Page:Sixteen years of an artist's life in Morocco, Spain and the Canary Islands.djvu/33

22 yourself in an instant in another predicament, for a sudden roaring noise assails your ears, warning you to move on, and before you can step aside, you are nearly run down by two turbaned porters carrying a crushing load which is supported between them on a long pole.

My attention was next attracted to a procession which happened, fortunately, while I had an opportunity of seeing it, to be coming along the narrow street; and I heard the shrill, tremulous yelling with which the Hebrew women conduct a bride to the house of her betrothed. The latter appeared to be as rigid as a corpse, as, amid the clashing of cymbals and the shouts of her friends, she was borne along to her destination. In conformity with the requirements of her religion, her eyes were closed, and her face was so highly painted with white and scarlet as entirely to outrage the modesty of nature. So utterly inanimate and motionless did she remain during her progress through the crowd that she might have been readily taken for one of the Spanish painted wooden figures of Montañes. Otherwise, she was one mass of expensive glitter and display. Her eyes, too, although shut, appeared unnaturally large and distended, from the custom of staining them copiously with al cohol. Her hair was hidden by a magnificent