Page:Sixteen years of an artist's life in Morocco, Spain and the Canary Islands.djvu/45

34 dirty boy who can speak French, Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew, and frequently English, and who would be regarded as a most wonderful phenomenon in England. My own native servant could express herself in any of these languages, while my English maid could be said to have succeeded in mastering her own.

The Barbary Jews are much more rigid in the observance of their religious obligations than their brethren in the more civilised parts of the world are; and what with the exactions of their Mohammedan rulers, and their own voluntary sacrifices on behalf of their faith, they lead but a sorry life, and the sad expression of the countenances of the poor children of Israel impresses this fact very strongly upon the stranger.

The Jews in Barbary are the descendants of those who, three hundred years ago, were banished from Spain and found a refuge on these shores. As a race, the men are generally abject and mean in appearance, but by no means destitute of intellect; but the Jewesses, especially when young, are most classically beautiful. Their features are almost invariably finely chiselled, and their black eyes, which are not piercing as in Spain, but pearly and melting, are full of repose. The first impression perhaps, on observing them, is that the pupils are