Page:The Moslem World Vol XI.djvu/48

28 are very good French schools for Jewish girls in the Mellah or Jewish quarter, and it is quite a pleasure to see the pretty tidy little things in their black and white checked overalls and their hair neatly tied with a scarlet band of ribbon. But Kinza at the same age is already veiled and goes about the streets with a white muslin ^^litam'* drawn tightly over her face, crossed at the- back of her head and drawn again over her forehead so leaving only her eyes to be seen. However, at three, when she begins to go daily to "D«r El Maalama^^ she is too small to bear the veil and also too small to use her needle aright, so she learns to sit and watch the older children sew or embroider, and after a little she is promoted and allowed to thread their needles for them; then she can be trusted with a needle and silk and is put to the task of "filling in," that is crossing the simple stitches which the mistress or bigger girls have put in to trace out the pattern to be worked. And woe to Kinza if she makes a mistake, for one false stitch puts the whole pattern wrong, and naturally the Maalama is very angry.

Kinza attends Dar El Maalama till she is about twelve or thirteen, then she is considered too old to go out daily and is provided with an embroidery frame at home and begins to teach other little ones who come to her, as she used to go to Dar El Maalama. She now either takes in work to do for others, or sets to embroider her own trousseau, if her father is well enough off to buy the silks and muslin which she needs, before he has received the money which the bridegroom's people will pay him on her engagement, and which all will be returned in bedding and embroidery when she is married. Kinza's wedding things are now being prepared, even though it may be she is not yet engaged, for she is almost sure to be married off, as her parents arrange all about it, and it is not her business. As one father here answered, when he was asked what his daughter said about a marriage he was arranging for her—"She I" he said, "she doesn't say anything; it's not her business."

Fez, Morocco.