Page:Sixteen years of an artist's life in Morocco, Spain and the Canary Islands.djvu/42

Rh —let me not mince matters, but say the world at once, excessive fatness. The lady whom, being now enlightened, we looked upon as the very beau ideal of Moorish beauty, was perfectly ungainly in appearance, and of the most unwieldy proportions; but these were the qualities that made her the Cynosure of all eyes, the points of attraction which rendered her irresistible, and which excited tender feelings in the hearts of her admirers. The gentle lover's admiration, in Morocco, increases with the size of his mistress, and his devotion becomes unlimited along with her proportions. Benighted Europeans appear to have some anticipation of the truth when they occasionally speak of a young lady who is not quite Sylph-like in form as making a good armful. The perfect Moorish standard of female beauty is considered to be attained when a woman is a load for a camel. Our Hebrew Venus had certainly reached that standard, for her arms hung down with fat, and her fingers, which were loaded with rings, had swollen over them, so that if not quite a load for two camels, she was assuredly more than enough for one.

The Jews in Morocco exhibit all the traces of the melancholy to which they are reduced; and oppression has left its visible stamp on their countenances and in their character. Being ruled