FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107  
108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   >>   >|  
e enter we are almost sickened by the sight of more butchers' stalls, and further on by putrid fish. This market is typical. Low thatched booths of branches and canes are the only shops but those of the butchers, the arcade which surrounds the interior of the building being chiefly used for stores. Here and there a filthy rag is stretched across the crowded way to keep the sun off, and anon we have to stop to avoid some drooping branch. Fruit and vegetables of all descriptions in season are sold amid the most good-humoured haggling. Emerging from this interesting scene by a gate leading to the outer sok, we come to one quite different in character. A large open space is packed with country people, their beasts and their goods, and towns-people come out to purchase. Women seem to far outnumber the men, doubtless on account of their size and their conspicuous head-dress. They are almost entirely enveloped in white haiks, over the majority of which are thrown huge native sun-hats made of palmetto, with four coloured cords by way of rigging to keep the brim extended. When the sun goes down these are to be seen slung across the shoulders instead. Very many of the women have children slung on their backs, or squatting on their hips if big enough. This causes them to stoop, especially if some other burden is carried on their shoulders as well. [Illustration: THE SUNDAY MARKET, TANGIER. _Cavilla, Photo., Tangier._] On our right are typical Moorish shops,--grocers', if you please,--in which are exposed to view an assortment of dried fruits, such as nuts, raisins, figs, etc., with olive and argan oil, candles, tea, sugar, and native soap and butter. Certainly of all the goods that butter is the least inviting; the soap, though the purest of "soft," looks a horribly repulsive mass, but the butter which, like it, is streaked all over with finger marks, is in addition full of hairs. Similar shops are perched on our left, where old English biscuit-boxes are conspicuous. Beyond these come slipper- and clothes-menders. The former are at work on native slippers of such age that they would long ago have been thrown away in any less poverty-stricken land, transforming them into wearable if unsightly articles, after well soaking them in earthen pans. Just here a native "medicine man" dispenses nostrums of doubtful efficacy, and in front a quantity of red Moorish pottery is exposed for sale. This consists chiefly of braziers for
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107  
108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

native

 

butter

 
conspicuous
 
exposed
 

people

 

Moorish

 
thrown
 

chiefly

 

shoulders

 
butchers

typical
 

candles

 

Certainly

 

carried

 

horribly

 

purest

 

inviting

 

Illustration

 

SUNDAY

 

assortment


burden

 
repulsive
 
grocers
 

Tangier

 

raisins

 
MARKET
 

TANGIER

 

fruits

 

Cavilla

 
unsightly

wearable
 
articles
 

earthen

 
soaking
 

transforming

 

poverty

 
stricken
 

quantity

 

pottery

 

braziers


consists

 

efficacy

 
medicine
 

dispenses

 

doubtful

 

nostrums

 

perched

 
Similar
 

English

 

streaked