, but may often be recognized as an interested spectator of some
uncompleted bargain. Having discovered your dwelling-place, he
proceeds to "bring the mountain to Mohammed," and you will doubtless
be confronted in the court-yard of your hotel by the very article for
which you have been seeking in vain. Of course he expects a good price
which shall ensure him a profit of at least fifty per cent. upon his
expenditure, but he too is open to a bargain, and a little skilful
pointing out of flaws in the article which he has brought for
purchase, in a tone of calm and supreme indifference, is apt to ensure
a very satisfactory reduction of price in favour of the shopper in
Barbary.

XV

A SUNDAY MARKET

"A climb with a friend is a descent."

_Moorish Proverb._

One of the sights of Tangier is its market. Sundays and Thursdays,
when the weather is fine, see the disused portion of the Mohammedan
graveyard outside _Bab el Fahs_ (called by the English Port St.
Catherine, and now known commonly as the Sok Gate) crowded with buyers
and sellers of most quaint appearance to the foreign eye, not to
mention camels, horses, mules, and donkeys, or the goods they have
brought. Hither come the sellers from long distances, trudging all the
way on foot, laden or not, according to means, all eager to exchange
their goods for European manufacturers, or to carry home a few more
dollars to be buried with their store.

Sunday is no Sabbath for the sons of Israel, so the money-changers are
doing a brisk trade from baskets of filthy native bronze coin, the
smallest of which go five hundred to the shilling, and the largest
three hundred and thirty-three! Hard by a venerable rabbi is leisurely
cutting the throats of fowls brought to him for the purpose by the
servants or children of Jews, after the careful inspection enjoined
by the Mosaic law. The old gentleman has the coolest way of doing it
imaginable; he might be only peeling an orange for the little girl who
stands waiting. After apparently all but turning the victim inside
out, he twists back its head under its wings, folding these across its
breast as a handle, and with his free hand removing his razor-like
knife from his mouth, nearly severs its neck and hands it to the
child, who can scarcely restrain its struggles except by putting her
foot on it, while he mechanically wipes his blade and prepares to
despatch another.

Eggs and milk are being sold a few yards off by coun