Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-02-06

homes from the market of Soc-de- Barra.
You may find any day hundreds more like
them as helpers at the market. One IS
chanting some wild song of the jungles,
and she is now and then encouraged by
shrill cries of "Jaleo!-Jaleo? from her
companions. They are indescribably ugly,
with short, puffy bodies, tremendous heads
and short, huge necks, lumpy cheeks and
square jaws, nostrils fattened back almost
in a line with the facial angle; and lips
like pair of ebonized conch shells. Their
haiks are always of the blue and white
checked variety, intensifying the luster and
depth of color of their coal black skins.
Some of them are veiled, giving them an
air of monumental coyishness and skittish-
ness. Besides the haik and veil little should
be said about their costume. Below the
haik are cascades and cataracts of garmentary
all-sorts. Two wear the cast-of trousers of
some consular attache. A pair of cavalry
boots ornament the feet and legs of third.
The rest are barefooted and their feet are
like huge claws They are slaves, and were
born in the jungles below Sahara
Architecture of Great Beauty.
All architectural beauty is found in carved
Moresque archways, among which are many
magnificent specimens; in bases and capi-
tails of spiral stone pillars supporting
arches, vaulting over which superstructures
often shut out the sky, and these are in the
pure Arab style of 1000 years ago; about
the facades and fonts of numberless fount-
aims set in cool alcoves, projecting unex-
pecsedly from blank walls, or built upright
from the center of tiny squares, the only
places in all this ancient city where sunlight
ever reaches the earth; and behind the
massive walls in interiors, whose structural
grace and exquisite ornamentation are an
endless feast of artistic delight.
The shops of Tangier are all merely tiny
inches in the walls. The Moorish merchant
enters his little black den through a trap
door; lowers the shutter, which falls often
in steps to the street, and sits in the center
Of his possessions, which are all within
reach, voiceless and grave the day long like
forsaken Punch in a pantomine. Every
manner of shop is Just like his In some
workmen are embroidering the white
burnous, utilizing their great toes to hold
tight the disengaged thread. In others
greasy fritters are fried in a solemn and
stately manner while one waits Some dis
play ostrich eggs and native ornaments.
Here and there is seller of herbs and veg
etables. Again white-robed and bearded
men are surrounded by crates of charcoal
and tiny bundles of fagots. In others
almost priceless Oriental draperies are
packed and punched around merchant who
smokes and dreams as if no thought of
traffic ever entered his head.
The Letter Writer'S Niche.
The ancient and venerable letter and scroll
writer has his niche, or chair at archway
side, and waits with that stole patience only
an Indian OF Moslem can command, to in
dite epistle or trace sacred passage from the
II eha1 rih for
devout ones amulet. Shoemakers squat
cross-legged, sewing and hammering upon
slippers and sandals only. Bread sellers
crouch against walls and doorways. Groups
of swarthy Khabyles with their copper
ewers are ever before the gurgling old foun-
tains. Yelled women wriggle and mince to
and from market, or khouba or mosque.
Stately Arabs appear and disappear, their
flowing robes shutting out the vistas of the
narrow streets. Cloth vendors higgle-
haggle at the cracks of massive doors barely
aiar. Funerals pass on the run-for the
dead Moslem arrives in paradise that much
more speedily. Girls with dough-covered
boards ready for the bakeries are as feet as
the funerals. The donkeys loaded with
street-garbsge force you against the walls.
Other donkeys with panniers packed with
fruits orange-blossoms and roses, fill the
shadowy ways with the affairs of sunny
valleys.
The same weird, wild scenes of semi-bar-
barrie life that were here thousand years ago
are here to-day, every day, all day, and will
remain. And if you wander these ghostly
ways at night, all is still, shadowful, silent.
You see the white, silent walls about you.
You know that white, silent forms whisk
past you. And away up there through in
finite space you see the white silent stars
looking down. EDGAR L. WAKEMAN.