I Almost Started At Sight Of The First; He Was A Huge Old
Barbarian With A White Uncombed Beard, Dirty Turban, Haik, And
Trousers, Naked Legs, And Immense Splay Feet, The Heels Of Which
Stood Out A Couple Of Inches At Least Behind His Rusty Black
Slippers.
"That is the captain of the port," said one of the Genoese; "pay
him respect." I accordingly doffed my hat and cried, "Sba alkheir
a sidi" (Good-morning, my lord).
"Are you Englishmans?" shouted
the old grisly giant. "Englishmans, my lord," I replied, and,
advancing, presented him my hand, which he nearly wrung off with
his tremendous gripe. The other Moor now addressed me in a jargon
composed of English, Spanish, and Arabic. A queer-looking
personage was he also, but very different in most respects from his
companion, being shorter by a head at least, and less complete by
one eye, for the left orb of vision was closed, leaving him, as the
Spaniards style it, tuerto; he, however, far outshone the other in
cleanliness of turban, haik, and trousers. From what he jabbered
to me, I collected that he was the English consul's mahasni or
soldier; that the consul, being aware of my arrival, had dispatched
him to conduct me to his house. He then motioned me to follow him,
which I did, the old port captain attending us to the gate, when he
turned aside into a building, which I judged to be a kind of
custom-house from the bales and boxes of every description piled up
before it. We passed the gate and proceeded up a steep and winding
ascent; on our left was a battery full of guns, pointing to the
sea, and on our right a massive wall, seemingly in part cut out of
the hill; a little higher up we arrived at an opening where stood
the mosque which I have already mentioned. As I gazed upon the
tower I said to myself, "Surely we have here a younger sister of
the Giralda of Seville."
I know not whether the resemblance between the two edifices has
been observed by any other individual; and perhaps there are those
who would assert that no resemblance exists, especially if, in
forming an opinion, they were much swayed by size and colour: the
hue of the Giralda is red, or rather vermilion, whilst that which
predominates in the Djmah of Tangier is green, the bricks of which
it is built being of that colour; though between them, at certain
intervals, are placed others of a light red tinge, so that the
tower is beautifully variegated. With respect to size, standing
beside the giant witch of Seville, the Tangerine Djmah would show
like a ten-year sapling in the vicinity of the cedar of Lebanon,
whose trunk the tempests of five hundred years have worn. And yet
I will assert that the towers in other respects are one and the
same, and that the same mind and the same design are manifested in
both; the same shape do they exhibit, and the same marks have they
on their walls, even those mysterious arches graven on the
superficies of the bricks, emblematic of I know not what.
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