Forehead, and she
therefore hoped that I would not be offended at anything
extraordinary in his language or behaviour. She then left me, as
she said, to give orders for my breakfast; whereupon the Jewish
domestic, who had accompanied me from the consul, finding that I
was established in the house, departed.
I speedily sat down to breakfast in an apartment on the left side
of the little wustuddur, the fare was excellent; tea, fried fish,
eggs, and grapes, not forgetting the celebrated bread of Joanna
Correa. I was waited upon by a tall Jewish youth of about twenty
years, who informed me that his name was Haim Ben Atar, that he was
a native of Fez, from whence his parents brought him at a very
early age to Tangier, where he had passed the greater part of his
life principally in the service of Joanna Correa, waiting upon
those who, like myself, lodged in the house. I had completed my
meal, and was seated in the little court, when I heard in the
apartment opposite to that in which I had breakfasted several
sighs, which were succeeded by as many groans, and then came "Ave
Maria, gratia plena, ora pro me," and finally a croaking voice
chanted:-
"Gentem auferte perfidam
Credentium de finibus,
Ut Christo laudes debitas
Persolvamus alacriter."
"That is the old Genoese," whispered Haim Ben Atar, "praying to his
God, which he always does with particular devotion when he happens
to have gone to bed the preceding evening rather in liquor.
