He Must Have Counted Eleven Lustres, Which
Cast An Air Of Mature Dignity Over A Countenance Which Seemed To
Have Been Chiseled By Some Grecian Sculptor, And Yet His Hair Was
Black As The Plume Of The Norwegian Raven, And So Was The Moustache
Which Curled Above His Well-Formed Lip.
In the garb of Greece, and
in the camp before Troy, I should have taken him for Agamemnon.
"Is that man a general?" said I to a short queer-looking personage,
who sat by my side, intently studying a newspaper.
"That
gentleman," he whispered in a lisping accent, "is, sir, the
Lieutenant-Governor of Gibraltar."
On either side outside the door, squatting on the ground, or
leaning indolently against the walls, were some half dozen men of
very singular appearance. Their principal garment was a kind of
blue gown, something resembling the blouse worn by the peasants of
the north of France, but not so long; it was compressed around
their waists by a leathern girdle, and depended about half way down
their thighs. Their legs were bare, so that I had an opportunity
of observing the calves, which appeared unnaturally large. Upon
the head they wore small skull-caps of black wool. I asked the
most athletic of these men, a dark-visaged fellow of forty, who
they were. He answered, "hamalos." This word I knew to be Arabic,
in which tongue it signifies a porter; and, indeed, the next
moment, I saw a similar fellow staggering across the square under
an immense burden, almost sufficient to have broken the back of a
camel. On again addressing my swarthy friend, and enquiring whence
he came, he replied, that he was born at Mogadore, in Barbary, but
had passed the greatest part of his life at Gibraltar. He added,
that he was the "capitaz," or head man of the "hamalos" near the
door. I now addressed him in the Arabic of the East, though with
scarcely the hope of being understood, more especially as he had
been so long from his own country. He however answered very
pertinently, his lips quivering with eagerness, and his eyes
sparkling with joy, though it was easy to perceive that the Arabic,
or rather the Moorish, was not the language in which he was
accustomed either to think or speak. His companions all gathered
round and listened with avidity, occasionally exclaiming, when
anything was said which they approved of: "Wakhud rajil shereef
hada, min beled bel scharki." (A holy man this from the kingdoms
of the East.) At last I produced the shekel, which I invariably
carry about me as a pocket-piece, and asked the capitaz whether he
had ever seen that money before. He surveyed the censer and olive-
branch for a considerable time, and evidently knew not what to make
of it. At length he fell to inspecting the characters round about
it on both sides, and giving a cry, exclaimed to the other hamalos:
"Brothers, brothers, these are the letters of Solomon.
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