In another shop we found a second humbell, chiefly black and orange, the property of a taciturn individual in a snow-white selham (hooded cloak), a turban to match, with scarlet peak, a dark blue garment underneath the selham, and a complexion like cream and roses. He lay at full length on a pile of many carpets. We stopped in front of the shop. Neither rising, bowing, nor bustling about to show off his goods, the white figure lay still, looking dreamily through and beyond us. We were bores. In reply to a question of price, a long sum was murmured. At last we expressed a decided wish to inspect the humbell, and, slowly rising, he condescended to lift it from a shelf, his looks suggesting that he would prefer being left alone. Again we asked his lowest price. Twenty-one shillings. We offered sixteen. Without deigning to answer, he solemnly folded up the humbell and put it away, then folded one by one the goods which littered the floor, and stacked them above the humbell on the same shelf. Still standing in front of the shop, we repeated our offer of sixteen shillings. He shook his head decidedly, made a deprecating gesture, and prepared to sink again on his couch. Mr. Bewicke forbade us to offer more; we walked away. A voice said in Arabic, "It is yours," and the humbell was thrown after us; the sixteen shillings were received with a sigh as the shopkeeper resumed his couch.
Tetuan makes many artistic "towels," which form the ordinary dress of the countrywomen underneath their old enfolding yellowish-white woollen haiks; but for quite the majority a towel as skirt and a towel as cape are sufficient for all purposes. There is the rare addition of a pair of cotton drawers.
The strong substance and fast scarlet dyes make these towels no mean substitutes for curtains, except that, like native goods in general, they seldom quite match, and distract the soul which demands "pairs" in all and everything.
A Jew we visited in the Jews' Quarter had a fine carpet for sale, made farther south, something like a Persian, the ground whitish, with harmonious reds and greens. For a long time we sat and tried to bargain in his odd little den up a dilapidated staircase and nearly pitch dark: he wanted £5. The pattern was a little small. We came away without it. Some of the old kaftans (robes of coloured cloth or satin or silk brocade, embroidered with gold or silver, buttoned down the front and with wide sleeves) were well worth buying: none are made like them nowadays, for common material is used; unfortunately the best are often in tatters.
We visited the Slipper Market, and, sitting on the doorstep of one of the shops, gave directions for two pairs—blue velvet embroidered with gold, and milk-coloured leather embroidered with green. Size, price, and colour were duly discussed; rain came on, we sat on the doorsill sheltering, and the basha—Tetuan's governor—was criticised. The slipper-maker had not a good word for him. To begin with, it seems he has no money, is of no family, and aristocratic Tetuan refuses to "hob-nob" with him. He dislikes Tetuan after Fez, whence he was transferred, and where he made more money. The other day a neighbouring tribe sent him a present of so many dollars. At the same time they owed him certain taxes, in lieu of which he accepted the money, but pointed out that the present must follow in due course. None ever arrived, and the basha sent his brother-in-law and a soldier to the tribesmen to ask an explanation of its non-appearance. The brother-in-law was tactless, incensed the tribesmen, and provoked them to bastinado him, whereupon the soldier lost his head, and fired his gun off into the air. He was promptly disembowelled.
The brother-in-law returned to the basha, stiff, but alive; and the country people give it as their verdict that the basha is a rapacious man. They threaten that they will no longer bring their produce into Tetuan to market, but will hold their own markets at some place chosen by themselves out in the country, and Tetuan shall come out to buy. Such a proceeding would be most inconvenient; for Tetuan is dependent for all its supplies on the country people, who hold their markets on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays in the feddan, where they sit upon the ground packed in hundreds, their chickens, eggs, butter, and produce in general in their laps and at their feet. Their beef and mutton are but second-rate, and the shapeless lumps of lean, tough meat take double as long as an English joint to cook, and make but a poor show in the end, hacked by the unskilful butchers past all recognition. Goat and fish are to be had, sometimes partridges, hares, and rabbits, occasionally a haunch of wild boar. Fish came in on certain days when the wind was favourable: there was then a rush on the fish market, and almost a free fight over the great panniers full of shining silvery sardines, and over the bodies of the sellers seated on the ground. The successful carried off a handful each, and the cafés and fish shops were soon frying sardines for dear life, while the little streets were thick with the steam of native oil and butter. Some big fish, four and five feet long, came into market sometimes, and a small boy would be hired by a purchaser to carry one home across his shoulder, its great head hanging down behind, and underneath a pair of thin brown legs like little sticks hurrying along the street.
Bread in Morocco is "passing heavy," flavoured with aniseed and full of grit. Vegetables are to be had in abundance.
The slippers, which had been promised in three days, appeared in three weeks. Whenever we passed the shop we asked after them: always the same answer—Mānana (To-morrow). "No, there was no butter to be had to-day, but mānana." "No, the pillows were not finished yet, but mānana." "The boots left to be soled were not ready, but mānana." Tetuan lives upon mānana: it is the reincarnation of jam yesterday, and jam to-morrow, but never jam to-day.
Equally exasperating was the habit of every shopkeeper of locking up his shop and going off to pray or eat or chat. If a shop had to be revisited and purchases exchanged, the owner was invariably out, and the door fastened with lock and key. At 12.15 p.m. nobody could ever be found, but was presumably at the mosque. Again and again we visited the same shop: one day the owner was at a friend's shop, the next at home, and so on. We gave him up, to see his sleek cross-legged figure seated inside the little cupboard the very next time we passed.
