Page:Sixteen years of an artist's life in Morocco, Spain and the Canary Islands.djvu/25

14 ribbons, &c., were certainly all little rags compared with the one great garment that covers the Moorish women, or the scanty cloth that served in her almost nude state.

A very grand colossal figure now greeted me in a few words of English, which did not appear to have any particular bearing upon the surrounding circumstances. His fair face, freckled and sunburnt, and his soft blue eyes, might have been supposed to indicate an individual of European origin, were it not for the turban that he wore. His ponderous body was enveloped in a gorgeous, many-coloured dress of scarlet, green, and gold, showing beautifully through a cream-coloured semi-transparent haikh, which was carefully arranged so as to display, rather than conceal, the splendid dress beneath. This magnificently-dressed Moor was Hadj Mohammed Balga, and the office which he held was that of Captain of the Sultan's port of Tangier.

But the crowd now began to thicken, and I was completely hemmed in by turbaned Moors, bearded Jews, clamorous dogs, patient donkeys, and stately camels. I was perfectly at a loss as to the means by which I should succeed in escaping from the importunate curiosity of the motley crowd by which I was surrounded. Fortunately, at this