Tunisian Bazaar - Expo Paris 1878

We have already spoken of the Tunisian café and its virtuosos. The pavilion which contains them has as annexes narrow galleries where curious displays of bright fabrics, such as can hardly be found outside Tunis, pottery, copper trays, oriental coffee services, ewers, chests, candelabra-appliances in painted wood, wooden and clay pipes, books, etc., follow one another and resemble one another, ewers, chests, painted wooden candelabras, wooden and clay pipes, amber and glass books, tobacco pouches, tobacco, cigarettes, mirrors, sebbles, fake jewellery, babouches, etc. , etc., articles from Tunis and especially articles from Paris sold at fabulously high prices.

The Arabs and Berbers who sit behind these stalls, mingled with some fine samples of a type somewhat different from the Semitic race, the Jewish type, to put it in a word, have not all passed through the Mediterranean. There are probably some who, in order to settle on the heights of the Trocadero, have taken the trouble at most to cross the Seine. But what activity this gives to this part of the Exhibition! How picturesque! - It is the corner of corners.

In truth, the trip to the Trocadero should be undertaken. Anyone who would give it up would have done nothing and seen nothing. Let us add, for the edification of people who are strangers to the customs of the countries represented there, that they will not be deceived there any more than they would be in the bazaars of these very countries, being foreigners. We therefore advise them not to deprive themselves at any cost of the object that might tempt them.

©L'Exposition Universelle 1878