Page:Sixteen years of an artist's life in Morocco, Spain and the Canary Islands.djvu/31

20 is over, the Moor resumes his usual occupation; he unlocks his box in the wall―for such is his shop―and jumps in among his merchandize, sits cross-legged in the midst of the articles in which he deals, offers them for sale, and endeavours to attract customers. His stock cannot be described, in honest truth, as very tempting in its nature. It probably consists of heaps of musty raisins, coarse sugar plentifully mingled with flies, stale leathery figs, snuff, and several other odds and ends, mixed up together without any attempt at regularity or order. There are probably also several large jars of rancid butter, the presence of which is announced by the odour with which it greets the approaching passenger, even before he has come within sight of the shop. But the article is popular, notwithstanding, or perhaps because of, its staleness, and bears many visible signs of the estimation in which it is held, and the demand which it has excited, in the numerous mould-like marks of the merchant's fingers intersecting it in all directions, and duly increasing as his patrons become more numerous.

It is an old saying, that travellers see strange things, and those that only open their eyes may witness not only many novelties,but also the novel uses to which familiar things may be applied. A carroty cat, for example, sits at the merchant's side, and