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Updated: April 30, 2025
Late camels coming into the town to seek the security of some fandak would pad noiselessly past me; weird creatures from the under-world they seemed, on whom the ghostlike Arabs in their white djellabas were ordered to attend. Children would flit to and fro like shadows, strangely quiet, as though held in thrall even in the season of their play by the solemn aspect of the surroundings.
"Be vigilant, O guardians," he cried, "be vigilant and do not sleep." Below, by my side, on the ground, the guardians, wrapped warm in their djellabas, dreamed on, all undisturbed. By night, too, the pariah dogs, scavengers of all Mohammedan cities, roamed at their ease and leisure through Djedida, so hungry and so free from daintiness that no garbage would be left on the morrow.
Here sundry young Jews in black djellabas sat at their ease, their long hair curled over their ears, and black caps on their heads in place of the handkerchiefs favoured by the elders of the community. One or two women were coming from the Jewish market, their bright dresses and uncovered faces a pleasing contrast to the white robes and featureless aspect of the Moorish women.
There were stately Moors in flowing robes cheek by jowl with half-naked blacks from the Sus and the Draa; lean, enduring Arabs in their spotless white djellabas rubbed shoulders with Berbers from the highlands in black camel-hair cloaks; there were Levantine Turks, and Jewish refugees from Spain ostentatiously dressed in European garments, tolerated there because bound to the Moor by ties of common suffering and common exile from that land that once had been their own.
The entrances of the bazaars in the Kaisariyah, to which we turned, were barred and bolted, their guardians sat motionless, covered in white djellabas, that looked like shrouds. The city's seven gates were fast closed, though doubtless there were long files of camels and market men waiting patiently without.
Three are promised for a payment of about sevenpence apiece, and then the headman precedes us and we turn from the main track to the place of shelter. Instantly the village is astir. The dogs are driven off. Every wattled hut yields its quota of men, women, and children, spectral in their white djellabas and all eager to see the strangers and their equipment.
On the ground, by the side of the human cattle pens, the wealthy patrons of the market seat themselves at their ease, arrange their djellabas and selhams in leisurely fashion, and begin to chat, as though the place were the smoking-room of a club. Water-carriers lean, half-naked men from the Sus sprinkle the thirsty ground, that the tramp of slaves and auctioneers may not raise too much dust.
There were brown-skinned Berbers in black goat-hair cloaks that were made in one piece with a cowl and decorated by a lozenge of red or orange colour on the back, their shaven heads encased in skull-caps or simply bound in a cord of plaited camel-hair; there were black Saharowi who went almost naked, and stately Arabs who seemed overmuffled in their flowing robes of white with the cowls overshadowing their swarthy, finely featured faces; there were dignified and prosperous-looking Moors in brightly coloured selhams astride of sleek mules that were richly caparisoned; and there were Tagareenes, the banished Moors of Andalusia, most of whom followed the trade of slave-dealers; there were native Jews in sombre black djellabas, and Christian-Jews so-called because bred in Christian countries, whose garments they still wore; there were Levantine Turks, splendid of dress and arrogant of demeanour, and there were humble Cololies, Kabyles and Biscaries.
Now, however, there is no time for such thoughts; the crowd at the entrance parts to the right and left, to admit twelve grave men wearing white turbans and spotless djellabas. They are the dilals, in whose hands is the conduct of the sale.
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