That the
few Testaments which were in my possession were in the Spanish
language, and were intended for circulation amongst the Christians
of Tangier, to whom they might be serviceable, as they all
understood the language.
It was night, and I was seated in the wustuddur of Joanna Correa,
in company with Pascual Fava the Genoese. The old man's favourite
subject of discourse appeared to be religion, and he professed
unbounded love for the Saviour, and the deepest sense of gratitude
for his miraculous atonement for the sins of mankind. I should
have listened to him with pleasure had he not smelt very strongly
of liquor, and by certain incoherence of language and wildness of
manner given indications of being in some degree the worse for it.
Suddenly two figures appeared beneath the doorway; one was that of
a bare-headed and bare-legged Moorish boy of about ten years of
age, dressed in a gelaba; he guided by the hand an old man, whom I
at once recognised as one of the Algerines, the good Moslems of
whom the old Mahasni had spoken in terms of praise in the morning
whilst we ascended the street of the Siarrin. He was very short of
stature and dirty in his dress; the lower part of his face was
covered with a stubbly white beard; before his eyes he wore a large
pair of spectacles, from which he evidently received but little
benefit, as he required the assistance of the guide at every step.
The two advanced a little way into the wustuddur and there stopped.
Pascual Fava no sooner beheld them, than assuming a jovial air he
started nimbly up, and leaning on his stick, for he had a bent leg,
limped to a cupboard, out of which he took a bottle and poured out
a glass of wine, singing in the broken kind of Spanish used by the
Moors of the coast:
"Argelino,
Moro fino,
No beber vino,
Ni comer tocino."
(Algerine,
Moor so keen,
No drink wine,
No taste swine.)
He then handed the wine to the old Moor, who drank it off, and
then, led by the boy, made for the door without saying a word.
"Hade mushe halal," (that is not lawful,) said I to him with a loud
voice.
"Cul shee halal," (everything is lawful,) said the old Moor,
turning his sightless and spectacled eyes in the direction from
which my voice reached him. "Of everything which God has given, it
is lawful for the children of God to partake."
"Who is that old man?" said I to Pascual Fava, after the blind and
the leader of the blind had departed. "Who is he!" said Pascual;
"who is he! He is a merchant now, and keeps a shop in the Siarrin,
but there was a time when no bloodier pirate sailed out of Algier.
That old blind wretch has cut more throats than he has hairs in his
beard. Before the French took the place he was the rais or captain
of a frigate, and many was the poor Sardinian vessel which fell
into his hands. After that affair he fled to Tangier, and it is
said that he brought with him a great part of the booty which he
had amassed in former times. Many other Algerines came hither
also, or to Tetuan, but he is the strangest guest of them all. He
keeps occasionally very extraordinary company for a Moor, and is
rather over intimate with the Jews. Well, that's no business of
mine; only let him look to himself. If the Moors should once
suspect him, it were all over with him. Moors and Jews, Jews and
Moors! Oh my poor sins, my poor sins, that brought me to live
amongst them! -
"'Ave Maris stella,
Dei Mater alma,
Atque semper virgo,
Felix coeli porta!'"
He was proceeding in this manner when I was startled by the sound
of a musket.
"That is the retreat," said Pascual Fava. "It is fired every night
in the soc at half-past eight, and it is the signal for suspending
all business, and shutting up. I am now going to close the doors,
and whosoever knocks, I shall not admit them till I know their
voice. Since the murder of the poor Genoese last year, we have all
been particularly cautious."
Thus had passed Friday, the sacred day of the Moslems, and the
first which I had spent in Tangier. I observed that the Moors
followed their occupations as if the day had nothing particular in
it. Between twelve and one, the hour of prayer in the mosque, the
gates of the town were closed, and no one permitted either to enter
or go out. There is a tradition, current amongst them, that on
this day, and at this hour, their eternal enemies, the Nazarenes,
will arrive to take possession of their country; on which account
they hold themselves prepared against a surprisal.
Footnote:
{0} "Om Frands Gonzales, og Rodrik Cid.
End siunges i Sierra Murene!"
Kronike Riim. By Severin Grundtvig. Copenhagen, 1829.
{1} Doing business, doing business - he has much business to do.
{2} The Gypsy word for Antonio.
{3} Devil.
{4} "Say nothing to him, my lad, he is a hog of an alguazil."
{5} El Serrador, a Carlist partisan, who about this period was
much talked of in Spain.
{6} At the last attack on Warsaw, when the loss of the Russians
amounted to upwards of twenty thousand men, the soldiery mounted
the breach, repeating in measured chant, one of their popular
songs: "Come, let us cut the cabbage," &c.
{7} Twelve ounces of bread, small pound, as given in the prison.
{8} Witch. Ger. Hexe.
{9} A compound of the modern Greek [Greek text], and the Sanskrit
kara, the literal meaning being Lord of the horse-shoe (i.e.
maker); it is one of the private cognominations of "The Smiths," an
English Gypsy clan.
