Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy." The path of all such utilitarians must lead to heaven.

Far more benefit may be realized by the traveler if he looks for the good to be found in all things and places. This materially broadens his own view-point, and reveals the actual underlying principles and efforts for good that make for the progress of the civilized world in its entirety.