From this house we went on to our hostess' old home, where her father, the cowman, lived. The patio there was cold and bare, and seemed the general living-room; some wood was stacked in one corner; there was a well in another; there was an overpowering smell of "drains" everywhere; while in the third corner a poor, miserable little girl sat huddled up, with frightened eyes. Several families lived together in this small house, and no fewer than six women crowded round the girl to explain her symptoms to Miss Banks. It was only too apparent what was wrong, when she uncovered her neck. Syphilis, hereditary—a terrible evil, to be found all over Morocco, the result of Mohammedan customs and bad food. Considering that women are divorced and remarried over and over again, and that the conditions under which they live are so unhealthy, it is small wonder if disease in some form or other does not show itself. Examples are to be met with in almost any street—the features of the face obliterated, and so on.
The poor child, whom Miss Banks was treating, had been married. Now that this disease had broken out, her husband would probably divorce her. If she were cured, she might marry again. Her friends had brought her all the way from Shesawān to Tetuan to be cured, and a Jew doctor had offered to put her right for the sum of £4.
"But," said her friends, "suppose she dies? What shall we get for our money then?"
So they sent to the English tabiba, who cures for nothing.
Miss Banks left ointment and medicine. Cases can be cured if the patient will persevere long enough with the medicine; but many of them are too far gone when they first come.
An old man upstairs in the same house, but of a different family, claimed her attention next. Three weeks ago he was perfectly well. He went to a café one evening, drank a cup of coffee, came home, was seized with pain, and became completely paralyzed. It pointed to poison, but he had no enemies.
Mercury is very largely used as a poison, and is given in different forms. Little is thought of ending life by this means, unless there happen to be influential relations who object to their relatives being in this summary manner "put out of the way."
There is a girl now in Tetuan who keeps a shop. Her father and mother kept it before her, but she said that they were both so old, had lived so long, and had had their day, that she felt something must be done to secure her own turn, and that speedily. Therefore she gave them both some poison. There was a funeral. She took over the shop.
Another woman was anxious to poison her husband because he was about to take a second wife. She prepared him the dish with the poisoned pieces. Suddenly she saw her child run into the house and join his father at the meal. Careless of betraying herself, she rushed to her Benjamin with cries of alarm,—too late; he had eaten, and he succumbed that night. The husband died at the end of a year from the effects of the same poison. Some of the drugs which Moors use take even longer to destroy life, but it is only a matter of time. The woman was put in prison, but she came out after twelve months, and another man has taken her to wife.
Some missionary and poisoning experiences are amusing. People often came and asked for poison to administer to somebody who happened to annoy them.