The charm of the bazars lies in the variety of race and costume and in the splendid physique of the greater number of the men. The European looks "nowhere." The natural look of a Moslem is one of hauteur, but no words can describe the scorn and lofty Pharisaism which sit on the faces of the Seyyids, the descendants of Mohammed, whose hands and even garments are kissed reverently as they pass through the crowd; or the wrathful melancholy mixed with pride which gives a fierceness to the dignified bearing of the magnificent beings who glide through the streets, their white turbans or shawl head-gear, their gracefully flowing robes, their richly embroidered under-vests, their Kashmir girdles, their inlaid pistols, their silver-hilted dirks, and the predominance of red throughout their clothing aiding the general effect. Yet most of these grand creatures, with their lofty looks and regal stride, would be accessible to a bribe, and would not despise even a perquisite. These are the mollahs, the scribes, the traders, and the merchants of the city.
The Bedouin and the city Arabs dress differently, and are among the marked features of the streets. The under-dress is a very coarse shirt of unbleached homespun cotton, rarely clean, over which the Sheikhs and richer men wear a robe of striped silk or cotton with a Kashmir girdle of a shawl pattern in red on a white ground. The poor wear shirts of coarse hair or cotton, without a robe. The invariable feature of Arab dress is the abba– a long cloak, sleeveless, but with holes through which to pass the arms, and capable of many adaptations. It conceals all superabundance and deficiency of attire, and while it has the dignity of the toga by day it has the utility of a blanket by night. The better-class abba is very hard, being made of closely-woven worsted, in broad brown and white or black and white perpendicular stripes. The poorest abba is of coarse brown worsted, and even of goat's-hair. I saw many men who were destitute of any clothing but tattered abbas tied round their waists by frayed hair ropes. The abba is the distinctive national costume of the Arabs. The head-gear is not the turban but a shawl of very thick silk woven in irregular stripes of yellow and red, with long cords and tassels depending, made of the twisted woof. This handsome square is doubled triangularly, the double end hangs down the back, and the others over the shoulders. A loosely-twisted rope of camel's-hair is wound several times round the crown of the head. When the weather is cold, being like all Orientals very sensitive in their heads, they bring one side of the shawl over the whole of the face but the eyes, and tuck it in, in great cold only exposing one eye, and in great heat also. Most Moslems shave the head, but the Arabs let their hair grow very long, and wear it in a number of long plaits, and these elf-locks mixed up with the long coloured tassels of the kiffiyeh, and the dark glittering eyes looking out from under the yellow silk, give them an appearance of extreme wildness, aided by the long guns which they carry and their long desert stride.
The Arab moves as if he were the ruler of the country, though the grip of the Osmanli may be closing on him. His eyes are deeply set under shaggy eyebrows, his nose is high and sharp, he is long and thin, his profile suggests a bird of prey, and his demeanour a fierce independence.
The Arab women go about the streets unveiled, and with the abba covering their very poor clothing, but it is not clutched closely enough to conceal the extraordinary tattooing which the Bedouin women everywhere regard as ornamental. There are artists in Baghdad who make their living by this mode of decorating the person, and vie with each other in the elaboration of their patterns. I saw several women tattooed with two wreaths of blue flowers on their bosoms linked by a blue chain, palm fronds on the throat, stars on the brow and chin, and bands round the wrists and ankles. These disfigurements, and large gold or silver filigree buttons placed outside one nostril by means of a wire passed through it, worn by married women, are much admired. When these women sell country produce in the markets, they cover their heads with the ordinary chadar.
The streets are narrow, and the walls, which are built of fire-burned bricks, are high. Windows to the streets are common, and the oriel windows, with their warm brown lattices projecting over the roadways at irregular heights, are strikingly picturesque. Not less so are latticework galleries, which are often thrown across the street to connect the two houses of wealthy residents, and the sitting-rooms with oriel windows, which likewise bridge the roadways. Solid doorways with iron-clasped and iron-studded doors give an impression of security, and suggest comfort and to some extent home life, and sprays of orange trees, hanging over walls, and fronds of date palms give an aspect of pleasantness to the courtyards.
The best parts of the city, where the great bazars, large dwelling-houses, and most of the mosques are, is surrounded by a labyrinth of alleys, fringing off into streets growing meaner till they cease altogether among open spaces, given up to holes, heaps, rubbish, the slaughter of animals, and in some favoured spots to the production of vegetables. Then come the walls, which are of kiln-burned bricks, and have towers intended for guns at intervals. The wastes within the walls have every element of decay and meanness, the wastes without, where the desert sands sweep up to the very foot of the fortifications, have many elements of grandeur.
Baghdad is altogether built of chrome-yellow kiln-dried bricks. There are about twenty-five kilns, chiefly in the hands of Jews and Christians in the wastes outside the city, but the demand exceeds the supply, not for building only, but for the perpetual patchings which houses, paths, and walls are always requiring, owing to the absorption of moisture in the winter.
Bricks at the kilns sell for 36s. per thousand twelve inches square, and 18s. per thousand seven inches square. They are carried from the kilns on donkeys, small beasts, each taking ten large or twenty-five small bricks.
Unskilled labour is abundant. Men can be engaged at 9d. a day, and boys for 5d.
This afternoon, in the glory of a sunset which reddened the yellow waste up to the distant horizon, a caravan of mules, mostly in single file, approached the city. Each carried two or four white bales slung on his sides, or two or more long boxes, consisting of planks roped rather than nailed together. This is the fashion in which thousands of Persian Moslems (Shiahs or "Sectaries") have been conveyed for ages for final burial at Kerbela, the holiest place of the Shiahs, an easy journey from Baghdad, where rest the ashes of Ali, regarded as scarcely second to Mohammed, and of Houssein and Hassan his sons, whose "martyrdom" is annually commemorated by a Passion Play which is acted in every town and village in Persia. To make a pilgrimage to Kerbela, or to rest finally in its holy dust, or both, constitutes the ambition of every Shiah. The Sunnis, or "Orthodox," who hate the Shiahs, are so far kept in check that these doleful caravans are not exposed to any worse molestation than the shouts and ridicule of street Arabs.
The mode of carrying the dead is not reverent. The katirgis, who contract for the removal, hurry the bodies along as goods, and pile them in the yards of the caravanserais at night, and the mournful journey is performed, oftener than not, without the presence of relations, each body being ticketed with the name once borne by its owner. Some have been exhumed and are merely skeletons, others are in various stages of decomposition, and some are of the newly dead.6
Outside the walls predatory Arabs render the roads unsafe for solitary travellers, and at times for feeble caravans; but things in this respect are better than they were.
Visits to the Armenian and Chaldæan Churches, to the Mosque of Abdel Kader, with its courts thronged by Afghan pilgrims, and to the Jewish quarter, have been very interesting. There are said to be 30,000 Jews here, and while a large proportion of them are in poverty, on the whole they are an influential nationality, and some of them are very rich.
Through the liberality of Sir Albert Sassoon a Jewish High School has been opened, where an admirable education is given. I was extremely pleased with it, and with the director, who speaks French fluently, and with the proficiency in French of the elder students. He describes their earnestness and energetic application as being most remarkable.
The French Carmelite monks have a large, solid "Mission Church" or Cathedral with a fine peal of bells, and a very prosperous school attached, in which are boys belonging to all the many creeds professed in Baghdad. The sisters of St. Joseph have a school for girls, which Turkish children are not slow to avail themselves of. The sisters find a remarkable unhandiness among the women. Few, if any, among them have any idea