"Work for the children is better than pilgrimage or holy war."
Year by year the month succeeding the fast of Ramadán sees a motley assemblage of pilgrims bound for Mekka, gathered at most of the North African ports from all parts of Barbary and even beyond, awaiting vessels bound for Alexandria or Jedda. This comparatively easy means of covering the distance, which includes the whole length of the Mediterranean when the pilgrims from Morocco are concerned--not to mention some two-thirds of the Red Sea,--has almost entirely superseded the original method of travelling all the way by land, in the once imposing caravans.
These historic institutions owed their importance no less to the facilities they offered for trade, than to the opportunity they afforded for accomplishing the pilgrimage which is enjoined on every follower of Mohammed. Although caravans still cross the deserts of North Africa in considerable force from west to east, as well as from south to north, to carry on the trade of the countries to the south of the Barbary States, the former are steadily dwindling down to mere local affairs, and the number of travellers who select the modern route by steamer is yearly increasing, as its advantages become better known. For the accommodation of the large number of passengers special vessels are chartered by speculators, and are fitted up for the occasion. Only some £3 are charged for the whole journey from Tangier, a thousand pilgrims being crowded on a medium-sized merchant vessel, making the horrors of the voyage indescribable.
But the troubles of the pilgrims do not begin here. Before they could even reach the sea some of them will have travelled on foot for a month from remote parts of the interior, and at the coast they may have to endure a wearisome time of waiting for a steamer. It is while they are thus learning a lesson of patience at one of the Moorish ports that I will invite you for a stroll round their encampment on the market-place.
This consists of scores of low, makeshift tents, with here and there a better-class round one dotted amongst them. The prevailing shape of the majority is a modified edition of the dwelling of the nomad Arab, to which class doubtless belongs a fair proportion of their occupants. Across the top of two poles about five feet high, before and behind, a ridge-piece is placed, and over this is stretched to the ground on either side a long piece of palmetto or goat-hair cloth, or perhaps one of the long woollen blankets worn by men and women alike, called haïks, which will again be used for its original purpose on board the vessel. The back is formed of another piece of some sort of cloth stretched out at the bottom to form a semi-circle, and so give more room inside. Those who have a bit of rug or a light mattress, spread it on the floor, and pile their various other belongings around its edge.