Orient

The lands to the east and south of Europe are shrouded in mystery to those Europeans who have never traveled beyond their own borders. Stories brought back by travelers, and those told by visitors from those realms, paint an image of lands very different than the ones they knew. But what were those stories based on?

This page is an attempt to compile information about the orient in 1811, focused primarily on Morocco, with perhaps a few side trips into the Levant and Ottoman Empire. Unless otherwise noted, all information is drawn from Travels Through The Empire of Morocco, by John Buffa, MD (1810).

Placeholder: Middle Eastern Dancing

The standard modern western image of middle eastern belly dancing - the bedlah costume with veils and bikinis and such - was invented almost wholesale in the late 1800s by the french, and the romantic painters making up ideas of what a harem must be like.

This is closer to what what ghaziya (gypsy dancers - the ones any westener in the early 1800s might have seen) wore: