GOBLIN MARKET, TANGIER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11046, 25 February 1898, Page 6

GOBLIN MARKET, TANGIER.

It is the Client's wedding day. Market day and a marriage; tbatjloes not mean be is a bachelor—not much. He is greatly married indeed, and this is merely his periodical wedding day. . A Cherif is a sort of ecclesiastical dignitary in the Mohammedan "church," and this particular digaitary enjoys life much, in Mohammedan wise. Wnen the Ctierif gels married the city is en fete. There is " powder play " —that odd play, mere whirling and shooting off guns, thac the Moors so love; nobody is beheaded, or sent •to prison, or • damaged in eyea or limb. The women may go out of doors if they have been very good—a few of them— and they file down to trie.shore through the odorous streets on camels, sitting cross-lf gged and balanciug with care; and very shapeless. You may see them visiting the baths at times in tbe same well-gtfarded way. Are they tired ?—nobody helps them. Are they athirst?—they must buy a cup of water as yonder soldier is doing (as .Lazarus thought Abraham in Paradise would have to do); but the free, common people may go to the old picturesque, well and draw water, for thercselve?. Kst-lat-too! The weird thramming and siai»icg continue within thoae blind, white walls pierced by but ona grim doorway, which boasls no cireing, no cornice, no puint, but the print of the sacred hand ia Mohammed's sacred colour—green. What is - the connection between music and massacre ? for sill Tangerine music-makers are butchers in the town. They sit in a>row and chant to each other a.sort of cheerful dirge, with rhythmic nods ; to tbe quaint old tuee and the graceful but toneless tomtoms and banjo things which produce it. Momently the--crowd thicken?. There is the.wildest eagerness to get nearer to the bridegroom's door and catch the glimpse that is given to a few, "in an hour that ye think not," for he will come forth once to-day. But no response follows, the shouting and, the pushing. . The doorway is barred. Not a head appears _at the tiny orifices which air the upper rooms in that sepulchral castle nor oh : xhe iong.flat roof. Down the street come 3 the crowning festivity—what the Moors .most love nest to war itsalf—a flashing band of Bevbsrs from the bills, with their long matchlocks inlaid with Rilver, their shaven black'pates, we'l scarted some" of them,-bound round by their re d or purple gun cases or a few brown threads of camel-hair cord; aid they^pnah j past the palace shofewards, whilst ; the excitement and din are enough to' wake the dead. , ' , . ~'.',:,. ~' ... It does wake the dead., j From the dead palace the dead are:creapi,ug*ent! by one, till the whole roof .line (as titae slips by) is crowded with ; muffled, mysterious white figures, whose heads—what heads ? are th6y black or white, fleshless skulls of those Circassian houris that: wa read-of as stolen for the harem? We cannot tell, for all alike, old and young, are shroucbd with the' ghostly sqaality of the haik, withdus which no decent woman may be seeii' abroad. Not a glimpse of a black eye, not tbe movement of a hand, not a touch of colour distinguishes from one another- these mute whitebundles, leaning, corpse-like against the tt,ll parapet. There is something inexpressibly mournful in their silesce aad stillness and in their constantly ■ increasing numbers. Wrapt and stiflsll away from all human interests, and from all the variety that makes life bearable, these are' -truly ghosts of women, Tor ill is verily death in lite. Behind ttis blanket are .there hearts that beat like our own 1 are there laughter and je3tiDg? ara there heartache and rears ? Every one of these has been a happy bride, has had her little day, and now represents nothing to the fat old Cherif but a number, and is noticed only as she departs from her duties, more or less menial, in his household. " How much better," said the Shab of Persia when he was over here recently, " to live for 50 years with i one wife than for one year with 50 wives ! " j and he ought to know. Oa the grass bet wean hills and beach the Berbers have cleared a place somehow; and the strange barbaric daoce ia in' full force , behind them the- lovely bay of Tangier, blue as a turquoise in the luminous afternoon, with its roaches of snowy sand. Four men here faca four men th^re, with their matchlocks brandished, running to and fro, much as in the second figure of the old-fashioned quadrille. They fling themselves on'their kness and 'shopt, sthey spring up and shoot, they twirl round 'and ronnd shooting in unison, uttering sharp cries like animals at the golden flash of the powder. This is all, and it continues for hours without the least fatigue, till either the powder gives out .or their legs give, way, and then they stop. ' That is the celebrated " powder-play." Bat what is this small square box closely covered with printed cotton handkerchiefs, borne on a much-enduring mule, and on its top a cone of silk and trinkets ? Behold !it is Madanifi Fifty or Five Hundred, or what not—the Bride; herself no doubt enjoying the caretuonies given in her. honour, though her attitude must be, to say the least, contracted, like her vision—for just as we cannot see her, I doubt if she sees much I—but she has the satisfaction of knowing that her poor little box in the point of the entire procession. The proudest day—the one proud day—in the Moorish woman's life is spent in that square box. She is pitched into it from the shoulders of her oldest kinsman ; she is carried to her husband's house in it; she has her' dowry piled on top of it; the human being is a mere item ia the goods yielded to the " lord and master." She cannot see, she cannot sit upright; crouched in this box the young beauty spends five or sis suffocating hours in the eastern sun, guarded by steaming slaves and eunuchs, and hearkening to the crashing din which makes her a wife and perhaps a mother, for these domestic ceremonies are " the wedding." Psrhapj she is a child, for many a Moorish girl is a mother at 13; perhaps she is five and twenty, and married because she is a good cook or needlewoman. Har qualities little matter to the outer world —^whether shouting crowds o£ stalwart horsemen, or the foreigu visitors, or anyone beyond the harem in which she is to ba a new element of discord or of envy. She is sold : Goblin market at day-dawn. the sale of a ghost at noon-day.—Mrs Haweis, in Travel.