As I said before, the position of Arab women in Tunisia is so different from that which they hold in Europe that it is difficult for the two races ever to understand one another. A wife must not speak to her husband in the presence of her parents or of his. In referring to him in conversation she must not mention his name, but use a roundabout method in speaking of him, such as “the master of the house” or “the father of my children.” She may not eat or drink in his presence. Usually he takes his meals with his sons, waited upon by the women folk, who take their food later by themselves.

Amongst poor people the wife’s lot is a harsh one as all the work falls upon her, it being below the dignity of her husband to help her in any way. One often meets a countryman on a small donkey ambling along the road, his feet almost trailing in the dust, whilst his docile wife runs behind laden with the family baby and various belongings. Of course it may be that he knows exercise to be good for her health, but if that is the case, he does not try the recipe himself.

The rÔle of wife is evidently a precarious one. At any moment she may be repudiated by her husband and for the most trifling causes. Should he wish to have the repudiation pronounced by the KaÏd, it is easy to find some pretext. Wishing to insult his wife outrageously, he compares her to the back of a person he cannot marry, saying for instance: “You are no more to me than the back of my aunt.” To the European mind this does not seem a very injurious remark, especially if the aunt is a handsome woman; but it is enough to send the wife in tears to the nearest KaÏd. She must wait four months to give her irate husband time to repent and to do the prescribed penance of fasting two months or feeding sixty poor persons. In that case his offence would be washed out. But one quite understands that it is a good deal easier for him to go on with the repudiation. He probably has been on short commons since his unfortunate remark, for an aggrieved wife is not careful over her cooking, and he does not therefore relish the prospect of a two months’ real fast. On the other hand sixty poor persons would probably have voracious appetites. So it comes cheaper to lose his wife. One can imagine many a mild-mannered man being driven into this position.

To do Mohammed justice, he endeavoured to improve the lot of wives, and laid down that the sum paid for one on marriage should be settled upon her. But there is a difference between law and custom, and the old custom still prevails by which the father receives the money.

The head of the family holds a very important position in a Mussulman household, and is treated with great deference by his children. A well brought up son never enters a house in which his father is without asking his permission, nor does he smoke in his presence or speak to him till addressed. Adoption is much practised in Tunisia, and the adopted children are treated in the same way and hold the same rights as the real ones.

A man must never speak to any woman in the street even though she be his own wife or mother. He must even feign not to see these last. It is one of the things that strikes one most on first visiting a Mohammedan country. You never see men and women talking or walking together. The men walk with each other, whilst the few women you see scutter about in twos and threes, closely veiled. If in the company of a husband or father they follow behind.

The Arab is very punctilious as to manners; his courtesy is remarkable, and there are fine gradations of salutation which it takes some time for the stranger to grasp. Should a younger man meet an acquaintance older than himself, he bows with his right hand on his heart. The elder responds in the same way. A child greets his master by taking his hand and kissing it, and then placing it against his own forehead. This same form of obeisance was paid me by women of the poorer classes. An inferior kisses the turban of the superior. Two people of equal rank kiss each other’s shoulders, whilst relatives meeting after a long absence kiss each other on the lips. Women embrace each other repeatedly when meeting.

No business can be conducted quickly; before approaching the real subject the weather must be commented upon, the health of the other enquired into, and that of his wife under the ambiguous title of his “house” or his “family.” Compliments must pass and a thousand and one polite formulas. To plunge into the matter in hand shows ill breeding of the worst description.

I was sketching one morning from the office of a lawyer in an oasis village, so had ample scope for watching professional etiquette. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor in flowing robes, his stock of small inkbottles, pens and other awesome implements of his trade ranged carefully on the clean matting round him, whilst he was laboriously writing some document from right to left. A yellow jonquil stuck behind his left ear seemed to me to bring a perilously burlesque note into the legal atmosphere, but I found it taken as a matter of course.

When I asked permission to sit in the doorway of his office, it was given most graciously and he forthwith sent out for a tiny cup of black coffee which he begged me to accept. I felt it would be delightful to become a client under these conditions. Why do not the denizens of Lincoln’s Inn offer us scented coffee, and wear flowers behind their ears? It would render the making of a will a pleasant interlude and do much to cheer a drooping bankrupt. If a yellow jonquil proved a little voyant for a London complexion, a white one could be substituted, and how pleasant the flower-bed in the early morning train up to town!

Whilst I was there a young man appeared in company of three or four friends, and after removing their shoes they were shown into the office with great ceremony. There they all squatted down on the far side of the ink bottles, and coffee was at once sent for and handed round. Grave compliments passed backwards and forwards, and the client praised the well-known acumen and mental gifts of the lawyer, who in gracefully denying any special talent, dislodged the jonquil which fell with a flop to the floor. Picking it up he absentmindedly tucked it in again, this time over his right ear, and the conversation was resumed. The state of the crops was discussed, the probability under the blessing of Allah of a good harvest, talk of an extension of the railway, etc. I left half an hour later, wondering whether the young man had called about the renting of a piece of agricultural land, but heard later that he was about to sue a neighbour for debt. Doubtless the real reason of his interview was reached by the afternoon.

In Tunis itself the women veil themselves in a particularly ugly way. They bind two thick pieces of black stuff across their faces, leaving only a slit for the eyes free. In their voluminous white draperies, and with the white head covering, this gives a most uncanny appearance. They look some dreadful kind of grub. Below the full skirts can be caught a glimpse of stockinged ankles and heelless slippers surmounted by silver bangles.

They may only unveil before their husbands, fathers and very near male relations. The Koran has a deep distrust of feminine charms. “As soon as a man seeth the eyes of a woman he is running into danger. For the glance of a woman is as an arrow without bow or cord.” And again “How often do the looks cast upon women return to do harm to those who sent them.”

In this leisurely land it is considered bad form to hurry, this being one of the signs by which those possessed of devils can be readily detected. Since the opening of tourist agencies, there has been a great influx of these latter into the country.

With that care for hygiene so noticeable in ancient religions, there are countless observances of cleanliness imposed upon the faithful. Hands must be washed after a meal, and the face as well before prayer. If water is not available then fine sand may take its place. Five prayers must be said daily: in the morning, just before sunrise, at midday, during the afternoon, at sunset, and an hour and a half after the going down of the same. The call to prayer can be heard at these stated times, and it is curiously impressive to wake just as dawn is about to break, and to hear the long drawn-out wail of the muezzin from the minaret in the silence of the night.

Contact with Western civilisation is loosening the hold of their religion upon the people of Tunisia, and the change is probably not for the better. A devout follower of the law of the Prophet is an upright man, but in the slackening of his faith he is apt to acquire only the vices of the European and is in danger of losing his own religion and being left with nothing to take its place.

There are religious schools as well as the Government ones where French is taught, and many boys attend both. In walking through the narrow streets one often hears the drone of small voices, and sees a neat row of little slippers outside a doorway. On going inside, one finds a master intoning the Koran, each phrase of it being repeated interminably by the scholars sitting cross-legged on the matting and rocking themselves backwards and forwards. Each pupil is provided with a board painted white on which the text is written, and when at last all the scholars know it by heart it is washed out, and a fresh one inscribed and taught.

In one tiny village on the edge of the Sahara the school was being held in the courtyard of the minaret, up which I had gone to see the view. The master was intoning the Koran in an inner room, whilst the class of small boys followed it with the correct prostrations outside, facing a sort of recess in the wall which indicated the direction of Mecca. They withstood the intense temptation to stare at a stranger, and went on solemnly with their devotions, whilst I took a snapshot from behind them, quite unperceived.

Service is held in the mosques on Fridays, the prayers being led by a kind of priest called the ‘iman.’ Women are not allowed to take part in public worship. Friday is always a busy and crowded day in the Souks, as it is then that the countrymen come in from the outlying districts to attend service.

Charity is strictly enjoined on the faithful, and apparently no one need ever starve in Tunis. He has but to sit in the gutter and call for alms in the name of Allah, and he will be supported, even if meagrely, for life. Every mosque possesses its clientÈle of beggars who reap a livelihood from the worshippers. Fasts are also observed, and the big fast of the year is that of Ramadan, which lasts for a month, during which time not a morsel of food nor a drop of liquid may be taken between sunrise and sunset. When Ramadan falls in the hot weather, the pious undergo real sufferings from thirst.

Wine is forbidden to a Moslem, but this prohibition is now often set aside, especially amongst the younger generation. Probably the drinking of coffee took its place, for the Arab swallows innumerable tiny cups of it during the day.

The Tunisian cafÉ in a small town or village is a pleasant place. The customers sip their coffee in a leisurely way, sitting in the sunshine, and discussing the news of the day. Many play dominoes or chess, and sometimes strolling musicians, snake-charmers or professional story tellers collect a group round them. The teller of tales is a very popular personage, and is always sure of a large audience, and now and again one comes across the impromptu bard who weaves his chant as he goes along, introducing apt stanzas about each giver of a coin, to the delight of the crowd.

Life is leisurely. No one is in a hurry, the day is long. Why trouble to do to-day what may as well be left till to-morrow? There is none of the feverish activity and restlessness of modern civilisation. “About each man’s neck hath Allah hung his fate,” and therefore it is useless to try to avert it. Interminable discussions are carried on over the coffee cups, and as in village-life all the world over, a neighbour’s affairs are of only secondary importance to one’s own. The fierce light that beats upon a throne is but a taper to the penetrating beam focussed upon every household in a small community.

They are an attractive race, and the poorer classes seem to have the virtues and faults of children. They require constant supervision at their work and plenty of the syrup of praise when they do well, and like children they are quick to see and take advantage of any weakness in an employer. George Washington would have found himself lonely indeed amongst them, for they cannot speak the truth. They lie as a matter of course and often most inartistically. A servant will deny that he has been smoking, even with the half-consumed cigarette between his fingers. When it is pointed out to him he professes extreme astonishment and declares that Allah must surely have placed it there. It is difficult to receive such an excuse with calm. They are said to be untrustworthy, but I was not in the country long enough to be able to judge of this. Their dignity is admirable, they are gentle, charitable to the poor and treat the aged with reverence. They love flowers, scent, the shade of trees and the sound of running water. Missionaries say the children are very quick and intelligent up to the age of thirteen or fourteen when their minds seem to cease developing. If they make some impression on the girls when young, the influence of fathers and husbands tends quickly to destroy it. Education is looked on far more favourably than it was, however, and even the daughters of a family are now sometimes allowed to attend school, especially in the towns.

There are two opposing opinions as to the people of Tunisia. One side holds that they are a played-out race, of whom no further development can be expected. The other declares that their evolution was arrested by the triumph of Mohammedanism, that in earlier days there were brilliant intellects amongst them and that there is every possibility of an awakening of their slumbering mentality. The French scientist Saint Paul is of this latter belief. He was for years in the country living amongst the people and penetrating to their houses in his character of doctor, and in his book Souvenirs de Tunisie published in 1909 he made an exhaustive study of their psychology and testified warmly to their good qualities and intelligence.