she is totally enveloped in a gauzy scarf-like cloak, wound around her body and covering her from top to toe, leaving exposed only one eye, a saucy looking little bead which turns and watches us as we pass. From eight years of age upwards, says Patecola, a female must never show her face in the street, but must be content to roam around a veritable one-eyed beauty.
Here comes a huge negro, black as the ace of spades and clad lightly like the rest. Surely he must speak the language of our native land. But no, Patecola knows him, and jabbers away in the unknown tongue, and reminds us that instead of his being the stranger, we are the strangers and are treading upon the soil of Africa where he is at home.
You may ask how we were enabled to carry on any conversation with our good guide Patecola, but it is only necessary to say that with a smattering of Spanish and a gesture, often more expressive than elegant, we managed to pass our thoughts from one to the other; but we could not help thinking what a grand thing a little Volapuk all over the world would be, a universal language for all. Nevertheless, we caused much sport and enjoyed it hugely ourselves.
I could not stay in the hotel a moment, so interesting did everything seem. Here we are, only a few hours’ sail and yet transported to another clime, another country, another language, another people, and scenes to which the eye is an entire stranger. Are we surely awake, and is it reality or only a dream? We pinch each other, think of America and friends, and joyfully rush out for the enjoyment of the moment, knowing full well that in a few months we must enter again the hum of everyday business and our experience here will be in reality like a dream of the past. Yes, pinch us again, good Patecola, and make sure that we are really here and not somewhere else.
Here comes a troop of beggars; we must surely be awake for beggars have nothing in common with Aladdin or his golden lamp, or the pleasures of the “ Arabian Nights’’ They are dirty and halfdressed and have to be roundly scolded before they make off in another direction. They eye us suspiciously, for they hate strangers but love their gold. Patecola smiles! Fine-looking fellow he! He enjoys every moment surely, for we are as new to him as he to us, and he likes the excitement almost as much as ourselves.
We passed down again through labyrinths of dirty lanes, none wide enough for any carriage, all lined with drowsy humanity, and soon arrive at the principal street that runs irregularly up the hill, through the public square and out to the plains back of Tangiers. Here is a Moorish arch with a fountain in its centre, and here are gathered a few women enveloped in their cloaks, with only one eye visible. They carry earthen water-jars on their heads, holding the jar with one hand and their garment with the other.
Here are the famous little bazaars so often pictured in Moorish sketches, one story high, and each one only about six or eight feet wide. In the very entrance sit the Moors, crosslegged, stately-looking old fellows, most of them surrounded by their wares on all sides, composed of silks, curtains, guns, swords, knives, slippers, cushions, pipes, murderous looking daggers and all sorts of Oriental wares. We pick up some curtains, of a rough material yet extremely artistic. “Quanto vale, Señor? ” “Diez pesatas, Señor. ”
Ten pesatas! Two dollars!
“Diez pesatas, for a dozen? ” we ask.
He does not see the joke, and looks as glum as a sphinx. Patecola does however, and smiles.
The Moor looks grave and repeats his “ diez pesatas. ” We say “ no, ” and bid him adieu.
“ Ocho pesatas, Señor, ” says he, calling us back.
“ No, Señor, esta mucho, ” we say, regardless of pure Spanish. “ No, esta pocho, ” he answered.
“We will give you cinco pesatas a pair, and take four pairs, ” we say as a parting shot and start to move off.
But the old fellow never lets a bargain go and so calls us back, does up four pairs of the curtains and we go on four dollars poorer and four pairs of curtains richer.
Patecola smiles, probably knowing that we have paid enough, but we also smile back and say “ all right, old Patecola, if they are not worth that much they are worth nothing.
Here is a merchant reading an old Koran. We try to buy it of him, as it is an antique, bound in pig-skin, but he will not sell it; it is
his Bible and he thinks more of it than the average Christian I am afraid can conceive. He will sell you a cheap little copy of the Koran, but not that one. We want that one or none, so we pass on again, buying here and there a trinket, and enjoying ourselves hugely. Indeed to stand in the street for a half-hour is to confront a perfect panorama of motion and color, which interests us because of the absolute novelty of everything around. Suddenly a huge black fellow appears opposite us, and shouts and howls and jumps around in a strange nervous manner. He is black and villainous looking and his body
is naked except at his waist, while his hair is long, straight and oily like an Indian; he is anything but clean, too, being covered with blood and dirt. He carries in his hand a large, ugly, hoe-like knife and around his neck are a dozen sharp bodkins which he seizes and pokes around as he howls. He holds them up before us, glares, shouts until we cannot make out whether he means to transfix himself or us with his barbarous instruments. We look with questioning gaze at Patecola, who laughs and says “ Give him some little bits of money. ” So we fish out some copper coin, always ready to pay the piper, while he bowing low chooses one of his
bodkins, whose size is supposed to be measured by the amount of money given him. and without further ado thrusts it through his arm without a groan, and bows again as much as to say, what do you think of that? To see this naked, half-civilized being thus maltreat his ugly carcass, already covered with wounds was not a very pleasant spectacle, still, for the advancement of science, I would have paid a good sum to have seen him make away with himself entirely. To this end I slung a handful of coins at him and was about to prepare for his total dismemberment by means of his vicious looking hoe, when the remainder of the party pulled me along out of his way, while he probably further amused the audience by cutting off a part of his scalp or something equally disgusting. It was a horrible sight and tells much in regard to the ignorance of these barbarians, whose blood seems to be measured by the amount of money they can collect for the shedding of it.
But the scene again changes as we enter a large open square packed with all kinds of beggars, blind men who have plucked out their eyes in order to enlist sympathy and howl on the corners some terrible words which Patecola interprets to mean “ blind, blind, blind! ” Frightful old hags try to sell rotten vegetables and garlic, dirty feathers plucked from the game exposed for sale, but through the midst of this pass fine-looking Moors seemingly regardless of the surroundings and engaged in deep meditation. Some are on horseback with their guns slung over their shoulders and it is remarked that the horses are of Arab breed, full of life and fire; magnificent specimens.
Pushing our way along through groups of poor overladen little donkeys, we pass through another archway and immerge upon the famous Soho or public square, which seems to be in this case on the outskirts of the town. Here are groups of all nationalities, including the Bedouin Arabs, robbers from away back, and Jews, whose descent is seen at first sight. Here, too, are groups of camels squatted down with their long necks and singular looking heads bobbing around continually. I cannot begin to describe the scene as it looked, because it was like the slides of a kaleidoscope, in which were black faces, white faces, bronzed faces, heads entirely bare, heads turbanned or covered with the red fez, women with their peek-a-boo eyes, and men and boys with not enough on to hide their modesty even, while the children many of them were surely in their birthday costumes. Donkeys braying with the exhausted grunts of a wheezy pump-handle, necromancers of all kinds, snake-charmers and droves of beggars, dirt and garbage in profusion and odors indescribable — if you take all this and a hundred other things and put them within the walls of a box and shake them up, you can get some faint idea of the sight that greeted us as we entered the Soho of Tangiers.
I desired much to get some of those peculiar long guns of the Moors and so advanced into the middle of the square where were half a hundred people huddled around a dark-faced Arab who, with strange gesticulations and much mumbling, was loading one of these long guns with powder and ball. He, like all the others, was urging the donation of copper money, for which he would go through with the William Tell act. We threw him some coin, which he acknowledged with a profuse bow, and proceeded with his loading, after winch he placed a boy some hundred feet away with a turnip in his raised hand. Then he lay down on the ground, all the time talking away while a couple of men rapped away on some indescribable instruments as an accompaniment and poising his long rifle on his toe, fired away. Sure enough crack went the turnip, rolling out of the boy’s hand. Of course he was ready for a. bargain, and helped out by Patecola, I bought his gun for a song, and had it sent back to the hotel. It stands now with another one beside my old clock, a lasting remembrance of this strange land. It is six feet long, as light as a common small gun, and has a chased repousée barrel, and stock inlaid with silver filagree and a Moorish name. In order to give this fellow a few copper coins we had taken a five-cent bit of silver, bought three pomegranates and had received in change literally as many copper coins as we could hold in our two hands. They were of artistic design and covered with Arabic inscriptions. A few of these were the price of a shot, and were gratefully received by the marksman.
“But how long will he do this sort of thing? ” we asked Patecola.
Here comes a huge negro, black as the ace of spades and clad lightly like the rest. Surely he must speak the language of our native land. But no, Patecola knows him, and jabbers away in the unknown tongue, and reminds us that instead of his being the stranger, we are the strangers and are treading upon the soil of Africa where he is at home.
You may ask how we were enabled to carry on any conversation with our good guide Patecola, but it is only necessary to say that with a smattering of Spanish and a gesture, often more expressive than elegant, we managed to pass our thoughts from one to the other; but we could not help thinking what a grand thing a little Volapuk all over the world would be, a universal language for all. Nevertheless, we caused much sport and enjoyed it hugely ourselves.
I could not stay in the hotel a moment, so interesting did everything seem. Here we are, only a few hours’ sail and yet transported to another clime, another country, another language, another people, and scenes to which the eye is an entire stranger. Are we surely awake, and is it reality or only a dream? We pinch each other, think of America and friends, and joyfully rush out for the enjoyment of the moment, knowing full well that in a few months we must enter again the hum of everyday business and our experience here will be in reality like a dream of the past. Yes, pinch us again, good Patecola, and make sure that we are really here and not somewhere else.
Here comes a troop of beggars; we must surely be awake for beggars have nothing in common with Aladdin or his golden lamp, or the pleasures of the “ Arabian Nights’’ They are dirty and halfdressed and have to be roundly scolded before they make off in another direction. They eye us suspiciously, for they hate strangers but love their gold. Patecola smiles! Fine-looking fellow he! He enjoys every moment surely, for we are as new to him as he to us, and he likes the excitement almost as much as ourselves.
We passed down again through labyrinths of dirty lanes, none wide enough for any carriage, all lined with drowsy humanity, and soon arrive at the principal street that runs irregularly up the hill, through the public square and out to the plains back of Tangiers. Here is a Moorish arch with a fountain in its centre, and here are gathered a few women enveloped in their cloaks, with only one eye visible. They carry earthen water-jars on their heads, holding the jar with one hand and their garment with the other.
Here are the famous little bazaars so often pictured in Moorish sketches, one story high, and each one only about six or eight feet wide. In the very entrance sit the Moors, crosslegged, stately-looking old fellows, most of them surrounded by their wares on all sides, composed of silks, curtains, guns, swords, knives, slippers, cushions, pipes, murderous looking daggers and all sorts of Oriental wares. We pick up some curtains, of a rough material yet extremely artistic. “Quanto vale, Señor? ” “Diez pesatas, Señor. ”
Ten pesatas! Two dollars!
“Diez pesatas, for a dozen? ” we ask.
He does not see the joke, and looks as glum as a sphinx. Patecola does however, and smiles.
The Moor looks grave and repeats his “ diez pesatas. ” We say “ no, ” and bid him adieu.
“ Ocho pesatas, Señor, ” says he, calling us back.
“ No, Señor, esta mucho, ” we say, regardless of pure Spanish. “ No, esta pocho, ” he answered.
“We will give you cinco pesatas a pair, and take four pairs, ” we say as a parting shot and start to move off.
But the old fellow never lets a bargain go and so calls us back, does up four pairs of the curtains and we go on four dollars poorer and four pairs of curtains richer.
Patecola smiles, probably knowing that we have paid enough, but we also smile back and say “ all right, old Patecola, if they are not worth that much they are worth nothing.
Here is a merchant reading an old Koran. We try to buy it of him, as it is an antique, bound in pig-skin, but he will not sell it; it is
his Bible and he thinks more of it than the average Christian I am afraid can conceive. He will sell you a cheap little copy of the Koran, but not that one. We want that one or none, so we pass on again, buying here and there a trinket, and enjoying ourselves hugely. Indeed to stand in the street for a half-hour is to confront a perfect panorama of motion and color, which interests us because of the absolute novelty of everything around. Suddenly a huge black fellow appears opposite us, and shouts and howls and jumps around in a strange nervous manner. He is black and villainous looking and his body
is naked except at his waist, while his hair is long, straight and oily like an Indian; he is anything but clean, too, being covered with blood and dirt. He carries in his hand a large, ugly, hoe-like knife and around his neck are a dozen sharp bodkins which he seizes and pokes around as he howls. He holds them up before us, glares, shouts until we cannot make out whether he means to transfix himself or us with his barbarous instruments. We look with questioning gaze at Patecola, who laughs and says “ Give him some little bits of money. ” So we fish out some copper coin, always ready to pay the piper, while he bowing low chooses one of his
bodkins, whose size is supposed to be measured by the amount of money given him. and without further ado thrusts it through his arm without a groan, and bows again as much as to say, what do you think of that? To see this naked, half-civilized being thus maltreat his ugly carcass, already covered with wounds was not a very pleasant spectacle, still, for the advancement of science, I would have paid a good sum to have seen him make away with himself entirely. To this end I slung a handful of coins at him and was about to prepare for his total dismemberment by means of his vicious looking hoe, when the remainder of the party pulled me along out of his way, while he probably further amused the audience by cutting off a part of his scalp or something equally disgusting. It was a horrible sight and tells much in regard to the ignorance of these barbarians, whose blood seems to be measured by the amount of money they can collect for the shedding of it.
But the scene again changes as we enter a large open square packed with all kinds of beggars, blind men who have plucked out their eyes in order to enlist sympathy and howl on the corners some terrible words which Patecola interprets to mean “ blind, blind, blind! ” Frightful old hags try to sell rotten vegetables and garlic, dirty feathers plucked from the game exposed for sale, but through the midst of this pass fine-looking Moors seemingly regardless of the surroundings and engaged in deep meditation. Some are on horseback with their guns slung over their shoulders and it is remarked that the horses are of Arab breed, full of life and fire; magnificent specimens.
Pushing our way along through groups of poor overladen little donkeys, we pass through another archway and immerge upon the famous Soho or public square, which seems to be in this case on the outskirts of the town. Here are groups of all nationalities, including the Bedouin Arabs, robbers from away back, and Jews, whose descent is seen at first sight. Here, too, are groups of camels squatted down with their long necks and singular looking heads bobbing around continually. I cannot begin to describe the scene as it looked, because it was like the slides of a kaleidoscope, in which were black faces, white faces, bronzed faces, heads entirely bare, heads turbanned or covered with the red fez, women with their peek-a-boo eyes, and men and boys with not enough on to hide their modesty even, while the children many of them were surely in their birthday costumes. Donkeys braying with the exhausted grunts of a wheezy pump-handle, necromancers of all kinds, snake-charmers and droves of beggars, dirt and garbage in profusion and odors indescribable — if you take all this and a hundred other things and put them within the walls of a box and shake them up, you can get some faint idea of the sight that greeted us as we entered the Soho of Tangiers.
I desired much to get some of those peculiar long guns of the Moors and so advanced into the middle of the square where were half a hundred people huddled around a dark-faced Arab who, with strange gesticulations and much mumbling, was loading one of these long guns with powder and ball. He, like all the others, was urging the donation of copper money, for which he would go through with the William Tell act. We threw him some coin, which he acknowledged with a profuse bow, and proceeded with his loading, after winch he placed a boy some hundred feet away with a turnip in his raised hand. Then he lay down on the ground, all the time talking away while a couple of men rapped away on some indescribable instruments as an accompaniment and poising his long rifle on his toe, fired away. Sure enough crack went the turnip, rolling out of the boy’s hand. Of course he was ready for a. bargain, and helped out by Patecola, I bought his gun for a song, and had it sent back to the hotel. It stands now with another one beside my old clock, a lasting remembrance of this strange land. It is six feet long, as light as a common small gun, and has a chased repousée barrel, and stock inlaid with silver filagree and a Moorish name. In order to give this fellow a few copper coins we had taken a five-cent bit of silver, bought three pomegranates and had received in change literally as many copper coins as we could hold in our two hands. They were of artistic design and covered with Arabic inscriptions. A few of these were the price of a shot, and were gratefully received by the marksman.
“But how long will he do this sort of thing? ” we asked Patecola.