The Edge of the Desert - Public Domain

About The Edge of the Desert - Public Domain

It was cold, but a glorious morning when I left by motor for Kairouan. Soon the white houses of Tunis were left behind. The sun was rising as we flung its outskirts behind us, and the car headed for open country. Rocky hills showed themselves on the horizon, and there were abrupt peaks rising out of stretches of carefully cultivated vineyards, orchards of olive trees, and broad fields just tinged with the promise of early wheat. No walls, but occasional cactus hedges. The road climbed a saddle of hill from whence one could look back on the sea. A few houses here and there, flat-roofed and built in the Moorish style, were obviously the homes of the landowners. Not an inch of ground seemed wasted. Arabs were already at work behind their wooden ploughs, drawn either by horses, mules, bullocks, or camels. These last looked as if they were inwardly protesting against the indignity, and stalked along with their usual disdainful air. After a time the road led into wilder country, bare stretches covered only with a sort of rough heathery plant, with scattered encampments of Bedouins, their black tents surrounded by a
zareba of piled thorns. At last we caught the gleam of the white domes of Kairouan against the sky.

It lies in an open plain, and one’s first impression is of its whiteness. White-washed mosques and tombs, white flat-topped houses, enclosed in a high brown crenellated wall. Once inside the gates, all touch of European atmosphere is left behind. The city is Eastern to the core, “une vraie ville arabe,” as Hassan said. It is one of the sacred Moslem places and is a great centre for pilgrimages. The chief mosque is Sidi-Okba, with its large courtyard and numerous doorways leading into the interior, where in the gloom one sees the roof supported by row after row of Roman pillars. The effect in the vast emptiness is striking. The existing structure is said to date from the ninth century, and the builders must have ransacked ancient ruins for their materials. Some of the columns are of red porphyry, and the antique minbar or pulpit-chair is beautifully carved in wood, but beyond this the decorations are poor.