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Updated: May 29, 2025
Nearly the last sound that greeted our ears as we walked down over the irregular pavements, and through the narrow lanes towards the pier from whence we were to embark, was the rude music of the snake-charmer; and the last impressive sight was that of a public story-teller, in one of the little squares, in earnest gesticulation, as with a high-pitched, shrill voice he related to a group of women, who were squatted in their white haiks, and men of the desert in their hooded gehabs, what the guide told us was a chapter from the "Thousand and One Nights!"
'Yes, said the Armenian, 'we are Christians in our way; we believe in God, the Holy Spirit, and Saviour, though we are not prepared to admit that the last personage is not only himself, but the other two. We believe . . . and then the Armenian told me of several things which the Haiks believed or disbelieved.
Sometimes several kaftans or several jellabs are worn one on top of the other, all colours mixed, particularly if the owner is travelling. Moors are a wool-clad people for the most part, due to the wet winter climate: the men's brown woollen hooded jellabs keep out the rain more or less, and the women's white woollen haiks answer the same purpose.
If your Highness will deign to step this way I will conduct you to it." The Bey commenced to move on again with his suite. They were all admirable types, with chiselled features and pure lines, warm pallors of complexion of which even the reflections were absorbed by the whiteness of their haiks.
Here an angle with a door; turn down under an archway: there a tiny branching alley, which we follow: here another door; plunge down the opposite way. A woman passes us with a friend, walking as only women in Morocco walk figures in creamy haiks of the finest wool, which swathe them entirely from top to toe like a sheet, a pair of eyes barely showing between the folds.
Tetuan makes many artistic "towels," which form the ordinary dress of the countrywomen underneath their old enfolding yellowish-white woollen haiks; but for quite the majority a towel as skirt and a towel as cape are sufficient for all purposes. There is the rare addition of a pair of cotton drawers.
The next morning the Marabout sent messengers, who brought back Yakoub and his people, and before many hours a sort of council was convened in the court of Yakoub's house, consisting of all the neighbouring heads of families, brown men, whose eyes gleamed fiercely out from under their haiks, and who were armed to the teeth with sabres, daggers, and, if possible, pistols and blunderbusses of all the worn-out patterns in Europe some no doubt as old as the Thirty Years War; while those who could not attain to these weapons had the long spears of their ancestors, and were no bad representatives of the Amalekites of old.
‘The Jews are a singular people,’ said I. ‘A race of cowards and dastards,’ said the Armenian, ‘without a home or country; servants to servants; persecuted and despised by all.’ ‘And what are the Haiks?’ I demanded. ‘Very different from the Jews,’ replied the Armenian; ‘the Haiks have a home—a country, and can occasionally use a good sword; though it is true they are not what they might be.’
The men are at work in the fields, from which they return at nightfall, sullen, hardy and silent, in their tattered haiks. These are never changed among the poor working-people, for the scars of a bornouse are as dignified as those of the body, and are confided with the garment by a father to his son.
Consciously she helped to fulfil the prediction of the Diviner, and then she left Batouch free. Now outside the church, shrouded closely in hoods and haiks, grey and brown bundles with staring eyes, the desert men were huddled against the church wall in the wind. Hadj was there, and Smain, sheltering in his burnous roses from Count Anteoni's garden.
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