The only part of the town where white does not rule and colour runs riot is the street of the dancing girls. Hangings and draperies cover the green balconies with rainbow hues, whilst the handsome, dark-eyed women, with their heavily painted brows, rival each other in their vividly brilliant silks. Their dress is an odd mixture of the Oriental and European, after the fashion of a comic opera, not at all beautiful but quite effective. Especially so is the head-dress of skilfully knotted silken kerchiefs, heavily interwoven with gold and bound with silver chains, which also encircle the face, the forehead being covered with many coins. The women wear quantities of showy jewellery, but only the chains and ear-rings have any style or character.
Occasionally the streets are gay with flags and banners, as groups of men and children in bright array start on a pilgrimage to some Marabout. All the feasts begin in this way, with much beating of tom-toms and weird music, for as there is rhythm it would be rude to call it noise, as most people do at first. After a time, the sadness and monotony make their own appeal, expressing in another language, hard to understand and perhaps a little vague, the power and feeling of the land.
Now and then a Marabout returns the compliment, and visits the town with two or three followers, bearing banners of red and green, and a bowl to collect alms, accompanied by the inevitable tom-tom. He makes a slow progress through the street, the people hastening to greet him, and often to kiss his hands or the hem of his cloak. Some of these Marabouts are quite sane and dignified, whilst others are half-witted, ragged creatures.
Reading aloud is another practice most popular here. In the daytime a grave old man, book in hand, will take his station at a street corner, and read to a number of men sitting on the ground, and listening with rapt attention to his words. The passers-by stand attentively for a while, and generally end by joining the little circle. In the evening at one of the cafés there will always be a reader, a man with much dramatic power, who draws large audiences, who gather round to hear tales from the _Arabian Nights_.
This is quite a different affair to the ordinary storyteller, who chants long passages from the life of Mohammed accompanied by the sounds of his own tom-tom. He will sit and play with a cloth spread in front of him, looking like a living idol, and the women working in their tents send little children with offerings of bread or flour tied up in their veils, for veils are still used in the near East for carrying treasures as they were in the days of Ruth. The old man sits impassively droning quietly on, neither heeding nor caring for the groups of children who come and go, staring and listening with wondering eyes. Odd little figures they are in their trailing burnouses or bright-coloured shirts, the boys seeming to have a partiality for yellow and orange, while the boys and girls alike are toddling imitations of their fathers and mothers. Only the smaller boys wear a fez or cap and no turban. Nearly all go barefoot; it is only the very well-to-do who wear yellow slippers, and socks are still more uncommon.