. In the desert, the hinterland of Algiers. separate apartments. Exactly the same change occursin the mosques. The great square shrinks and shrinkstill it becomes an insignificant courtyard. The body ofthe building is divided into a number of chambers ofgreater or less sanctity and very involved and com-plicated architecture. The caravanserai mosques, as they may be called,only maintained themselves for about three during that time they were fairly universal. Theyare to be found wherever the Arab penetrated: inSyria, in Spain, in North Africa. In all the countrieshe conquered, so
. In the desert, the hinterland of Algiers. separate apartments. Exactly the same change occursin the mosques. The great square shrinks and shrinkstill it becomes an insignificant courtyard. The body ofthe building is divided into a number of chambers ofgreater or less sanctity and very involved and com-plicated architecture. The caravanserai mosques, as they may be called,only maintained themselves for about three during that time they were fairly universal. Theyare to be found wherever the Arab penetrated: inSyria, in Spain, in North Africa. In all the countrieshe conquered, so long as the Arab remained anArab, he remained true to the caravanserai mosque. And the reason is evident. The caravanserai mosquegives him all that a building possibly can give a manof the desert. To a wanderer there is bound to besomething repugnant in all constraint and all con-finement. Gipsies hate houses. There is that intheir intricacies, in their passages, stairs, and doors,bolts and bars, that suggests the feeling of O < o i < c c _ c ARAB ARCHITECTURE 251 But the caravanserai mosques hardly suggest con-straint at all. The open space in the midst, bare to thesky, is the dominating feature of the whole. Thearcades form but a fringe round it. Nor are these cutoff. There is no mystery. As you enter you can at aglance take in the entire place. The arcades lie open toyour eye in all directions. The air blows softly throughthem, free to come and go. The most shy and wild ofmortals could find nothing here to alarm or perplexhim. Here are the things he loves. Here is water forhim to wash in, and deep shade for him to rest , too, is something of the amplitude of space andlargeness of the desert itself. So long, then, as the Arab retained any feeling forthe desert this was how he built. And it may, I think,be said that he retained his feeling for the desert aslong as he retained the right to call himself an various names indifferently applied
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