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Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 April 1943, Page 4

(By M. D. Gieberich in the “Christian

Science Monitor.”)

“The French, making a drive from Algeria, have reached Kairouan,” the radio announced to a listening world oh a cold December morning. Kairouan, for a marching army, is not far io the south of Tunis and separated from it by barren wastes, unfriendly to the tender padded feet of camels and to vagrant Bedouins whose rug-covered tents are scarcely distinguishable from the ground about them. These tents, singly or in clusters, are the only habitations along the route from Tunis to the “Holy City.” Once at Kairouan the picture changes. Aside from a modern hotel outside the walls of the native town and a town hall with Poste et Telegraphe, Kairouan is predominantly Arab. And not the Arab I had been accustomed to meet in Tunis, the suave, courteous merchants of the souks, conversant with Paris, and speaking the language of France with the accent of Grenoble or the Sorbonne. Here was an Arab equally courteous and dignified, but aloof, an Arab who looks upon the stranger with something more than indifference, something which eliminates him from the landscape and leaves him with the feeling of an interloper. Habitually Kairouan is domed by a cloudless sky, violet blue by day and blue violet by night. I had been a week in Kairouan when incredibly the sky lost its rare, pelucid hue to become a pale gray blue. The proprietor of the Grand Hotel de France shook his head and prophesied rain. The porter echoed the prophecy and by evening the rain came. Not a thin spray from a sky still blue but sheets which flooded the streets.

The following morning saw no letup in the deluge and it was with difficulty that I waded to the cafe which is the rendezvous of Kairouan’s prominent citizens. Instead of being politely ignored, I was greeted by smiles and exclamations: Had I ever seen in America so torrential a downpour? Not for years had it rained here like this! I took my place on the broad seat which runs along the back and side walls; there is no wall between the cafe and the street it faces. The floor space, filled with small iron tables and chairs, like the bench, is covered with strips of matting. 'Strewn over it are the red and yellow leather babouche which have been removed by their wearers.

In spite of the storm the place is crowded, by consumers of sweet, minted tea and coffee honey-thick and honey-sugared. As I look at the men at the tables and those seated crosslegged against the walls, they become a part of the painted walls and furnish the human element w'hich in accordance with the Moslem belief must be omitted in all forms of decorative art.

With the phenomenon of a flood to wash away the reserve which had met my previous advances, I asked my host of the moment about the paintings. Had they been done long ago, or was it merely smoke and exposure that had given them their exquisite patina? He told me that well over a hundred years ago a painter had come from Constantinople on a pilgrimage to Kairouan. His name is unknown.

Against a background the colour and gloss of ancient leather, his minarets and domes of Constantinople still glow with the harmony and jewel-like quality of a Persian miniature. There are lions with beards rivaling the symbolic sun of Louis XIV and, swimming, blooming and flying among them, fantastic fish, flowers and birds. Days go by and the rain continues, the streets are canals and the branches of the pepper trees hang like drenched fringe. There is no use to wait for clearing skies to visit the miracle of lace in stone which is the Great Mosque of Kairouan. Once more I wade knee-deep in water to my destination. The orange trees about the fountain in the outer court are reflected in its flooded surface. Inside, the forest of a thousand marble columns—spoils of ruined Carthage—lift flowered carvings to the lofty ceiling of the vast, windowless edifice. From the minaret the muezzin’s call is punctuated by the steady fall of rain. If a hasty tempered Dey of Algeria had not struck a French envoy with a fly brush of peacock feathers a little more than a century ago, the mosque of Kairouan might never have been an historic monument open to the infidel, and American and English troops might not be marching today to meet •the Axis forces in a country which belongs to neither. It is heavy going and slow, for the flood rains have cornel again to Kairouan and to all Tunisia. |