Page:Sixteen years of an artist's life in Morocco, Spain and the Canary Islands.djvu/28

Rh friends and family; it matters not how or where engaged, at the solemn summons every face is instantaneously turned to the east, the head is bowed to the dust, and the incense of prayer is offered to the one God.

At the corner of one of the mosques, was a poor half-naked maniac, or "Santo", shrieking most dolefully for his wife, who, I was informed, had died some years previously of cholera. On seeing us approach, the poor creature ran away and hid himself from our sight, again giving utterance to his hideous howl. Often has my rest been disturbed by his insane raving, and I have started up in the dead of night, awakened by his melancholy wailing cry, "Yanassee! ah, Yanassee!"

I had already become acquainted with much that was novel and peculiar in the customs of Mohammedan countries, and that even before I had reached the house beneath whose hospitable roof I was to find rest after the fatigues of my long voyage. So different, indeed, is everything that surrounds the stranger from all the modes of life to which he has previously been accustomed in England, or in any part of Europe, even in those regions which are nearest to the coast of Barbary, that it only requires one to open his eyes and to be ordinarily observant, to acquire much interesting knowledge,

VOL. I.