File:The Desert gateway, Biskra and thereabouts (1910) (14596314888).jpg

Identifier: desertgatewaybis00leed (find matches)
Title: The Desert gateway, Biskra and thereabouts
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Leeder, S. H
Subjects: Islam Biskra -- Description and travel Algeria -- Social life and customs
Publisher: London, New York (etc.) : Cassell and company, ltd.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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d towns,should prevent a polyandrous people like the Englishfrom casting stones at the polygamous Moslems. But what are the facts ? Here is a people whoadopt very early marriage,* to whom what standsfor divorce is made easy; who are not restrictedat any one time to a single wife, and yet amongstwhom, at the same time, prostitution exists without—so far as I could gather—a trace of scandal orshame. I thought at one time that possibly the stream ofcosmopolitan visitors to Biskra might have some-thing to do with the extent and quality of thisquarter, but the fact that at places as remote from thetrack of the tourist as Touggourt (i8o miles south ofBiskra, in the desert) and Bou Saada, to the north,there are exactly similar streets, disproves this. These women, called Alm^es, who have made bytheir conduct the name of the Ouled Nail tribe so * Since writing this I have had a letter from our young school-boy friend Bendriss, giving me a commission to buy for him aring for his marriage I
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• 41, JIM, THE DANCING GIRL 215 infamous, come from the district between Bou Saadaon the north and the Ziban on the south. They arevery dark in complexion, the eyebrows being con-nected and several small signs being made on theirfaces by tattooing; they are much darkened underthe eyes, and their colour is heightened by theapplication of grease-paint. They wear their blackhair plaited and brought over the ears and generallybejewelled. Often round their heads they wear avery gay little shawl. They are below mediumheight, and owing to the way their bright-coloureddresses, of the simplest cut, are bunched out roundthe waist, and are shortened to display their silveranklets, they have a somewhat stunted appearance. In the matter of dress the Almees never departfrom that which is perfectly proper and decent; inthe dance they are as fully clothed as in the street.The ordinary decolletee gown of the English ladywould astonish them, as much as it does the Arabman. They wear an abundance of j

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