Page:Sixteen years of an artist's life in Morocco, Spain and the Canary Islands.djvu/47

36 Animal beauty, however, is all that the Jewess of Barbary possesses. Physically, she is a beautiful creature, but she is nothing more. Her intellect is without cultivation; she is a stranger to refinement; no expression animates her otherwise fine countenance; and she is totally without any distinct character of her own. However beautiful and attractive she may be in appearance, one turns away without interest or emotion from a being who can hardly be said to have a soul, or whose better part, at least, in consequence of the circumstances under the influence of which she has been reared, has been lulled into something like an almost unending sleep.

Mohammedan countries are perhaps the only ones where a woman can be said to possess, in some respect at least, any advantages of liberty over men. The Christian woman is unrestrained in her movements, and can freely enter the house and harems, where she is known, when she pleases; and the Moorish woman, wrapped up in the ample folds of her garments, and so disguised as to baffle whatever direction she may choose, without incurring the slightest risk of being recognised. During the nine years which I resided in Tangier, I had many opportunities of visiting the Moorish women, and of