, 1890-05-28
no-Auu6oAN WOMEN IN AFRICA


David Err Describes the Jealous "HtCh-
fuIncss They Live Under.
Irnuyright by American Press ASsoc1atonl
Tradition tells of an innocent country
youth from the west of England who,
having made the usual trip to Palestine
and being asked on his return he
thought of the eastern women as COM
pared with those of Europe, answered
simply. AR there any women in o
countriesl l never saw any there my
self" This indeed is what the average
tourists experience Of Mohammedan Ia
dies usually amounts to, and it is a truly
exhilarating spectacle to behold some
spruce young spark from London or
Paris exhibiting his airs and graces in
front of the grated easement which he
supposes to mask n group Of lovely Gull
mares and Leilas, when the only woman
who is there to look at him is an ugly
old black slave without a tooth in her
head, who is sweeping out the rooms for
the day.
In countries like Tripoli, Tunis and
Morocco, where Mohammedan bigotry
seems to nave found its last n most
i~mpregnable stronghold, the exclusion OF
the sex is naturally more rigorous than
elsewhere. In every Moslem town OF
North Africa you see one huge, massive
stone building towering high above the
filthy, tumbledown burrows around it,
and YOU are told that this is the house
of some native prince or "Bassah'
tgrandee), and that behind the small,
grated windows which are visible far up
in its high, blank, dungeon like wall the
imprisoned beauties of his harem are
peering out at that mysterious outer
world which they, hke all oriental wo-
men, see only as a peep show.
When one of these little great men
adds another specimen 10 this museum OF
Gagged birds-i. e. takes n new wife-you
can, if YOU choose, witness the greater
part OF the marriage ceremonies, such as
they are. You can see the unfortunate
villagers from the brides native district
filing over the hills in a hot and dusty
procession, laden with the wedding pres
ents upon which they are forced to waste
as much money as n months hard
could earn. You can watch the white
cloaked. red girdled horscmen of the
Bassah's guard c%ircling at full gallop
around the bridal train. shouting their
native war cry and firing their long rifles
in the air. while the clouds of smoke
that curl around this demon dance give
quite an unearthly aspect to the dark,
fierce faces and tossing arms as they loom
specifically through it.
You can look your fill at the red cap
ped foot soldiers moving in n rhythmic
lnnce before the eyes of their master, in
time to the cadence of a slow. dirge like
chant and the deep booming roll of the
Moorish drum, tossing their guns into
the air and catching them again at every
step But all that you will see of the
bride herself il a large covered litter
girthed on the back of n horse or n camel,
behind the embroidered curtains of
which. denfened with tho hideous up
rDur, siclscncl by the stencil of burned
powder, tortured by n splitting headache,
and not particularly consoled by the
prospect of IA life long imprisonment
with nm ugly old fat man for her jailer,
lies this poor girl in honor of whose mis-
cry all this fuss is being made.
To such "A pitch Of jealous watchful-
ness is this strange system carried that
the mere suspicion of n wish ON the part
Of any foreigner to approach or even to
hook passingly Mt a Moslem woman has
often cost that foreigner his life. my
self, while rambling around the outskirts
Of n mountain fortress among h hills
bordering the Sahara desert, happened
to follow IA goat path which seemed to
offer me II short cut back to the town
and suddenly found myself in the midst
of n native camp which had been pitched
in "a hollow ut the foot of the precipice
on which tho fortress stood. Instantly